Lingk2us: What was the inspiration for Beliefnet.com?

Waldman: I kept hearing and feeling that the national media was not doing a good job at covering religion, and the more I looked into it—I discovered that there was a huge boom going on in the book, music and magazine world, in trying to feed the spiritual thirst of Americans. As a group, they were no longer satisfied with getting information only from the church, but were also in search of supplemental alternatives in music, movies and TV. So I began to think about creating an outlet that would provide information, services and nourishment for people on a wide scale.

Lingk2us: To what do you owe its success?

Waldman: It's partially that we are very respectful of people and where they are. We are not affiliated with any particular denomination or religious movement, so we are not shoving someone's agenda down their throats—we are kind of an objective neutral source of information trying to help you get what you need. Secondly, we have approached it very much with a very positive spirit, that says—this
is all about trying to help you use faith and spirituality to improve
your life and get strength, comfort and support for your self.

Lingk2us: We understand that on its way to success beliefnet experienced its own set of challenges, could you share with
us what you would have done differently?

Waldman: Well, we launched in 1999 during the dot com bubble,
and when the bubble burst in 2000—2001 we along with everybody else crashed and went bankrupt and almost went out of business.
We managed to just hang on buy our finger nails and gradually built our selves back from zero to where we are today. We grew on the power of the faith of the audience and also the dedication of the
staff--feeling like this is an important project and that we did not
want (especially after 911) to let a faith fight like this go away.
In terms of what we learned along the way, it was kind of a basic business lesson of not trying to do to much to soon and growing incrementally as we had the mind.

Lingk2us: Could you share with our readers some pointers on your keys to success?

Waldman: Always keep your customers needs front of mind... and
in our case, is the individuals desire to have a closer connection
with God and to have also their faith inform their lives. We see our selves as a site about life through a spiritual lens as opposed to being a religious site. For most people this is not about abstract theological discussions but about how their faith helps them lead
a better life, how it helps them create a better world for themselves and their kids and how to live the values of their faith.

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