We were lucky to catch up with Ron Epstein recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ron, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I had regular jobs. In fact, I spent the first 25 years of my career working for other companies. Most were good experiences and I’d like to think that I helped them grow and brought ideas to the table. I certainly learned a lot from each stop along the way. But somewhere on this journey I got the itch to do something on my own. I liked evaluating ideas and making decisions, and felt I had a good understanding of people and publishing that, if the opportunity came along, I’d be ready.

Sure enough, the opportunity came along in late 2012 and I jumped — with my wife as my co-owner — into running our own business. We bought L.A. Parent and all of its assets.

Twelve years later, I still loving getting up and going to work every day. Each day is a challenge in a different way. Sometimes its product development, sometimes its connecting with prospects, clients or our audience, and sometimes it’s stuff with employees. But I love it. There are two things I’ve been passionate about in my life: being a parent and a husband, and publishing. My job marries those passions.

Running your own business isn’t for everyone. You need to be innovative, a problem solver, a good communicator and patient. You also have to tolerate slow times of the year in terms of revenue, and that’s not easy. But at the end of the day, this is where I want to be. I love the niche we fill in our community, the products we have for fellow moms and dads, and we have a great team that brings their best every day and helps us grow.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I fell in love with publishing/media as a kid here in LA. I loved watching sports — baseball mostly — and then reading details of the game that I didn’t see in the newspaper the next day. (I’m dating myself, I know.) The idea that writers could influence what people learned — be it news, local info, weather, sports or anything else — intrigued me and I knew early on that I wanted to be part of it. And as I progressed through school, I followed that sense. I was editor of my high school newspaper, and then in college. From there, I worked for the L.A. Daily News, the City of Pasadena, Affinity Group Inc. and SAGE Publications, and along the way learned the business of publishing: How each channel made money, how to negotiate contracts, how to manage employees and build teams, and what criteria to use to launch new products. I was lucky to have a number of great mentors in this industry during these years who took the time to show me how each facet of the business worked, and how each one was important. It was the innovation and the occasional risk taking that I grew to love. I also got involved in the media industry. I attended, and then became a speaker at, publishing events hosting by organizations like the Western Publishing Association, and later the Parenting Media Association. At every turn, I learned more and met more brilliant people.

All of this led me to L.A. Parent, which felt like a good match. It was print-centric, but I knew digital and I knew events, so I saw the brand as under-leveraged. We quickly invested in digital, launched new products and then added an events arm. My goal was to make sure parents in LA found us. Whether they read the magazine or our newsletters, visited LAParent.com, followed us through our socials or attended our events, I didn’t care. I just wanted to connect with them.

Our team is parents, all of us here in Los Angeles, so we walk the walk and talk the talk. We know what it’s like to survive chicken pox, lice and the flu, to survive temper tantrums and help our children become good students and conscientious adults. It’s not easy, and all of us have different obstacles to overcome, so together we share that wisdom/experience with the generations of moms and dads who follow us.

We hire people who love being parents. That’s first and foremost. And if they can connect with others in our community, it’s almost always a good match. My role is setting the direction of the company, launching new products and making sure we’re profitable.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

2020 was the Year of Pivot for most business owners — not by choice. In our case, Covid forced the closure of most of our clients (schools and summer camps) and all of our distribution points (libraries, enrichment centers, schools and pediatric offices), so we had to come up with a new business model — and fast. We wound up producing a daily newsletter to help parents survive during this whacky time when businesses and schools were closed and everyone was at home together. It was unchartered waters for us all, but the L.A. Parent team jumped in with both feet. Every day we were writing stories, talking to experts about how to manage all the togetherness, and coming up with a roadmap so our children would continue learning. We kept this pace up for about 30 days and were able to stay connected to our community. Everything we had was shared through the newsletter, our socials and our website. Those had always been key platforms for us, but they complemented our print magazine. Now we had no print, nor the revenue it brought in. It wasn’t easy, but we survived. And as life began returning to normal in 2021 and 2022, we resumed the print magazines and kept those connections, but digital is now the driving force behind our business. Our print magazine is great, but more and more parents know us because they follow us on Instagram. What did I learn from this? Two things: Change that is forced on you is not always bad, and if you build a good team, you’ll always be OK.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met my business partner in 1989. We didn’t start out as business partners, but after a mutual friend introduced us I realized how special Elena was. We were the same major in college (Journalism) and remarkably saw life through a similar lens. After getting up the courage to ask her out, we began a partnership that led to us getting married in 1992, becoming parents in 1995 and 1998, and becoming business partners in 2012. We had our own careers up until then, but always in the publishing/media industry, and we had always talked about owning something. When the opportunity to purchase L.A. Parent was in front of us, we jumped at it. It took a few conversations to make sure we could be in business together and still have our relationship, but I wouldn’t go into business with anyone else. Elena has a vision and creativity that I don’t, and our business responsibilities are spilt right down the line. I still turn to her for brainstorming, and she’ll do the same with me. We disagree sometimes, but we figure it out. Twelve years into this, we can still be business partners during the day and solve problems, and have a relaxing dinner (and watch a movie at home) at night. There’s not a day that goes by when I do realize how lucky I am to have found my life and business partner early in life, that we continue to click.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.laparent.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laparentmag/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LAParent
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-epstein-ba78a17/
• Twitter: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Flaparentmag

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