24 Journalism Startups

Reflections from 17 years of innovation. Now its your turn! DAN PACHECO

Feel free to tweet anything! Its part of a class exercise. Twitter hash tag: #sinews12

Im a journalist
But was supposed to be an engineer. Semi-geek -- always interested in computers, and writing / publishing. Wrote about the Internet at its inception (1994) and got jealous. Two-time winner of Knight Batten Award for Journalism Innovation.

Im also an entrepreneur 2 years in a successful startup -- beat

the odds! Most dont make it that far. Founder Institute graduate.

Knight News Challenge project winner.

Successes, but also ...

FAILURES!
Critical learning opportunities. Failure is the fertile soil of innovation.

Writer

My path
(writi Aerospace Early ng programmer engineering conte (BASIC) student sts) Student newspaper editor

Feature writer Online producer Product (Washington (Denver Post) manager (AOL) Post online) Product manager (Bakersfield) Innovator (Knight News Challenge) Entrepreneur (BookBrewer)

24 startups in 17 years

Three themes
1. News & information 2. Publishing tools 3. Community engagement

taught me to be an innovator, just like nobody taught me how to ride a We learn the HARD bicycle. STUFF by DOING.

Why is innovation important in journalism? Lets look back a few years ...

Yesterday: Sit back and wait.

WE SPOKE. THEY LISTENED. WE SOLD ADS. WE ATE WELL.

Today: Come and get it!

1994

Source: WikiMedia Commons, SilverStar.

Internet news grew, but ...

... core business model still failed

Source: Newspaper Association of America, Business Analysis and Research Department* First three quarters of 2009 + fourth quarter estimate by Rick Edmonds.

Horsey Horseless Carriage

1899 by Uriah Smith. Misunderstood problem: People wont buy automobiles because they dont want to scare horses.

Horsey Horseless Carriage

1899 by Uriah Smith. Misunderstood problem: People wont buy automobiles because they dont want to scare horses.

Are you imagining a horsey horseless carriage when you should be building a Ferrari?

The Innovators Dilemma

Source: Clayton Chritensen, The Innovators Dilemma. Graphic from WikiMedia Commons.

News Example
Storify Twitter Social Even better networks web sites! Better web sites Online services Web sites

Quality

Blogs Chat FTP Gopher Personal web sites

1990

1994

1998

2002

2010

Looking ahead

Quality
Even better web sites!

2012

2020 and beyond ...

Oh yeah ... its a network

Sources: OPTE.org, map of the Internet, Storify.

Why innovate? (Lazy answer)

Because we can. Because technology is neat. Because its fun.

Better reasons
Everything you do today is already being replaced by something better. Better to replace your own job than to be made completely irrelevant. We all bear responsibility for building a digital future that also pays for itself.

The little newspaper that could.

The Bakersfield Californian 70K circulation daily Family owned for 130 years Ginger Moorhouse

Gingers Problem
Low penetration in a growing city of 330,000. Towns 50% Hispanics avoided the newspaper. Young people didnt care. Newcomers read the L.A. Times.

CREATE A CULTURE OF INNOVATI ON

Gingers Solution

Allow a thousand flowers to bloom.

New Product Team Find new ways to reach

critical growing audiences that avoid the daily newspaper. Grow new audiences, then grow revenue around them.
(In retrospect, should have done bothsimultaneously)

Youre the best we have!

Young people are never going to read the newspaper. Weve tried and failed.

We need a NEW PRODUCT that appeals to them. Go make that happen.

Think upside down and sideways

The people themselves were the content through their user profiles (pre-Facebook). The people also created the content (blogs).

Separately branded from newspaper.

Everything built around the metaphor of local music, not news per se.

How it made money

The assumption: grow online audience, generate revenue from online ads. The reality (near term): online grow revenue in offshoot magazines.

Four years later

11 niche sites and magazines. Audience grew by 100K. Purchased by Arizona Republic, SacBee. Knight Batten Award.

Knight News Challenge

$837,00 0 2-year grant!

Zines 2.0

Global experiment

Who needs paper when you have these?

BookBrewer

Books, but also news The Denver Atlanta Huffington

Post Post

Journal Constitutio n

What gets me up in the morning?

Building and engaging an audience through interesting content. Allowing peoples voices to be heard and stories to be told. Paying for my hard work.

Your turn!
Ready to do your own news startup? Learn from my successes and failures.

Which are you?

Innovating within an existing organization. PLUS: Funding and support from an existing company. MINUS: Your hands are often tied.

Intrepreneur? Entrepreneur?

or
Innovating from the outside -- disruptive. PLUS: Total freedom to do as you like, even if it disrupts another business. MINUS: Fundraising isnt easy!

The B Word
Youre tied to a business, whether you know it or not. Nobody escapes the economy. You can make money and serve your audience at the same time. You can stay true to editorial principles without being tainted by revenue.

The M Word
If a tree falls in the forest and nobodys there to see it, did it fall in the first place? Its up to you to tell people about your great new innovation. In the real world, we call this marketing. Resist journalistic stereotypes of public relations as something dirty. If you dont believe enough in your product to market it, who will?

The F Word
Did you note all of my failures? Its not truly failure unless you fail to learn, adapt and grow. Pay very, very close attention to your audience and allow yourself to pivot to meet their needs.

Start tweeting!
Hash tag: #sinews12

Q1: What problem are you trying to solve?

The best question ever posed that journalists only recently began to ask.

Put another way

What pain are you trying to cure? Whats your painkiller?

Example: Flipboard
Problem: Following links from Twitter is cumbersome.

Example: Flipboard

Or Who is your target market?

Q2: Who has this problem?

What type of person will use your product, and why? How large is this market? How do you know? What is the total addressable market (TAM) that you can reach? What data do you use to get that figure?

Q3: What is your solution?

What does it do? How do people use it? How is it innovative, and truly unique?

Q4: Whos already doing it?

List 3 competitors of your product. How does your product compare? How is it better? How is it worse?

Q5: How will you make money?

How will your idea make money so that its around for the long haul? How much money can it make? Is it a $1M (lifestyle business), $10M (angel opportunity) or $100M opportunity (VC prospect)?

Q6: Why will you win?

Why will everyone choose your solution instead of everything else out there? Whats your execution plan, and how is it superior? The hardest pill to swallow: In the end, ideas alone dont matter. Execution is what matters.

Thank you!
Dan Pacheco dan@futureforecast.com www.futureforecast.com