The $11 trillion international journey trade is booming however the best way it’s marketed hasn’t saved up. For many years, guidebooks and magazines have dominated the area, providing curated experiences via a slender, outdated lens. For a brand new era of vacationers—particularly millennials and Gen Z—these voices now not resonate. At the least that’s in response to LA-based producer, investor, and entrepreneur Jonathan Skogmo, who’s greatest generally known as the Founding father of Jukin Media, the LA-based on-line video startup that Skogmo constructed up after which bought for a reported nine-figure sum to the mum or dad firm of Reader’s Digest.
Following the profitable exit, Skogmo started work on a brand new firm that he says addresses a large downside for the trade: lack of recent, authoritative voices to encourage and educate vacationers.
“The identical journey guidebooks, publishers, and journey magazines that dominated earlier than I used to be born are nonetheless the dominant voices and so they’re not participating millennial and gen-Z vacationers,” mentioned Skogmo.
This wouldn’t be the primary time Skogmo sought to disrupt a phase of the media panorama. His preliminary foray into the digital realm started with a simple but revolutionary idea which included curating, licensing, and monetizing user-generated viral movies. Enter Junkin Media. Jon began Junkin Media in 2010 at a time when the web was awash with uncredited content material with a mission to champion for rights holders, offering a vital framework for mental property safety in digital media and on-line.
The issue he solved was easy however highly effective: folks have been sharing participating movies, however had no approach to defend or revenue from them. Skogmo constructed the infrastructure to alter that with a rights-clearing and monetization machine that not solely empowered creators however remodeled how the trade considered digital content material.
“Jukin was forward of its time and we noticed worth in person generated content material earlier than the remainder of the trade caught on,” mentioned Skogmo. “Again then, viral movies have been dismissed as noise, however we believed they have been the rawest, most genuine type of storytelling. I look again on these years with lots of satisfaction. We constructed one thing that not solely created a brand new market but in addition helped on a regular basis folks flip their moments into significant media. That mission nonetheless evokes every part I do in the present day.”
Now, Skogmo is channeling his ardour for genuine storytelling into a brand new enterprise that brings his profession full circle in some ways. Alongside his brother Mike Skogmo and longtime collaborator Anton Reut, each former C-level executives at Jukin Media, he co-founded LOST iN, a journey media firm that captures the soul of cities via the eyes of locals, artists, and cultural tastemakers. Recognized for its superbly designed metropolis guides, LOST iN curates under-the-radar experiences that talk to the subsequent era of vacationers, fairly than vacationers, and takes on a hybrid mannequin to mix print editorial curation with the immediacy of social-first storytelling.
“As we seemed on the subsequent chapter of our profession post-Jukin, we wished to develop an organization that was as new and thrilling as our earlier enterprise,” mentioned Skogmo. “LOST iN is the end result of our shared ardour and experience of disrupting industries and constructing group via social-first video content material. And the launch acquisition of main international media firm Misplaced iN permits us the power to construct on a model throughout content material, commerce, and group worldwide.”
Drawing from his deep expertise in digital media, Skogmo is now targeted on increasing LOST iN’s attain throughout social platforms and into real-life experiences, with reside occasions that deliver its rising group collectively offline.
In the present day, Skogmo stays a distinguished investor within the digital media and creator financial system, a testomony to his continued perception within the energy of impartial creators and the evolving media panorama. He’s additionally diversified his entrepreneurial pursuits, proudly owning and investing in a number of widespread eating places throughout the town, additional embedding himself within the vibrant material of the Los Angeles enterprise scene. Past licensing, Skogmo’s artistic drive additionally led to the manufacturing of quite a few tv and digital reveals, additional cementing his affect throughout numerous media platforms.
“Whether or not it was giving viral video creators a voice with Jukin or now spotlighting native tastemakers via LOST iN, my ardour has all the time been about championing the individuals who make tradition occur,” mentioned Skogmo. “With LOST iN, we’re celebrating the artists, entrepreneurs, and creators who give every metropolis its soul and constructing a platform that displays the identical entrepreneurial spirit that fueled my first enterprise. It’s a full-circle second, however with even larger ambitions.”
From viral movies to curated metropolis guides, his profession has been outlined by a singular imaginative and prescient: empowering creators, recognizing what’s subsequent, and turning rising tendencies into lasting impression. As Misplaced iN units out to redefine how we expertise journey, Skogmo as soon as once more proves he’s not simply forward of the curve – he’s serving to form it.
