I thought a lot and blogged a lot. I traveled to Denver, where I got to talk a lot. I gave birth to my kid nearly a year ago, and when the fog of labor and delivery lifted, I returned to thinking and blogging and talking. But one vital thing was missing: I wasn’t doing a lot. Classes were taken, presentations were attended, but I wasn’t applying what I’d learned. I was book smart, street stupid.

But that’s about to change. Right fucking now.

From this point forward, The Hyperlocalist blog won’t be a retrospective analysis or an experiment conducted in a vacuum. Instead, it will follow the development of my new hyperlocal venture — The Jackson Heights (NY) Herald. This will be an online business plan, a test of whether my ideas and those learned along the way will work in the real world.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

ZING! It hurt like hell, but it was the truth. When news audiences receive free content, they no longer count as customers. They’re not dropping coin to keep the lights on or the servers running. They don’t pay for writers’ salaries. And even if they contribute “emotional” value to a news outlet through reader comments, that value doesn’t do jack for a business if it doesn’t translate into dollars and cents.

In my previous attempt at hyperlocal news, I placed the audience’s satisfaction ahead of business development. It was a colossal mistake. Readers loved my frank restaurant reviews as much as restaurant owners hated them, and that meant an enormous loss of potential advertising revenue from the neighborhood’s largest industry.

This time, I hope to develop my audience and customer base simultaneously without jeopardizing the quality of my publication’s content. Here’s how:

Extend services unrelated to my publication to residents and the business community. One of the revenue streams I plan to pursue is group-discount brokering (the Groupon model). To make it work, I need a mailing list of prospective shoppers (an audience) and business customers willing to offer these shoppers a discount. To build this mailing list, I plan to attend local meet-ups to learn what residents want or need from their community, and to gently introduce the idea of group discounts. Call it market research.

That information becomes leverage when approaching business customers for group discounts. It also brings together an otherwise non-paying audience with paying customers, without selling out a news outlet’s integrity.

Build my publication’s audience slooooooowly. Since setting up a beta site earlier this month, I’ve posted only two stories. But I’ve used Twitter to publicize my organization as a news source, mostly by retweeting neighborhood-specific stories from larger news outlets and by posting photos. So far, I have 13 followers, and that’s fine with me.

This modest following allows me to test different things, from writing style and voice, to website design. The publication’s slow, deliberate development also gives me the opportunity to educate customers (in this case, advertisers) on how my business operates, not as a quick hustle but as the next evolutionary step in advertising.

Those are my first two steps in building the business, though I should keep a few spare ideas in my pocket should neither of these approaches work.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user chillhiro.

I finally saw the concept come together last weekend, marching down the avenue like a big parade — the neighborhood’s 18th annual gay-pride parade, to be exact. Thousands of people lined the street to see politicians wave at the crowds, drag queens dance to Miley Cyrus, and leather mamas prowl on motorcycles. It was a good gig.

My original game plan for the parade was to photograph the hell out of it, with the intent of building a marketable stockpile for other publications to use (for a fee, of course). But I also took note of what spectators were doing on the sidelines. Some of them were noshing on breakfast, many others were on their cell phones, calling or texting friends for a post-parade lunch. Still others were buying souvenir flags and buttons.

That’s when I had my epiphany. Everything these spectators did represented revenue-raising opportunities for a hyperlocal news outlet. Hungry crowds would have spelled jackpot for local restaurants and the hyperlocalist selling discounted meal tickets in advance. (For more information on this revenue-sharing stream, check out this brilliant post from the Nieman Journalism Lab. It’s a goody.) Advanced souvenir sales using the same method could have added to the profits.

A hyperlocal news outfit also could have hosted a pre- or post-parade event, driving revenue either through a cover charge, advanced ticket sales or event-planning services. Of course, selling ads to parade participants, retailers along the parade route, and even those marching politicians up for re-election would have been another juicy revenue stream.

Admittedly, these ideas have nothing to do with how editorial content is created. Instead, they’re about diversifying the money flow without guessing when or how that flow happens. And if an editorial calendar can help a hyperlocalist do that, then why not use it.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ennuipoet.

However, Buddy was worried about a potential conflict of interest. Might this solitary business investor dictate content to the detriment of his publication’s journalistic integrity? Would this be a deal with the devil?

My advice to him was this: Make the damn deal, but hammer out every detail first. That includes details in one’s business plan, corporate or nonprofit structure, and newsroom hierarchy (even if it’s a newsroom of one). Getting his house in order allows Buddy to spell out his publication’s financial and philosophical objectives to this investor, and it will help both parties understand where the boardroom ends and the newsroom begins.

Next, I suggested that Buddy and his investor test drive this business arrangement on his existing publication. Instead of launching new franchises from scratch, Buddy can apply the investor’s capital to expanding his current news coverage into adjacent neighborhoods, taking advantage of his existing network of local freelance reporters and bloggers. If the expanded coverage proves to be self-sustaining, he can then launch franchises with the same journalistic clout and financial stamina of his original publication.

Buddy’s one investor can also be his greatest cheerleader, encouraging other businesses to invest in or advertise with his original news outlet and new franchise network. After all, a viable hyperlocal news product reflects a neighborhood worthy of investment, something from which area retailers, restaurateurs, employers, homeowners and municipal agencies benefit.

I hope Buddy keeps me up to date on how this business arrangement progresses and whether he’s taken approaches other than what’s mentioned above. In the meantime, hyperlocalists can get help with the nuts, bolts and numbers of their business plans with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), a terrific nonprofit group that advises small business owners.

Good luck, Buddy!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user mtsofan.

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.