Crains New York - July 9, 2012 - (Page 8)

SMALL BUSINESS J-school grads turn to startup scene With traditional jobs scarce, newly minted journalists try launching businesses help from their families. Revenues are now “in the five figures,” according to Ms. Fiumi. “We made the right move.” E BY ANNE FIELD lettra Fiumi and Léa Khayata didn’t set out to become digital entrepreneurs. But a year ago, as the 10-month master’s degree program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism neared its end, the two classmates asked a professor for advice about their next steps after graduation. His suggestion: Try forming a startup leveraging their skills in digital journalism, and video production in particular. It seemed like a good idea to the friends, who had worked on projects together during the school year. “We decided to give ourselves a year to try it out,” Ms. Fiumi said. So, in September, the two formed a Manhattan-based company called Granny Cart Productions, drawing on personal savings and Low barriers to entry Ms. Fiumi and Ms. Khayata are among a small but growing number of recent journalism-school graduates who 1. NETWORK are eschewing EFFECTIVELY The conventional caNY Tech Meetup reer paths and is a good place to raise a digital choosing instartup’s profile. stead to launch 2. THINK BIG their own digital Equity investors startups in New tend to back York. ventures with the “The tradipotential to grow much larger. tional progres3. FIND A sion of working PAYCHECK your way up You may need a from a small steady side gig newspaper to a that covers the rent early on. bigger one isn’t what it once was,” said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. And technological advances mean the barriers to entering the digital arena can be low: “All we TIPS need,” Ms. Fiumi noted, “are our laptops, cameras and the skills we learned at school.” However, startups with contentoriented sites sometimes have a harder time raising money than other Web companies, according to Jeremy Caplan,director of education at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. “Investors aren’t as interested in content as in companies providing platforms that are more scalable,” Mr. Caplan said. Many such entrepreneurs credit at least some of their success so far to being located in New York, with its thriving digital scene. About a week after attending a recent venture-capital networking event, for example, a connection whom Ms. Khayata met there emailed her about a colleague who needed a video to be produced. Since then, she’s done four videos for that client. “I can’t imagine starting this business anywhere else,” she said. In some cases, J-school grads turned entrepreneurs had startup experience before entering their programs. Take Shane Snow, who graduated from Columbia in 2010 and, later that year, co-founded Contently, a platform that links up vetted journalists with publishers. To support himself while enrolled as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Mr. Snow started several online businesses, including one designing websites for small business owners and another designing infographics, which he continued running after he graduated in 2007. “I knew I wanted to build a company,” Mr. Snow said. “I just wasn’t sure what it would be.” His company now has 12 employees and is generating “about six figures a month,” according to Mr. Snow. In December, Contently raised $2 million from Lightbank, a Chicago-based venture-capital firm, and a group of angel investors. STAYING NIMBLE: Granny Cart Productions’ Léa Khayata (left) and Elettra Fiumi are using their journalism skills to grow their business. Passion for videos pays off After Lance Steagall graduated in 2010 from NYU with a joint M.A. in journalism and Latin American studies, he worked as a freelance videographer and online editor. In his spare time, he and a friend made videos of rock groups they liked in Brooklyn. Those projects eventually caught the eye of cre- ative agencies, and in August the two friends decided to start a company producing videos for corporate clients, as well as designing apps and websites. Called Collabo!, it’s started to bring in money, pulling in “under $100,000 in revenues,” according to Mr. Steagall. To sign up for Crain’s SMALL BUSINESS newsletter, go to www.crainsnewyork.com/smallbiz. GE Capital LIKE A BANK: WE CAN LOAN YOU MONEY. UNLIKE A BANK: WE CAN ALSO LOAN YOU BOB. At GE Capital, we’re not just bankers, we’re builders. So not only can we give you smart financing, we can also bring you expertise from across GE. Consider what we did for The Great Courses, a leader in educational media for lifelong learning. Bob and a GE team showed them how to apply our Lean Process techniques to streamline their operations in ways that can save over $1 million. Chances are we have someone like Bob with the know-how to help make your business more competitive – and we’re happy to share. Stop just banking. And start building. GE works. Bob Morton GE Lean Process Specialist GECapital.com 8 | Crain’s New York Business | July 9, 2012 buck ennis http://www.crainsnewyork.com/smallbiz http://www.GECapital.com http://www.GECapital.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - July 9, 2012

Crains New York - July 9, 2012
Contents
In the Markets
The Insider
Small Business
Business People
Executive Moves
Real Estate Deals
Opinion
Greg David
For the Record
Classifieds
From Around the City
New York, New York
Source Lunch
Out and About
Snaps

Crains New York - July 9, 2012