Project Description
Alex Skatell
While in college at Clemson, Alex developed iPhone applications including a top 25 application featured by Gizmodo and in the “What’s Hot” section of the iTunes app store. 4 years after graduating, Alex founded Independent Journal Review in a small apartment in Charleston, South Carolina, investing all his savings and weekly paycheck into one goal: reaching a part of America that next generation media companies miss.
Today, Independent Journal Review is a top 50 website in the country, reaching over 35 million monthly readers and employing more than 50 reporters and writers covering politics and current events across the country. Adding to the business, Alex co-founded IMGE a full service digital agency in 2013. IMGE is based in Alexandria, VA with a team of over 35 working with some of the world’s largest brands and associations.
In early 2014, Alex launched Liftbump.com a lifestyle vertical that today reaches over 10 million monthly readers and followed that in 2015 with the launch of Shuffle News — the winner of Mediaposts 2015’s best news application and reached the #1 most downloaded news app on the iTunes app store.
Alex has been dubbed a “wunderkind” by the New York Times but his interest in journalism came from a simple lesson learned from watching his father: no one in the Skatell family was allowed to disturb Dad during the evening news.
Alex was recently named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in tech and media, and was also named a Tech Top 20 by WIRED magazine.