For the thousands upon thousands of people who scour the web each day for tips and tricks in the DIY space, there’s one destination to satisfy all of their needs: Brit + Co. The site’s founder and CEO Brit Morin, dubbed “Queen of the Makers” by Wired, has built a community where like-minded creators can explore, make, learn and shop. Navigating that often delicate relationship between content and commerce in an organic, authentic way has been key to the success of Brit + Co, and a major reason why Brit has established herself as a leading voice in the field.

Brit will be joining FTF: Conference 2015 on June 11, sharing her experience and expertise with attendees. But, if you can’t wait until then, keep reading for insight from Brit about growing a startup, collaborating with other companies and how to make contextual commerce truly work.

FTF: Brit + Co offers a multichannel approach to DIY, with e-commerce and apps, in addition to original content and content pulled from other resources. How vital is it in today’s environment for a startup to not only do one thing well, but have multiple platforms? Can you survive with just one?

Brit: As a mission-driven business, our goal is to both inspire and enable creativity in women. To do this well, we have to take a two-pronged approach. The content on the media side of the business inspires our readers and the commerce side (our kits and classes) enables them to be more creative. From a business angle, it’s also important to think about building a business with multiple revenue streams. Many businesses have become very successful by focusing in one area, but for Brit + Co, we need both pieces of the business to accomplish our mission. We must both inspire our users with content and enable them to be creative by offering access to online classes and supplies.

FTF: Knowing when and how fast to expand can also be a huge guessing game for startups. What signs do you look for that let you know you’re ready to launch a new element?

Brit: We’re all about testing and trying new things at Brit + Co. We test marketing strategies, products, content series, etc. Then we look for clear signs from our community that we’ve hit a sweet spot for them and created something that they love. We measure the success of these tests by looking at site metrics, surveys and social interactions. Oftentimes, we meet our users in person and they tell us what they want to see from Brit + Co.

FTF: You’ve partnered with some of the biggest names in the DIY space, from Target to 3M and Velcro. How do you determine whether or not a partner is a good fit for your brand?

Brit: When planning to work with other brands, we look for companies that are excited to partner with us, advance our mission and inspire creativity in women. We want the chance to show our audience something new and innovative. We ask ourselves, does this brand align with our character? Are they sharing something that connects with our values — creativity, community, authenticity?

FTF: Do you have any guiding principles for how you’ve been able to balance retail and editorial in a way that’s honest and still interesting?

Brit: I agree this is a tricky balance. We take integrity between both teams very seriously so we can continue to share authentic perspectives. That said, we’ve known from day one that our readers look to us for recommendations on what they should buy. At the same time, our editorial business also drives our commerce business decisions. We use editorial posts to better understand what our readers want to buy. For example, the colorblock candle DIY was one of our most successful posts so we turned it into a kit!

FTF: What’s next for Brit + Co?

Brit: For me, a huge piece of enabling creativity is facilitating curiosity and learning. I’m very interested in the online learning space and how we can use video to teach our users. We’re doubling down on editorial video and creating quick and easy tutorials for social media. Our long-term video strategy revolves around online classes. We’re hoping to keep providing the opportunity for our readers to learn something new and connect them with the best teachers across the country. I love the idea that a woman in Brooklyn could learn calligraphy from an expert in Dallas!