Remark Media might be the most significant Las Vegas technology company you’ve never heard of.
From a fourth-story office near Flamingo Road just east of the Strip, the company oversees a long list of seemingly disparate products: the swimwear website Bikini.com, the health site sharecare.com, multiple finance and tax-related sites, a hotel-booking mobile service.
As unrelated as the companies may seem, they share a running thread: They target millennials, Remark CEO Kai-Shing Tao said.
Millennials are attractive to advertisers because of their numbers and spending power; they are a demographic that few publicly traded companies have been able to exclusively target. So Remark tries to capture young people’s attention where they spend a lot of time — online and on their phones — through niche websites devoted to topics they might find interesting.
“We thought we could create a special company that offers investors access to this demographic, which I think most people would consider the most highly sought demographic right now,” Tao said.
Remark still is a relative newcomer to the valley. It used to have offices in New York and Atlanta, but the company moved to Las Vegas last year and now employs about 60 people.
Why Las Vegas? Tao, who took over the company in 2012 after serving as a Remark Media board member, said he moved because the quality of life here was attractive, both in terms of more manageable weather and Nevada’s tax climate.
“But the most important business reason, I think, is the fact that I found Vegas to be a much more global city and diverse city than most people expect,” Tao said. “Every week, there’s a major trade show here, so you’re able to see the best in every industry that comes out here.”
Before Tao became CEO, Remark focused largely on sharecare.com. With its new millennial-minded direction, the company has expanded its digital media offerings, buying bikini.com, acquiring hotel.mobi and launching an online Chinese boxing channel. Remark streamed the “Clash in Cotai” boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios to debut the site.
As a result, the company has seen strong financial growth: Remark’s market capitalization, around $100 million, is more than 10 times what it was a year ago, Tao said.
The company’s growth shows in its personnel, too. Remark recently hired Joshua Fruhlinger, the former head of digital content at TMZ. Fruhlinger will run Remark’s content, as well.
Tao said such a big-name recruit would have been impossible a year ago.
Remark Media CEO Shing Tao and CFO Doug Osrow in the office of their bikini.com website Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014.
As a tech city, Las Vegas doesn’t have the same wealth of skilled workers as hubs such as San Francisco or Silicon Valley. Nonetheless, Tao said, the valley is home to great minds that can be tapped.
“There’s a lot of tech and engineering talent that resides within gaming companies,” he said.
Remark also hasn’t had much of a problem luring outsiders to the company.
“We’ve had a pretty good record on recruiting people,” Tao said. “I think it typically has taken us two to three days to show them that there’s more to Vegas than just the casinos and the Strip.”
Diverse websites make remark relevant to broad audience
Remark Media’s websites cover a wide range of subjects, from wellness tips to finance and media. Here’s an overview of each:
• Sharecare.com: A medical website co-founded by Dr. Mehmet Oz, Sharecare offers health and wellness tips, listings of medical experts and a test that allows you to calculate your body’s “real age.”
• Bikini.com: A swimwear and beach culture website that sells swimsuits and publishes style, travel and lifestyle tips.
• Roomlia: A recently launched app for booking hotel rooms, it’s a subsidiary of Hotelmobi, which Remark bought earlier this year.
• Banks.com: A finance website that aims to bring people “the most relevant financial information on the web,” it includes blogs and tools designed to help users make smart financial decisions.
• TaxExtension.com and FileLater.com: Both help people file personal and business tax extensions.
• U.S. Tax Center (irs.com): Not to be confused with the actual Internal Revenue Service website
(irs.gov), this website aims to “minimize some of the confusion inherent in tax matters.” It provides tax information, tips and tools to help people file taxes.
• Bowenwang: This Chinese website covers sports, entertainment, technology, arts and health.
• Comotudofuciona: Similar to Bowenwang, this is a Brazilian website that covers cultural events, sports, technology, travel and entertainment.
• SlapTV.com: A website and YouTube channel that features humorous videos.