brad flora: how to not suck at online advertising and publishing

WINDY CITIZEN

How not to suck at online publishing

and advertising

Brad Flora

@bradflora

@windycitizen

Background•Founder, Windy Citizen.com

•Prior: Princeton English (‘04), College

admissions officer, Northwestern Journalism

(’08)

•Recently: Won 2010 Knight News Challenge

•Find and pass along what’s hot in Chicago

•Twitter: @windycitizen

•Founded in May ‘08

•Bootstrapped company based in Chicago

•Niche social network, 10,000 registered

users, 100,000 uniques/month

What I did and learned in the last

two years.

Context

•Current iteration not actually first idea

•Not an engineer

•No advertising spend

•No investment capital

•Semi-hostile environment (news organizations not

interested in covering)

•Mostly done by non-technical people with some

guidance but no prior experience

Environment: 2008

•Tribune + Sun-times in bankruptcy

•City blogs on the rise (Chicagoist, Gapers Block)

•Dozens of young, underemployed writers

•Seemed like a no-brainer

Faulty Assumptions

•Started with a pretty naive take on things

•Traffic = Money

•Content = Traffic

•Journalism background gives me access to content

•High quality content -> The Google -> Traffic -> ??? -> Profit!

"I don't do local politics. That

****'s boring.“

-My sister's cute friend (20-something Chicago-based consultant)

Building a local audience is HARD

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

•Single-Threaded = Death

Lessons Learned

•Single-Threaded = Death•If 1:1 relationship between growth and

your effort, you’re doomed.

•If single point of failure, you’re doomed.

Lessons Learned

•Single-Threaded = Death•If 1:1 relationship between growth and your

effort, you’re doomed.

•No Point of View = Death

Lessons Learned




Single-Threaded


****'s boring.

Have you heard of Groupon?“


Average 20-something city dweller thinks:

Lessons Learned


Lessons Learned




STRONG POV

Lessons Learned




Lessons Learned




WEAK POV


****'s boring.




The Internet: Where sane people go

to read and experience crazy things.

Lessons Learned



Lessons Learned



•Make something people want

Public Enemy #1: Journo-Think

Journalist-turned-entrepreneur thinks:

“Local public affairs reporting is important!

Therefore, there’s demand for it.”


****'s boring.



Plan B

•Place to share your favorite local links

•Addressed single-threaded problem

•Addressed point of view problem

•The Year

•Phase 1: The Routine

•Phase 2: Ads

•Phase 3: Sell, sell, sell


****'s boring.“


Plan B

•Place to share your favorite local links

•Addressed single-threaded problem

•Addressed point of view problem

•The Year

•Phase 1: The Routine

•Phase 2: Ads

•Phase 3: Sell, sell, sell

The Pivot

Problem:

Had to figure out how to make

money. Wanted to sell ads.

The Problem With Banner Ads

•Learned early on that banner ads weren't going to

work for Windy Citizen

•Pricing is terrible

•Audience too small to get into large ad networks that

actually pay

•Ad networks serve irrelevant ads

•Needed to do direct sales, needed to have a product

that would justify direct sales

How do you add value to an ad?

•Advertising friends: "Targeting!"

•Another idea, what if you gave them more control

over their ad creative?

•People pay for convenience, not the actual product,

what if that applied to an online ad?

Real-Time Ads

•Launched first one in September

'09

•Price it on a negotiated monthly

basis rather than CPM

•Improved the design

•Numbers steadily improved

Opportunity

Knight News Challenge

•Annual innovation challenge (http://newschallenge.org)

•$5 million dollars to new ideas for the news industry

•Funded Everyblock


•A tortured history



•2008: Applied with Windy Citizen Idea (Cut in first round)




•2009: Applied a year into Windy Citizen (Cut in final round)




•2009: Applied a year into Windy Citizen (Cut in final round)

•2010: Applied with a business making (some) money…

WINNER!

NowSpots: New Company (!)

•Providing real-time advertising

tech to newspapers and other

local publishers

Going to save newspapers

by giving them better,

smarter tech.

NowSpots: New Company



local publishers

•Better prepared this time

around

•Able to draw on contacts made

through WC to find first customers

and build our founding team

•Web: NowSpots.com

•Twitter: @nowspots

•Launching Fall 2010!

Digging for gold -> Selling Shovels

NowSpots.com




If you care about the

future of newspapers,

join our e-mail list.

NowSpots: New Company



local publishers

•Better prepared this time

around

•Able to draw on contacts made

through WC to find first customers

and build our founding team




Recap

•Your first idea really does probably suck.

•Single threaded doesn’t work.

•You have to have a point of view.

•If people aren’t reading and sharing your content, it’s

probably because your stuff sucks.

•The only thing worse than making these mistakes is

chickening out for fear of making these mistakes.

•While working on your less great ideas, you might

come up with much better ones.

Thank You!

Questions?

Contact me on Twitter:

@bradflora

Get your Chicago fix:

@windycitizen

Help save newspapers!

@nowspots

brad flora: how to not suck at online advertising and publishing

Technology

single point of failure

local politics

pov weak singlethreaded

local audience

chicagobased consultant

s boring

strong povsinglethreaded

sisters cute friend