Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. I’ve said that many times, starting with my first book almost 10 years ago. It’s always been true. And is the cornerstone of the talk I delivered Wednesday to a group of smart, enterprising college professors at ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism during the Scripps Howard workshop for entrepreneurial […]
Archive for the ‘Entrepreneurial journalism’ Category
January 6th, 2017
Six steps to turn your idea into a product
Mark Briggs 
Posted in Entrepreneurial journalism, Execution is everything, Practical advice 
Comments Off April 10th, 2014
Investing in people and product: a playbook for success
The news business is changing. Maybe you’ve heard? While the implosion of Project Thunderdome at Digital First Media has captured the “future of news” crowd’s consciousness recently with many trying to gauge the evolution of the news business through this unfortunate development. But I’ve decided to break my long blogging drought to highlight a couple […]
September 26th, 2013
Build your blog into a business
“You’re not bloggers. You’re media companies.” That was my message to a group gathered at the International Food Bloggers Conference last weekend in Seattle. Unlike many news startups, food bloggers enjoy multiple revenue opportunities, because their content is “close to the cash register” in investor parlance. Some of those revenue streams include: recipe development teaching […]
August 21st, 2013
Quick pitch: The art of telling your story in two minutes
You know about the “elevator pitch.” It’s the concept of being able to explain an idea in 30 seconds or less, about the time you’d spend talking to someone in an elevator. It’s a great test for any idea since the longer it takes you to explain said idea, the less grasp you really have […]
August 9th, 2013
Announcing Fork: An iPhone app for food, photos and friends
As you know, I love a good side project. I started writing my first book, Journalism 2.0, while I was running the website of the The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. and, somewhere in the process of setting the alarm for 5 a.m., I formed a habit. Ever since, I’ve had a side project of […]
June 12th, 2012
Force multiplier: BlogHer powering thousands of entrepreneurs
BlogHer is well-known in the digital content world but may not be as well known in journalism circles. The company was founded in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins and, one could argue, it has done more to power entrepreneurial journalism than any other. (We’re done quibbling over “blogging vs. […]
May 21st, 2012
This is what startup news success looks like
Ideas are cheap and execution is everything. I’ve been saying this for a long time so it was with great pride that I was able to help build a two-day seminar the Poynter Institute for rookie journo-entrepreneurs packed with real examples of amazing execution. In past entrepreneurial workshops and bootcamps, we tried to teach all […]
February 16th, 2012
Slaying the zombie: Yes, you can make money online
Let me echo the fine post by Robert Niles over at OJR, since its focus is the same as Chapter 3 in my latest book. Making money publishing content online CAN be done, IS being done, and does not have to involve a paywall. As Niles advises: Build a large, engaged community of readers, and […]
February 2nd, 2012
Six Traits of Successful Entrepreneurial Journalists webinar next week
I am frequently asked what traits to successful journo-entrepreneurs share. Having communicated with dozens of them while researching and analyzing their journalism startups in the past few years, I think I have a pretty good sense of what those common traits are and will discuss them in some depth next Thursday during a webinar hosted […]
February 1st, 2012
Good journalism AND good capitalism
Can a good journalist be a good capitalist? It’s a question that was posed miles away but influenced a dynamic discussion about journalism startups at last night’s #Newsnext meetup in Seattle, co-sponsored by ONA and SPJ. On display were GeekWire and Xconomy, two startups I have written about before, which are thriving using different approaches […]
