On a frigid day in December 2018, I traveled to Chicago for my first face-to-face meeting with Jeff Joseph. He was assembling a crew to put together the first issue of a print financial and lifestyle magazine.

Jeff escorted me to a conference room on a balcony high above the rows of video production equipment that created the streaming videos for the tastylive financial network. I don’t remember for sure, but tastylive superstars Tom Sosnoff and Tony Battista may have been on camera at that very moment. Five days a week, they held forth in the giant glass fishbowl of a studio on the main floor. It was where they imparted educational options-trading insight to the masses.

The new publication, Jeff explained, would offer timely financial articles in its opening pages and timeless how-to articles on investing in the back. It would run 70 pages, not counting covers, and come off the presses 10 times a year.

The tastylive research team would write the articles on investing, and Jeff would come up with ideas for broader business-oriented articles in his role as editorial director.

Differentiation would come naturally because we’d cover a wider range of unconventional businesses stories than you’d see in the usual magazines—like Forbes or Fortune. We planned to examine the financial implications of subjects ranging from what you should eat to how to separate the fake from the real.

Plus, we were to enjoy editorial independence—the freedom to try our best to create a magazine that would benefit readers.

I took that all in and then told Jeff about my decades of work for newspapers and magazines in the Midwest and on both coasts. Casting modesty aside, I declared myself an excellent writer and the right person to become editor-in-chief. He decided to give me a shot.

Yesi Duran, Jeff’s colleague at a previous financial publication, was already in place as managing editor of the new magazine. Jacqueline Cantu would soon become our half-time art director, dividing her efforts between our periodical and a Brooklyn-based hipster magazine.

So, our full-time staff of three and a half was in place and ready to work with contributors from inside and outside “tasty nation.” By January, we were laboring in a glass-walled office on a balcony just a few steps from that conference room. The office towered over the studio, and we could hear the tastylive network shows in the background all day. Sometimes, Tony’s booming voice practically shook the building.

The magazine’s editorial formula was in place from the very beginning. We’d have four sections called Topics, Trends, Trades and Tactics. Later we would combine the latter two into a single section and have just three.

In each issue, the Topics section would follow a new theme—anything from side hustles to the Chinese Communist Party. Jeff’s ability to come up with diverse and interesting themes—and do it issue after issue—became a constant source of amazement and an extremely valuable asset. Trends stories would usually focus on the good life, covering subjects like new rock music and fine whiskey. Trades and Tactics would be about opportunities in the markets and how to navigate them.

We’d dedicate ourselves to good reporting, writing and editing, but our mission wouldn’t end there. We fully intended to present a striking display of graphics and rack up a collection of award-winning covers.

Yet something was missing—what would we call our new creation? Tom Sosnoff, the master of branding as well as the guru of investing, came up with Luckbox name. It’s what they call someone in sports or investing who’s untutored but still blindly, inexplicably fortunate. Admittedly, it took us all a while to appreciate the irony of the name, but soon we came to love it. And, the readers did, too.

So, everything was in place, and we led the first issue with two cover stories. One was a profile of Tom written by Vonetta Logan, a tastylive on-air personality. She would go on to become an esteemed regular columnist at Luckbox, adding that chore to her other duties with the company. And who could forget the adventures Vonetta has chronicled in her installments of Fake Financial News? She was as willing to test a motorcycle as a moisturizer.

The other lead story in that first issue, which hit the streets in April 2019, featured Greta Van Fleet, the young band we called “rock’s revivalists.” That article began the Luckbox tradition of covering new rock music, which has continued with vivid articles and reviews by Kendall Polidori, aka “The Rockhound.”

Our first year was underway and turned out to be a smash hit. The eight issues won five awards in 2019—three for editorial content and two for design. The editorial awards were a Folio Magazine Eddie for Best New Custom Content Magazine, and two Maggie awards for Best New Consumer Publication and for Best Special Theme for The High Anxiety Economy issue. Design awards were two Folio Ozzie honorable mentions for Design in Custom Content and Design in a New Magazine.

Other themes that first year included robots, eSports, gaming, artificial intelligence, side hustles, the end of privacy and Hollywood’s box office comeback. A lot seemed new. Before we tackled those subjects, I didn’t really know what side hustles were, and I was definitely clueless about the enormous popularity of eSports. I quickly found out about both.

Plus, my learning curve would only get steeper in 2020 as we continued to take on topics unfamiliar to me. I knew Russia was oppressing a large ethnic group but couldn’t have told you they were called the Uyghurs and didn’t know the Kremlin had pretty much enslaved them. What’s more, I’d barely heard of the darknet, I hadn’t paid much attention longevity studies and I hadn’t listened to many podcasts.

But things turned out well. In 2020, our first full year of publication, Luckbox published nine issues and brought home 10 awards—eight for editorial content and two for design.

That year’s awards champ, our Decision 2020 political issue, bagged no fewer four awards, including three for editorial content and one for design. Of the three editorial honors, it took two Maggies—one for Best Special Theme Issue and the other for Best Special Interest Publication. The other editorial plaudit came as an American Society of Magazine Editors Readers Choice Award. On the design side, it won an American Society of Magazine Editors Readers Choice Award for Best News and Politics Cover.

Our other editorial awards in 2020 were another Maggie for Best Special Interest Publication for Podcasts Rising and two Folio Eddies, one for Best Full Issue for the way we delivered on the wellness-oriented theme of How Not to Die and the other an honorable mention for Best New Magazine. Our other editorial victories that year came from the Niche Magazine Awards, one for Best Business-to-Business Magazine and Best New Niche Magazine. Additional recognition for design in 2020 came as a Niche Magazine honorable mention for New Magazine design.

You may have noticed we were still receiving “new magazine” awards well into our second year. I don’t know the judges’ criterion for newness, but I didn’t argue with it so long as it seemed to be working for us.

The trophy shelf was filling up, and one aspect of the accumulation of honors seemed especially gratifying—we were acquiring them in so many categories. Editors tell you a single magazine can’t be all things to all readers, namely a consumer mag, a business-to-business pub and a vessel for custom content. But Luckbox was succeeding in every way at all levels in every sector.

Be that as it may, it was soon 2021. We were learning we could assemble and edit a magazine remotely, and the pandemic didn’t really slow us down. Staff members missed each other, but we found we could get the magazine to the printer without ever showing up at the office.

One of our best issues that year was on another theme I knew almost nothing about. I haven’t played a hand of poker since I was in high school and couldn’t tell you whether a full house beats a royal flush. But our Thinking in Bets issue captured two Folio Eddies. One was for Best Full Issue Custom Content and the other for Best How-To, Single Issue.

The year 2022 arrived, and we won one of our most prestigious awards, a Folio Eddie for Best Full Issue—Consumer, for The Shape of Things to Come in Art and Design.

In 2023, we pulled off a major redesign of the magazine—inside and out. Jeff worked with the famed Brooklyn-based Priest + Grace design firm to see the project through to completion, beginning with the May-June issue. We also took a Folio Eddie honorable mention that year for Best Use of Data for an issue centering on a vital question: Is College Worth It?

So, our accomplishments were continuing but a major shift was coming. Early this year, we published The Auto Trader issue of Luckbox, our 42nd and final print magazine—at least for now.

Henceforth, Luckbox will be a digital weekly news magazine. Increased frequency makes sense in a world of rapid change in politics, economics, social movements—and certainly finance. Whatever happens, we’ll continue to identify, document, interpret and analyze the most significant trends.

We’re keeping the familiar Topics, Trends and Trades & Tactics sections. The evergreen how-to stories on investing will still appear in the back. Upfront, we’ll continue to pursue a theme addressing important financial, economic, business and policy issues. And you’ll always see stories on the good life, including our undying love for whiskey, beer, gadgets, gear, great books and rock music.

We’ll be what we’ve always been—but now you’ll hear from us every Thursday.

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View all previous issues of Luckbox here.

Do you have a favorite Luckbox story? Email editors@luckboxmagazine.com.

Luckbox received design awards for its unique format and illustrated covers.

Subscribe to the new weekly digital format for free at getluckbox.com.

Ed McKinley is Luckbox‘s Editor-in-Chief.