Behind the Scenes With Bossip.com CEO
Marve Frazier was actually a biology major in college.
— -- Marve Frazier is the chief creative officer of Moguldom Media Group (which owns HipHopWired.com and Madamenoire.com) and the CEO of Bossip.com, a website she describes as “black gossip” that's dedicated to celebrity, politics and news.
Frazier never considered a career in celebrity news, let alone journalism; she actually studied biology at Clark Atlanta University. But a devastating car accident that broke her neck changed everything.
“I kind of used to be not open,” Frazier tells Rebecca Jarvis, ABC’s chief business, technology and economics correspondent. “When this opportunity [at Bossip] came up…it was this sense of ‘Hey, I have no idea about the internet, I have no idea about celebrities. This is kind of crazy, but – yeah, sure! I’ll try it out.’”
Frazier was only the second employee to be hired at Bossip.com in 2006.
Under her leadership, Bossip.com traffic has jumped from 20 million page views a month to 150 million page views a month and it's now a globally-recognized brand.
So what’s it like to run some of the top entertainment news sites?
1. It can get scary: “I’ve had several people, not necessarily give me death threats, but ... it’s scary. I actually had someone call me and [say] 'Hey, what would you do if I followed you around all day, and I had a camera, and I took pictures of you and I took pictures of you and your family?'" Frazier said.
2. Privacy Concerns: Unlike say, Perez Hilton, who has built his celeb gossip site around his own name, Frazier chooses to lay low with her public profile. “Early on, it was like, 'You need to get this big social media presence, you need to do this, you need to do that' and I decided against it. I don’t want to be the whole face of the brand. I’m not the brand," she explained.
3. No experience, no problem: When Frazier started with Bossip.com, she didn’t know the first thing about running a website or media company. “When I started doing this, I had no idea – I was on the computer probably a good 20 hours a day just figuring out stuff...that’s really a lesson, I think – you just kind of have to go for it...if it’s something you feel like you can really do, you can do it," she said.
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