A few years ago when I first decided to go capitalist with my hyperlocal news site, I attended an intensive workshop on how to write a business plan. It was very informative and completely terrifying. The realities of entrepreneurship finally caught up with my journalism dream and kicked my ass.
Foolishly, I drove my news site for three years without the business plan. And then the business was no more.
As I take steps towards starting my next hyperlocal venture, I realize that a business plan is more important than I ever believed. Journalists don’t do numbers, and that’s all the more reason to take time before editorial responsibilities consume every ounce of entrepreneurial energy to map out a route to financial success (or at least solvency).
My first whack at a business plan is to draft a one-year editorial calendar. (One can draft a longer calendar, but as lots of news items are cyclical, I’ll work with 12 months.) Building this editorial calendar hopefully will ease me into the tasks of estimating business expenses, developing revenue streams, or at least cooking up a mission statement.
Moreover, I believe this editorial calendar and subsequent business plan can help me raise seed money from micro-venture capitalists (read: mom-and-pop businesses in my coverage area). It’ll educate them on what this hyperlocal project intends to do while allowing me — the journalist who doesn’t do numbers — to pitch my ideas with confidence grounded in what I do know: content creation.
To clarify, the 12-month editorial calendar differs from the business’s three- or five-year outlook. But the editorial calendar should give me an idea of how my business can grow, based on predicted expenses and revenues.
I’m throwing this idea at the wall. Let’s see if it sticks.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mike Rohde.
Why not start with Jeff Jarvis’ biz models?
Thanks for your comment, Ian.
When I first saw Jarvis’s business models last November, I nearly cried. I couldn’t make heads or tails of his spreadsheets. Also, his models at the time assumed a beat population of 5 million, give or take a mill. He’s since scaled things down to a population of 20,000.
I’ll take another look at them, but there’s no guarantee I won’t weep again.
Update: Can anyone spare a hanky? — JD (Mar 16, 2010)
Sounds like you’re off to a solid start at least… Always good to have a plan…!
[...] Planning on a hyperlocal business plan — Jennifer Deseo writes about using an editorial planning calendar as the first step in creating a business plan for her new hyperlocal web site. Interesting idea, I say. [...]
been working quite some time on business plans for hyper-local sites. here is a diagram of what we believe is a fairly accurate gameplan. at this point, we a slowly picking the ‘easy’ tasks first. so far , so good.
http://meltaylormedia.com/2010/03/22/revenue-models-for-local-sites/