In 1967, Bill Rand (Bill Rau) and his lover Dick Michaels, of the Los Angeles activist group PRIDE, publish the first issue of The Los Angeles Advocate, in an attempt to improve the group's newsletter.

It was a 12-page paper laid out with a typewriter, with 500 copies printed on cheap 8-1/2 x 11-inch stock. The paper sold well, and in 1968 Michaels and Rand bought it from PRIDE. By the summer, advertising revenue produced enough income to allow Michaels and Rand to quit their day jobs and devote their time to publication..

In 1969 Michaels and Rand renamed the paper The Advocate and began national distribution. By 1974 press runs routinely ran to 40,000 copies, enough to attract the attention of a wealthy suitor from San Francisco named David Goodstein.

He was an investment banker who had been fired from his job because he was gay. When he approached Michaels and Rand with an attractive offer, they agreed to sell.