Client Spotlight | CookIt Media
Meet the people building businesses with Lawyerly: their industries, their decisions, their successes and the valuable insights they’ve gained along the way.
Laurie Buckle, CEO + Founder | CookIt Media
Laurie Buckle spent more than three decades shaping food media: at Bon Appétit, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Cooking, and The Kitchn, before founding CookIt Media in 2015. What started as a consulting business helping food bloggers find their footing evolved into a full talent agency, and eventually landed CookIt on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America.
In this conversation, Laurie talks about why she sees her two careers as one continuous story, what creators consistently get wrong in brand deals, what scaling actually taught her about leadership, and where CookIt is heading next with The CookIt Collective.
Laurie Buckle, CEO + Founder | CookIt Media
Laurie, you spent more than three decades in food media: Bon Appétit, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Cooking, The Kitchn, before founding CookIt Media in 2015. For anyone who doesn't know your story, how did one career become the other?
Laurie: People often see my work in publishing and what I do at CookIt as two completely different careers, but I don’t. The platforms have changed but the work has always been the same.
For me, it’s about content. Good content tells a story, a story that informs, inspires or entertains. Whether I was editing a magazine, working on cookbooks, teaching food writing or consulting with creators, my focus has always been on helping people connect with an audience through meaningful storytelling. I don’t feel like I changed careers, more like I followed storytelling to its next chapter.
CookIt started as a consulting business helping food bloggers become proper businesses, then shifted into talent management when creators started coming back asking how to talk to brands and review contracts. What did that pivot actually look like and what did you have to build from scratch?
Laurie: It wasn’t really a pivot, more of an opportunity to support the bloggers I’d worked with in brand consulting. As they began to incorporate the work we did during the consulting process, their content improved and their audiences grew. Brands were reaching out to them and they really didn’t know how to respond. They were in the process of building their brand, growing their audience, and learning what their audience needed from them. But they weren’t yet a business.
That’s when they began asking for help with setting rates, reading contracts, negotiating deals. We had to build everything from scratch: contracts, pricing models, internal systems and relationships with brands.
Coming from publishing, with my editorial team in one pocket and my sales team in the other, this was a familiar place for me and we became an agency that worked to take the work off the blogger’s plate so that they could be the content creators they wanted to be. That hasn’t changed in 11 years.
Food creators working with brands like Walmart, Target, and Nestlé are dealing with some heavy commercial agreements that contain complex topics like usage rights, exclusivity, content ownership, and more. What have you learned about what creators tend to get wrong when they approach those deals and how has your role evolved to protect them?
Laurie: I think creators sometimes focus on the wrong part of the process. If the focus is just the fee, that means they may not have considered whether the brand aligns with their values. I encourage them to focus more on their audience and how the partnership benefits them.
You’re right, the agreements are complex and are getting more complex as the industry evolves. Over the years, we’ve turned to Lawyerly and especially Elliot for education and solutions. As a team we often joke about how we’ve all graduated from law school, now that we know so much!
“I think creators sometimes focus on the wrong part of the process. If the focus is just the fee, that means they may not have considered whether the brand aligns with their values. I encourage them to focus more on their audience and how the partnership benefits them.”
CookIt made the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies list. What did scaling the business actually require that you hadn't anticipated when you started?
Laurie: When I started CookIt, I thought scaling meant growing revenue. What I’ve learned is that scaling is more about leadership. At some point, you have to stop making every decision yourself. You have to build systems, develop leaders and create a company that can grow and thrive without depending on the founder to solve every problem.
That’s probably the biggest lesson for me. Growing the business wasn’t the hardest part. Learning to let other people lead was.
What do most brands still get wrong about working with food creators and what do most creators still get wrong about working with brands?
Laurie: I think brands sometimes approach creators like they’re buying media instead of building relationships. The best partnerships happen when brands invest in creators over time, and trust them to connect authentically with their audiences.
On the creator side, I think many still underestimate the value of the brand they've already built. They can feel like they don’t really know their audience or don’t really see what growth looks like. That’s where I see myself as a consultant. I’m helping creators think strategically about what’s next: building the confidence, knowledge and roadmap to help them achieve their goals. I firmly believe that the creators who will thrive over the next decade are those who use their platforms to build something bigger, whether it’s a cookbook, a product line, a website or another business altogether.
What's next for CookIt Media?
Laurie: For the past 11 years, we’ve helped creators build successful businesses through brand partnerships. But the questions creators are asking now are different. They are asking how to diversify their revenue, build businesses beyond social media, write books, launch products and create long-term value.
That’s where we’re headed next. We’re expanding our mission through The CookIt Collective, which is focused on helping creators grow their brands, achieve their goals, and diversify their revenue. Brand partnerships will always be an important part of what we do, but they’re no longer the only path to building a successful creator business.
I believe a creator’s brand is their greatest asset. Our job is to help them grow that brand, achieve their goals and build a business that lasts.
