First Steps

Launching an entrepreneurial journalism project requires true business and marketing skills.

Not all sharp journalists can start up successful businesses. So before you set yourself up as a nonprofit organization, do the kind of research other business startups would do to determine whether there is a demand for your product and what your audience is.

1. Interview key newsmakers or community residents and ask them to react to your idea. You must determine:  Is there a need in my community for the news site I want to create?
2. Review the landscape:  Who else is providing the type of journalism you plan to offer? Can the news ecosystem you want to enter handle your addition? How will your audience be different from users of other sites?
3. Are there partnership or collaboration opportunities with other news sites?  Reach out to them and determine how they will react to your idea.
4. Would you be better off testing your idea with a blog news site and if that catches momentum, ramping up to gain nonprofit status?
5. Do research in your community to determine how you will get support.  Do local funders like your idea?  Do you have a logical membership community? How do local advertisers react to your idea?  What has been the experience of other news sites in your community?
6. Ask those who launched similar projects what else you need to know.
7. Having gathered all this information: Ask where does my idea fit in? Is there a demand for it? How will you fulfill that demand?
8. Start crafting your “pitch.”  This is your 30-second sound bite that will tell prospective members, funders or advertisers, what you are and what you seek to do. Test it out with others.
9. Will those you reach out to be willing to support you with initial membership or investment money?  If you are not comfortable asking, this enterprise may not be for you.
10. If you’ve done your research, gotten good feedback and clarified your mission and your niche, you are ready to move ahead.

Good luck.