As the CEO of a software technology start-up, there are a few big names out there that you look up to as people who have “made it.” The founders and co-founders of the companies that once started out, as you did, but today are household names: Facebook, Google, Apple.

When you’re starting out, you imagine one of those people taking an interest in your company, noticing the hard work and sweat equity you put in as a founder.

So I couldn’t help but feel excited when we announced that The New Republic Fund had chosen Parse.ly as its first investment. The Fund is an investment vehicle that backs early-stage technology companies, predominantly in the digital media space. It has two main goals: the first is to invest in companies that can strategically accelerate The New Republic’s core business; the second is to spur innovation in digital media.

There are so many reasons this is exciting to me. One, it means that one of those big name co-founders, Chris Hughes, has taken an interest in the company me and Andrew started.

But, now, five years into being the CEO at Parse.ly, I realized that the recognition is no longer my goal; it’s not the best part of this announcement for me. What I’m most excited about today is that this investment is a good sign that we’ve built a product and a relationship with a client that they find so valuable, that they decided that they needed to more than pay for our services; they needed to invest in us as part of their core business and to further innovation in digital media.

It means a digital media industry experts, like Guy Vidra, CEO of The New Republic, understand that Parse.ly has built the most comprehensive and accessible analytics platform for media sites.

It also means there’s a lot more work to do.

Fortunately, the Parse.ly team just returned from an off-site retreat and I’m more encouraged than ever that we have a great, diverse set of people that can make a big impact on the future of digital publishing.

So I’ll let the blog return to it’s regularly scheduled programming of tips for journalists, musing on the media industry and data insights from our network. But I had to take a second to let myself get excited that we’re making in a difference in the industry we set out to change.

P.S. Interested in joining us on this journey? We’re hiring!