Q&A  Perfectly Imperfect with Tyler Bainbridge First off, congratulations on five years! I love the idea of a social magazine and that you describe PI as "A Taste of Someone's Taste." How did that concept come about? Tyler: It was peak COVID Summer, and I was growing frustrated with algorithms starting to define everyone's tastes (mine included) and this feeling was only exacerbated by being cooped up at home during the pandemic. The idea was a newsletter that championed human curation, and I'd had the name "Perfectly Imperfect" written down in my notes app for years. I've always enjoyed art that's rough around the edges, full of texture, and ambitious. Like The Microphone's 2001 album, The Glow Pt2, or Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66. My favorite things are Perfectly Imperfect. We described our simple format as "A Taste of Someone's Taste" and started interviewing friends while occasionally sharing some recs ourselves. It was different than most recommendation resources in that we didn't restrict people to just products or just media. People shared life tips, inside jokes, their favorite place to take a walk, etc. It was more of a character portrait than a purely practical list. That's basically how Perfectly Imperfect was born. Neither of us had any experience in the editorial world, zero design skills, and no industry connections to the people we wanted to feature. It was (and still is) a very scrappy lo-fi operation.  In the early days of PI, how did you start getting submissions? Tyler: Thousands of cold emails and DMs. Lots and lots of "no"s are first, but slowly but surely we got more "yes"s, eventually building up enough credibility for publicists to pitch us talent. We probably get 500-1000 pitches a month these days, but our talent curation is among the best in the biz, so we have to turn down a lot of people.  We've seen recs from Charli XCX and Lorde - how did those come about? Tyler: This was one of the most surreal moments of my life. We had just thrown this huge two year anniversary party (where The Dares performed "Girls" to a packed room for the first time) and it was covered in the NYTimes. The next day I woke up to a DM from Charli with a simple "👋" and the rest is history.  Tell us a bit about your audience. Tyler: Young creative people interested in "what's next." They're hungry for discovery, love to party, and have amazing taste. Our audience is worldwide - we just hosted 50+ meet-ups across the globe last weekend with amazing turnouts - and primarily ages 18 to 35.  What people, recommendations, and events have resonated the most with your audience? Tyler: We just threw a huge show for NYFW with one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers from the UK (Fakemink) and it was a huge hit. He's explosive right now and with cosigns from Frank Ocean, Drake, Timothee Chalemet, and Clairo, he's destined for the big leagues. The recommendations that do the best on our social site or newsletter tend to be very relatable "lifestyle" recs, or deep cut films/albums/etc recs that are written with love. People lost their mind when we featured The Rizzler on our newsletter. It was the same week as legendary filmmaker Paul Schrader - that's the PI way.   For publicists, what talent opportunities are there via PI? Tyler: You can find our 2025 Press Kit here, but we're always expanding into new verticals and places for talent to integrate. We're most interested in culture-defining personalities, whether it's bottom-up from the underground or top-down from today's biggest celebrities / generational legends. Tyler: Our premiere format is "A Taste of Taste" where talent writes 5 recommendations (1-2 sentences each) and sends us a selfie. It's all done over email and super simple. We also just started a new video format "Taste Test" where we ask talent questions from our social site PI.FYI with 80,000 users.   For publicists, what makes a good pitch to you? What gets you excited vs. what gets deleted? Tyler: I love to see what makes this moment compelling for them - why now? Tell me about your in-person events and meet-ups. And do you ever partner with brands for those? Tyler: Yes, definitely. We just partnered with Hinge on a bowling tournament in NYC and Grailed sponsored our Fakemink NYFW show. Always happy to work with brands to make the event the best it can be.  In general, if someone wants to get featured or collaborate with PI, what should they know? Tyler: We're very selective and can only run 3ish interviews a week, so naturally things fill up quickly. We're generally booked 2 months out, so the earlier the better for us. What are your thoughts on the current media landscape? Tyler: It's exciting, there are a lot of smaller magazines, newsletters, and podcasts, that are gaining traction on Instagram. It's great to see new voices entering the space, and with success! | 
