Meet Lauren Kleinman | Founder of Dreamday and Co-founder of The Quality Edit

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lauren Kleinman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauren, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
What was your thought process behind starting your own business? – Since my days at Ritual where I was Founding Team & VP of Marketing, I’ve always been interested in storytelling, product testing, and how I can impact the bottom line for the companies I work with through content marketing and bespoke performance solutions. The intersection of content, conversion and curation led me to found Dreamday and co-found The Quality Edit.
– The inspiration for founding Dreamday organically emerged from managing affiliate and PR agencies my entire career and becoming deeply familiar with how both models could be improved upon. We coined the term “performance PR” to not only achieve great PR results for brands, but to help them understand the impact of that PR, and further forge and deepen relationships with publishing partners. Dreamday sits at the intersection of Commerce & Consumer PR and Affiliate Marketing focusing on Top-tier Publishers.
– The inspiration for starting The Quality Edit came together with my co-founder, Lee Joselowitz, who worked together closely at Ritual, and were both avid consumers and testers of the latest and greatest DTC brands. We couldn’t find a site that we trusted for long-form reviews to help us vet the brands we wanted to try. We learned from our time together at Ritual, our team, brands, and readers, and inadvertently founded a media company unlike any other.

What’s one thing about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
– Relationships and your reputation are everything. PR–when done right–is incredibly rewarding but also incredibly taxing as you are only as good as the last hit(s) you delivered.

Risk taking: how do you think about risk, what role has taking risks played in your life/career?
– I tend to be a naturally fearful person–it takes a real push to get me to make drastic changes. As I’ve grown wiser and looked back in retrospect, every time I took a risk, whether it led to the outcome I expected or not, it was always for the better, and the growth was always transformational. I can’t imagine if I hadn’t taken the then-scary risk of leaving my first job at Scopely and joining Ritual, and then leaving Ritual to found & co-found my own companies. Now, sometimes I find myself running towards risk or obstacle, because I now know running towards things you are fearful is where most of your greatest growth comes from.

Other than deciding to work for yourself, what was the single most important decision you made that contributed to your success?
– We believe in quality over quantity at both businesses, and apply that principle to everything we do. We only take on clients we can’t say no to at Dreamday. At The Quality Edit, we focus on doing less, better.

What is the most important factor behind your success / the success of your brand?
– I care deeply about my work and am obsessed with everything I do. I care (maybe sometimes too much!) about my reputation, and if it has my name on it, it has to be up to my standard of work. I expect the same from our team; I look for teammates who want to go to sleep every night being proud of their work and always looking for the next challenge and growth opportunity.

What’s the most difficult decision you’ve ever had to make?
– Firing a client or teammate is probably always hardest. A teammate even more so. But if a relationship is strenuous or someone is consistently not performing and giving their work their all, they become toxic to the company and will drag the entire team down. As hard as it can be, I’m a big believer in hiring slow but firing fast.

Work life balance: how has your balance changed over time? How do you think about the balance?
– I left Ritual thinking my work/life balance would be better founding my own company, which was my first interpretation and inspiration behind the name “Dreamday”–I thought I’d have a perfect balance of spending time with my kids, taking on a few clients, taking care of my mental and physical health, etc., and of course found the opposite. Working for yourself and running your own business is much harder than being an employee in my opinion. I burnt out after the first two years of running Dreamday, and did hard work to get back in the saddle, hire for additional support, and rebalance my priorities. I don’t think it’s possible to be perfectly balanced every day; every day I make a sacrifice, whether that’s my kids, relationship, self-care, or work that needs to get done. Accepting that I can’t be everything to everyone all of the time and doing my best to say “no” to anything that is a distraction has really helped. I’ve also realized I have an inherent tendency to apply urgency to everything that needs to get done, but that is not the reality of what is expected of me–something I’m currently working on!

Do you have a favorite quote or affirmation? What does it mean to you / what do you like about it?
– “I’m ok. Everything is ok.” It’s very simple, but powerful. As Ryan Holliday says, “intensity is important but it’s also a liability: I look back at stuff I was so worked up about then and now think, “WHAT!?” If I had to go back and give my younger self one word of advice, it would be “relax”. Practice the stoic art of acceptance. Let things go. Be chill.”

Why did you pursue an artistic or creative career?
– As a child I always wanted to be an artist and actually was an oil painter. I find that both businesses allow me to be creative and use all parts of my brain in a way that painting alone did not.

What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to remember about you?
– That I was bold and wasn’t afraid to forge new paths, make mistakes, and grow. That, no matter what, I always stuck to my principles and integrity, and put my relationships before any other material success. In business, that I treated everyone with kindness and respect, above all.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

Public Relations is any type of earned media (rather than paid/advertising). In the modern PR landscape, the most effective programs have editorial and affiliate PR working in tandem to execute a thorough strategy that supports the competitive and ever-changing media landscape. Affiliate PR, or as I like to call it Performance PR, is any commerce or consumer PR that utilizes affiliate links wherein the publications are making a percentage of the sale anytime they sell a product. Editorial PR, also known as earned PR, is when publications do not utilize affiliate links to mention a product. This is often also inclusive of long-form media coverage, such as a business profile.

Dreamday is first Performance PR agency with deep roots in publisher-based affiliate marketing and a specific focus on commerce and consumer PR. What sets Dreamday apart from other PR agencies is that I have built a direct-to-consumer brand from the ground up myself, managed PR and affiliate agencies my entire career, and own a publication myself. I have a very unique and thorough 360 view of understanding growing brands’ needs, the opportunities for creating better PR and affiliate agencies, and understanding how the publishing ecosystem has evolved in the commerce space.

My team and I are relentless and resourceful and care deeply about every client. We take a less is more approach and only take on clients that we can’t say no to versus the traditional agency ‘grow to grow’ model. I consider myself to be pretty tenacious and am constantly looking for opportunities to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’. I would also consider myself to be a connector – half of my job is connecting with the media, investors, brands and founders. Almost all of our business is word of mouth referrals so networking and making strong connections has always paid off in the long run.

Starting Dreamday was not easy by any means. Prior to Dreamday, I had managed PR agencies but I had no idea how to properly pitch editors. Time, iteration, research and hiring experienced people has led me to believe that our team has some of the best pitches in the business. Editors have even copied and pasted our entire pitches as their stories!

I’ve learned many lessons along the way that I think all PR professionals should know.
– Don’t burn bridges – treat everyone you meet with respect, kindness, and professionalism.
– Consistently work to deepen and foster relationships with publishers and editors, and forge mutually beneficial relationships.
– Keep up with industry changes and continue to make new connections.
– Be kind. If you can’t help someone, try to at least help steer them in the right direction
– Perfect your pitch. Be clear and concise about what you do so whomever you are speaking with remembers you for the future.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Little Beach House Malibu is the most gorgeous setting on the weekends. 
I spend a lot of time working and in meetings at San Vicente Bungalows–the most idyllic and serene place I can think of to spend time during the work week.
You can probably find me dining with my kids at Erewhon Beverly Hills every other work week.
My husband and I love Sasabune for date nights–some of the best Omakase in LA!
We love a restaurant called Bianca in Culver City; it combines Argentinian and Italian flavors and the pastry chef was formerly from Madeo.
Check out Bloom & Plume for delicious coffee and beautiful flower arrangements!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My husband Andy Kleinman for always pushing me to take risks and believe in myself. My friend Jesse Morris for giving me the confidence to start Dreamday. My kids for driving my work ethic to be stronger than it ever was. My Co-founder Lee Joselowitz at The Quality Edit and VP Jamie Werner at Dreamday for being the best business partners I could ever imagine. All of our other team members who believe in our vision and make it happen every day. My mom for being an entrepreneur herself and leading me to think that it was the only way. My therapist and holistic doctor for being on my team.

Stoicism as a practice has helped me find mental strength, resilience, and balance. I highly recommend exploring and believe it will be a lifelong journey for me.

I also love my meditation practice, and recommend looking into TM meditation or any other form that feels right for you (the Waking Up App is also a great place to start!).

Website: www.dreamday.la // www.thequalityedit.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thequalityedit // www.instagram.com/dreamday.la

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/laurenkleinman

Image Credits
Photographer credit: Katie Moore