Media in Minutes

Empowering Voices: Arianna Cruz on Building MORE Magazine

• Angela Tuell • Season 4 • Episode 25

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Ever wonder how a publication can not only inform but inspire and activate its readers? Arianna Cruz, the visionary founder of MORE Magazine, joins us to unravel that very magic. Arianna's journey from an idea sparked in a shelter in Indianapolis to building a dynamic media company is nothing short of inspiring. With her background in marketing and communications from the IU Kelley School of Business, Arianna didn't just create a magazine—she pioneered a platform that amplifies diverse voices and challenges perspectives through powerful personal essays. In this episode, Arianna opens up about the unexpected hurdles of entrepreneurship, including the strategic moves beyond the immediate tasks, and invites budding writers to contribute to this expanding narrative tapestry.

Connect with Arianna on LinkedIn | Instagram

MORE Magazine: www.moremagazine.org
MORE magazine's LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram

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Angela Tuell:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host, Angela Tuell. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those who report on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world from our studio here at Communications Redefined. This is Media in Minutes. In today's episode, we are talking with Arianna Cruz, founder and owner of More Magazine. She created the magazine with the mission of making opportunities reachable for everyone by curating content to educate, inspire and call people to action. Hi, Arianna, how are you? I'm doing well. Angela, how are you? I'm doing well. Also, I'm looking forward to talking with you today. I'd love to start by finding out a little bit more about your background and your career inspiration that led you to where you are today as the founder and owner of More Magazine. Could you tell us some more? Yeah, of course.

Arianna Cruz:

Thank you, and thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. So I went to IU Kelly School of Business, indianapolis, and I went towards business just because I really wanted to be in a profession where I could work with people, talk with people and, at the end of the day, understand people. So my background, education-wise, is in marketing and communications, which leads me to some cool PR opportunities, storytelling opportunities, but also from the perspective of B2C, which is where most of my career has been. I was a creative strategist for an art gallery.

Arianna Cruz:

I was the director of marketing outreach for Big Brothers, big Sisters of Central Indiana, and now I'm the director of market development for Counterpart, a customized software company out of Fishers. So I think for me it's always kind of been in a place of, whatever my role is, maintaining some connection to the people that I'm serving and the people that I'm getting to tell the stories of, and that's kind of what led me towards a publication, specifically More Magazine.

Angela Tuell:

Awesome, so when did you start it Awesome?

Arianna Cruz:

So when did you start it? It launched in 2020. It had been a project as more on its own, without the magazine piece. It had started at the Barton Center, which is downtown and a shelter in between emergency place for families seeking shelter, especially with children, and so that's when more the concept of making opportunities reachable for everyone really came to life. As I was in college, I started doing some modeling, I started doing more creative directing, and that's what led to the magazine component of it. I was getting into the space of visual storytelling and I wanted to make sure that people's voices were heard. With the visuals that we were creating and kind of bundled itself into a magazine, that is awesome.

Angela Tuell:

So for those who are not familiar with it or haven't read or saw it yet, tell us a little bit more about what you cover and what you can expect to see in the magazine, for sure.

Arianna Cruz:

So more is for the people who want more for themselves, more for the communities that they live in and more for the people that they love, and so we say that we curate content to educate, inspire and call you to action. Your call to action might look different depending on where you're at in your journey, and so the content that we curate is meant to meet you where you are.

Arianna Cruz:

Most of our articles are in the form of personal essays, because I think when you're exploring a narrative or perspective that maybe you're not as familiar with, it's easier to hear it when it feels like it's coming from another person to you which can be so crucial, especially with some of the topics that can be maybe a little uncomfortable or harder to digest or harder to understand, and so each magazine has a theme, with our women's issue being in the fall, and so you try to take these themes and look at them from a very, very high level and allow people to bring different perspectives to it. And so, while we have a variety of themes and topics that we cover, they're really meant to start a conversation or maybe encourage you to get involved in some way, especially as we work with so many nonprofits. We want to create easy pathways to find your potential call to action, and sometimes that means getting involved in volunteering.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I love that. What did you learn that you didn't expect when starting a magazine?

Arianna Cruz:

What did you learn that you didn't expect when starting a magazine? Well, I had never planned to start a business and I think that in itself, while I went to business school, there's nothing like learning on the job, right. And I think in starting a magazine, it's really trying to think of what am I doing today that impacts tomorrow, and what am I doing tomorrow that like impacts next month, or like just really expand thinking. And I think in school especially, and when you get started in your career, most entry level jobs are really focused on tasks less so projects right and less so down the line thinking, and so that was a skill that I did not realize I would need to grow and flex, so much until I started a business entirely.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, definitely. How do you find your writers and what is the best way to get you ideas?

Arianna Cruz:

Yeah, so our door is always open. A lot of people will send us pitches to hello at moremagazineorg, and we love starting conversations. If the story doesn't work, then we normally have a podcast that will be coming out that will align with it. We want to be a space and a platform for as many voices and stories as we can be, and since launching in 2020, we've really grown from a magazine that publishes twice a year to a media company that includes podcast drops every week, as well as sharing more stories more regularly on our social media platforms. That's fantastic, it's so fun and it's really cool to feel less restrained, if you will, by the twice a year publication launches, just because there's so many voices out there and there's so much to share and to tell. So our inbox is always open, and that is honestly my favorite way, because I think, at the end of the day, we all want to be heard and seen in some way, and I love being able to start that dialogue with people.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, absolutely. What are your hopes for the magazine in the future and for you know, not just the magazine, like you said, but the podcast or other ways that you share information?

Arianna Cruz:

I needed social media support, and so, when I was thinking about if we would contract or how we would do that, I wanted to open it up to interns.

Arianna Cruz:

And then, as I was thinking about my past experiences and how our internship model could also make opportunities reachable for everyone, I wanted to focus on first-year students, because your first internship is the hardest one to get yes, that's so true. And so we have this internship program now. We have three cohorts a year and we focus a lot on personal and professional development, because I think when you're living a full life, your work and personal life intertwine. Yeah, that has been really, really cool. So I mean, I'm hoping for our capacity to continue growing so that we can support more interns, more people pursuing their passions, because I think a lot of writers are getting started with us and we get to be like one of their first publications where they can say they're a published writer and different things like that. And so when I look to the future for more, it's really just continuing to find more pathways and open doors for people looking to get their start.

Angela Tuell:

I love that. How big is your team or how many have you worked with?

Arianna Cruz:

So we've had 25 young women pursuing business come through our program so far and that has been super cool. It's 2024 now, so starting this in 2021,. We've had our first round of freshmen graduate this past May, which has been so cool to hear from them and get messages as to where they're ending up and what they still remember from the internship, which I think is so, so cool. And we have our podcast host, chloe Price. She is incredible. My brother is also getting ready to graduate high school and so he's actually joined as our podcast intern and he supports Chloe with getting a lot of our audio together and edited.

Arianna Cruz:

As far as our writers and photographers and models and all of our really amazing partners, that's kind of a revolving door of different people. We have some people who want to share a specific part of their story with us for like the first time, but maybe not following that, and so we have a lot of different people that we've worked with. We have had some repeat people that we've gotten to work with, like Hannah Jordan. She's incredible and she has been more in the fashion blog space, but she's taken on a variety of topics, and so we don't have a regular staff, if you will, but we do have, I think, a really large community of people who will also refer and help, just share the opportunity with others.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, that's great. I know you mentioned this in the beginning, but owning the magazine is not your only role professionally. You also besides a I don't know if we want to call it a day job, but you also describe yourself as a connector. I'd love to learn more about that.

Arianna Cruz:

Yeah, for sure. I think doing life on your own can feel really empowering. I also think when you grow with people, you yourself grow more than you would have if you had only been walking on your own. And so for me, like I love getting to connect people I know I'm better because of the people that I know and I have the honor to be in their orbits and I want everyone to feel like they have something similar.

Arianna Cruz:

And you go to business school and they say, like your network is your net worth and all those little phrases. But there's something so special about like finding that sense of belonging, whether it's online or in a city where you don't know anyone, because somebody's able to make an introduction for you. And I love, as part of our internship, that over the summer cohort especially, like they have to tell me people that they want to connect with and so then they get practice doing informational interviews and putting themselves out there. I think connecting with people is one of the most human experiences possible, and to be able to start practicing and being comfortable in meeting people and being vulnerable and like opening that door to different relationships is so is so key. And so, yeah, I definitely say I'm a connector because I know for me, I thrive on connecting with people, but I also want other people to get the chance to experience it, so I love being that conduit that introduces amazing people to other amazing people.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, and I feel like in today's world and you know our online world and our work from home world we don't get to do that enough sometimes. It has to be purposeful, you have to make effort to do it you know Agreed. What is some of your favorite stories that you have published in the magazine, or most meaningful, impactful, however you'd like to choose.

Arianna Cruz:

Oh, come on, angela, that's like asking who my favorite.

Angela Tuell:

I said some, so you can talk about a few if you'd like.

Arianna Cruz:

Well, I can definitely talk about our most recent issue. We actually just rolled out our inaugural recognition of women setting the table, and that has been really fun. Last year we rolled out a Save the Seat campaign. We had a lot of people who wanted to support more, but at that time we'd only had ways to support if you were a business. Like I said, we've kind of grown to a media company, so we have a lot of advertising packages and different media placement options, but that doesn't make sense for my neighbor to support or something like that.

Arianna Cruz:

And so we started this Save a Seat campaign where we have space for individuals to contribute, like $10 a month, and it supports our internship program. As we were kind of crafting this campaign of ours, we were thinking about all the ways that we see women in different communities, not only saving a seat for people to join them at the table, but also building their own tables when the spaces that are being cultivated don't feel welcoming to people who need to be in those rooms. So we selected three women Maria, the founder of In Kind Boxes, Akilah from Darden Construction Group and Lisa from Women of Color Building Wealth and so we had these three women come and share their story with us and all the ways that they are setting the table for those to come after them and just creating more equitable opportunities for people to be supported and knowledgeable and educated in different spaces.

Angela Tuell:

Are the stories online to read where we can link to them?

Arianna Cruz:

Yes, for sure All of our content printed is accessible digitally. And then we do a limited print run of 100 magazines each issue.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, so we will make sure in our show notes that we link to some of those stories. Any others that you would like to mention?

Arianna Cruz:

Yeah, One of my other favorites was one that we just published as well. It's equity through innovation, and so we talked about the way that technology opens the door to accessibility in so many different ways. We touched on the higher ed space and diverse suppliers and what that can look like when you are partnering with companies who can be aligned with you, and I think, especially as a business owner, finding brands and companies who I can partner with to not only create product for or give them some kind of deliverable, but walk alongside them in creating equitable spaces, has been really cool, and so to see that in an article form, especially from two women-owned, women-founded businesses, diversified and student-ready strategies in the higher ed space was so, so cool yeah.

Angela Tuell:

The work you all are doing is so fabulous, thank you. I've got to ask what is something that others would be surprised to learn about you if they don't know you well.

Arianna Cruz:

Yeah, I saw that question. I thought that was so fun. I posted an Instagram reel over the summer and it was a similar thing. It was like tell us, tell us something that people don't know about you. And I had mentioned that I have my cosmetologist license and that was very surprising to people. And so I think sometimes about women or whoever it is where you read about, like all these different lives that they've lived, and I'm kind of going through it and I was thinking about my pre-career careers. And, yeah, I have my cosmetologist license. I interned in a construction and engineering department on an Air Force base oh wow. And I worked at, like, IU School of Medicine, which is also something that, like, I don't do anything with now. So I think, just some of the things that I've done before really jumping into my career people would find a little surprising.

Angela Tuell:

Definitely led you to where you are, but was the cosmetology before the college?

Arianna Cruz:

It was. Yeah, I did a vocational program and so I was doing hair while I was in school, and I still do a lot of my friend's hair, which I just think is super fun.

Angela Tuell:

It's pretty nice. It's a hobby, then, right, instead of it's for fun. Before we go, I'd also love to know more about your professional plans for the future, you know, and where you see yourself in five to 10 years, or where you see the company in five to 10 years.

Arianna Cruz:

Yeah, I mean I feel like whenever I heard this question growing up, I was always trying to think of metrics and very, very tangible things. But honestly, five to 10 years, I want to see myself happy, healthy and supporting others and continuing to find ways to make opportunities reachable for everyone in a variety of ways. So it is lofty and a little open-ended, but I think that's the best way for me to look at it, just because, I mean, the possibilities are endless then yeah, that's such a great goal.

Angela Tuell:

That's where we should all be. So how can our listeners connect with you online?

Arianna Cruz:

I am pretty active on Instagram and LinkedIn, so those are probably the best places to reach me. My Instagram is Arianna Cruz, with four N's between the two A's, and LinkedIn is just Arianna Cruz, and our magazine is linked on both of my profiles, so very easy to share ideas and different pitches and stories that you want to see. Wonderful.

Angela Tuell:

And we will have all of those in the show notes, along with how to connect with you and learn more on the podcast as well Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to our show. We'd love to hear what you think. You can find more at communicationsredefinedcom slash podcast. I'm your host, Angela Tuell. Talk to you next time.