Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship MEDIA INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Edited by Michelle Ferrier & Elizabeth Mays Jake Batsell, CJ Cornell, Geoffrey Graybeal, Mike Green, Mark Poepsel, Jessica Pucci, Cindy Royal, Ingrid Sturgis, Betty Tsakarestou, Jan Schaffer, Abel Asrat, Rediat Belehu, Lori Benjamin, Dana Coester, Chris Dell, John Dille, Dalton Dellsperger, Amy Eisman, Melanie Faizer, Francine Hardaway, Gretchen Macchiarella, Hodan Osman, Mark J. Scarp, Coury Turczyn, Georgann Yara, Kat Friedrich, Ebony Reed, Daniel Zayas, and Cheryl Cuillier Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Edited by Michelle Ferrier & Elizabeth Mays is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. ©2017-2020 Michelle Ferrier, Elizabeth Mays, Jake Batsell, CJ Cornell, Geoffrey Graybeal, Mike Green, Mark Poepsel, Jessica Pucci, Cindy Royal, Ingrid Sturgis, Betty Tsakarestou, Jan Schaffer, Abel Asrat, Rediat Belehu, Lori Benjamin, Dana Coester, Chris Dell, Dalton Dellsperger, John Dille, Amy Eisman, Melanie Faizer, Francine Hardaway, Gretchen Macchiarella, Hodan Osman, Mark Scarp, Coury Turczyn, Georgann Yara. All authors retain the copyright on their work. Except where otherwise noted, all work in this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0), meaning you can use it, adapt it, and redistribute it as you like, but you must provide attribution to the original authors, by retaining this license notice. We request that you keep this full notice when you use the book. You can find free copies of this book in multiple formats (web, PDF, EPUB) at: https://press.rebus.community/ media-innovation-and-entrepreneurship/ Do you have comments about this book? Please visit https://forum.rebus.community/category/20/ jmc-media-innovation-entrepreneurship-lead-dr-michelle-ferrier-ohio-university. Rebus Community This book was created with support from the Rebus Community for Open Textbook Creation, where we are building new collaborative models for creating & sustaining open textbooks. Would you like to collaborate on an open textbook? Join the Rebus Community at forum.rebus.community. Are you a faculty member or administrator with questions about this book, or about open textbooks generally? Please get in touch with us at [email protected]. CONTENTS Foreword ix Jan Schaffer Preface from the Editors xiv Michelle Ferrier and Elizabeth Mays Praise for Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship xix New Additions for Fall 2018 xxi New Additions for Fall 2019 xxii New Additions for Fall 2020 xxiv Developing the Entrepreneurial Mindset Developing the Entrepreneurial Mindset 2 Mike Green Digital Media on the Rise 13 Mark J. Scarp The Uncertain Future of Media’s Unicorns 16 Melanie Faizer Deadlines or Depth? The Model of ‘Slow News’ Startups 19 Melanie Faizer Taking Risks and Building Resilience on the Path to Innovation 22 Dana Coester From the Field: Q&A With a Young Innovator 27 Dana Coester What’s an Intrapreneur? And How Do I Become One? 31 Interview with Ebony Reed Looking Ahead 35 Ideation Ideation 37 Michelle Ferrier Looking Ahead 57 Customer Discovery Customer Discovery for Content and Tech Startups 60 Ingrid Sturgis Looking Ahead 81 Business Models for Content & Technology Ventures Business Models for Content and Technology Plays 84 Geoffrey Graybeal From the Field: Refining Our Business Plan Was the Key to Attracting Our 103 First Investor Dalton Dellsperger From the Field: Making Student Media Sustainable 107 Gretchen Macchiarella From the Field: Writing a Business Plan & Budget 113 John Dille Nonprofit Model Development Nonprofit Model Development 118 Jake Batsell From the Field: The Knoxville Experiment 143 Coury Turczyn Exercise: Being a Media Nonprofit 148 Freelancing as Entrepreneurship and Consulting as Business Models Freelancing as Entrepreneurship and Consulting as Business Models 153 Elizabeth Mays From the Field: How to Get and Keep Gigs as a Freelance Journalist 165 Georgann Yara From the Field: How I Ditched the 9 to 5 and Built a Business I Could Live 169 With Lori Benjamin Looking Ahead 173 Startup Funding Startup Funding: Introduction 176 CJ Cornell Startup Funding: Why Funding 183 CJ Cornell Startup Funding: Traditional Venture Funding 190 CJ Cornell Startup Funding: Nontraditional Funding Sources 201 CJ Cornell Startup Funding: Crowdfunding 213 CJ Cornell From the Field: Friends, Family and Fools Funding 226 Francine Hardaway From the Field: The Journey from Listening to Leader 229 Chris Dell From the Field: Your Kickstarter Campaign is a Story 233 Interview with Daniel Zayas by Elizabeth Mays Looking Ahead 237 Pitching Ideas Pitching Ideas 239 Mark Poepsel From the Field: The Perfect Pitch 266 Amy Eisman Looking Ahead 270 Marketing Your Venture to Audiences Marketing Your Venture to Audiences 273 Elizabeth Mays Marketing Your Venture: Engagement and Analytics 290 Jessica Pucci Looking Ahead 307 Product Management Product Management for Journalists 309 From the Field:Process Engineering Helped Build a Replicable Model for 322 Two Startup News Sites Entrepreneurship Abroad: Cultural and International Perspectives and Challenges Entrepreneurship Abroad: Cultural and International Perspectives and 329 Challenges Betty Tsakarestou From the Field: Technology and Media Entrepreneurship in China 355 Hodan Osman From the Field: Addis Insight - A Niche Site for the Ethiopian Diaspora 363 Abel Asrat and Rediat Belehu From the Field: A Short History of Silicon Valley 368 Francine Hardaway Instructor Resources Glossary 373 Acknowledgements 378 Cover Credits 381 License & Remixing Information 383 Accessibility Assessment 386 Review Statement 389 Errata 390 Instructor Resources 391 Help to Expand This Book! 393 Copy Editing Statement 394 FOREWORD Jan Schaffer The Case for Learning about Media Entrepreneurship: An Important Gateway to Your Future If you are enrolled in a journalism or communications program, you should shudder if your school never teaches you how to post stories to a content management system. You should flinch if you hear the word “convergence“1 dominating course offerings but never hear about design thinking or audience-engagement strategies. And while you should pursue grammar literacy, be wary if you are not learning how to parse the language and patterns of disruptive innovation, particularly the media disruption happening in front of you daily. As U.S. journalism and mass communications programs revamp to prepare you to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, there is—bar none—no better place to embrace and refine nearly every skill you will need to know than learning about media entrepreneurship and innovation. In the course of envisioning, prototyping and launching, you will integrate multimedia production, social media distribution, design thinking,2 data collection and analysis, and audience engagement strategies. As added benefits, you will develop business skills, begin to understand how to develop a product, how to discover customers, and how to manage all these activities so that you can deliver a new entrepreneurial startup. Or you may go the intrapreneurial route and spearhead a new venture inside your existing media organization. The Time Is Now Face it: You will be stepping into a world where media entrepreneurship is at an all-time high. Hundreds of downsized journalists are watering community media deserts by launching hyperlocal news startups. Scores of statewide nonprofit news ventures are bringing back accountability journalism to state capitals. Startup founders are embracing single-topic niche sites, doing deep dives into climate change, health care, arts and culture, public education, and more. And, of course, venture capitalists have turned the likes of Vice, Vox and BuzzFeed into $1 billion-plus unicorns,3 so confident are they of a return on their investment. x JAN SCHAFFER Of course, all of these initiatives not only need your journalistic skills, they also need outreach, social media sharing, ad sales, contact databases, event planning, membership drives, grant proposals, and the creation of regular quarterly or annual reports to let supporters know what they have accomplished. That’s where innovations in public relations skills are critical. How can there be so many new media ventures starting up at the same time legacy news organizations wring their hands, erect paywalls, and cut their way to attempted profitability? Clearly, something more than new business models is at play here. It’s important for you to learn about this. It’s clear that media entrepreneurs are articulating some new value propositions for their audiences. Nowadays, entirely new breeds of journalism are emerging from the imaginations of news entrepreneurs: mission-driven journalism, restorative narratives,4 soft-advocacy journalism,5 solutions journalism6 and activist journalism. Moreover, new media ventures are reaching out and engaging audiences in fresh, new ways, often building robust civic communications ecosystems. In learning about media innovation, you will be part of the creative process and a contributor to these new trends. So why should you learn about media entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and innovation? Skills With a Purpose Let’s count the ways: Advancing Digital Smarts To create a media startup, be it a website, an app, a tool, or something else, students have to know how to create a minimum viable product, update it, monitor metrics, and employ various social distribution platforms to attract users. Instead