Stay curious and be prepared to shift, advises Pinch of Yum co-founder Bjork Ostrom
The thinking behind the enormous success of this food blog, which has almost 4 million views per month.
Bjork Ostrom is a humble guy, intent on getting each of us to reach our potential. He seems to have found his. He and his wife Lindsay co-founded the Pinch of Yum food blog in 2010. It now boasts almost 4 million unique views per month.
As founder of Food Blogger Pro since 2013, he is part of a team that shows food bloggers how to start and grow food blogs, with easy-to-understand tutorials. Currently it has 1500 members.
Bjork has also developed WP Tasty and Nutrifox, two popular plug-ins for food blogs, and started other companies, all under the rubric of TinyBit, the parent company.
One of his mantras is “Helping people and companies to get a tiny bit better,” hence the name TinyBit. He’s good at opening doors and seeing opportunities. These days he advises a handful of Internet companies, including Slickstream and Another Mind.
Bjork is all about discovering what he’s uniquely skilled at and interested in doing, and advises the rest of us to figure that out too. “Success depends on how long you’re able to do the work and not burn out,” he told me in this interview. He looks for “the things that give us the most energy when we do them.” Most of all, he wants to “show up and do good work.”
Isn’t that what we all want? For Bjork, “doing good work” has led to tremendous success, financial and otherwise.
Here are Bjork’s thoughts about food blogging and the nature of work:
Q. How are food bloggers doing these days? I bet some people think food blogging is so 10 years ago.
A. Like anything, it’s a matter of skill expertise and the market. Even if all the market conditions are in your favor, sub-par content won’t work, nor will good content that there’s no desire for. Food bloggers need the sweet spot of being skilled writers, photographers, and videographers. These are people who have deep skill and expertise.
The macro market for food blogging focuses on video. The thing food bloggers need to be really good at is short-form video. For the micro market, they need to deliver a conversation that people are interested in: Real food. Special diets. Eating with your family. Meal prep. Some are trends or fads or shifts.
The best food bloggers can align their skills. It’s not as easy to get traction now as it was 10 years ago, but if you have a good understanding of the need, you can still have a lot of success.