Technically Media team retreat June 2016

With $1.67M in 2016 income, here’s what I learned with Technically Media

Harvard University’s Nieman Lab journalism trade publication profiled last week Technically Media, the digital media company I cofounded, for the first time since 2012 (that year we got both a profile and an expansion look).

This new profile, which you should read, seemed like a grand opportunity to revisit the check I made in 2015 when we surpassed $1 million in revenue for the first time. So to supplement my professional accomplishments of last year, I wanted to share a few notes included in the Nieman Lab report I find important.

Here are a few lessons for you I internalized in 2016:

  • Maintain growth: It was crucial that we continue to expand our business, as we did in an array of ways. Until we reach a size we think is effective to maintain, I’ll be eager to see our growth look like it has.
  • Budget wisely: As that Nieman Lab profile lede shares, Brian and I got our budget projections wrong for 2016. We course corrected but it was challenging.
  • Get your team included: I really wanted to make sure someone other than my cofounder Brian and I were in the piece, so I was thrilled our longtime teammate Juliana Reyes was included.
  • Know your focus: We are moving aggressively toward talent matchmaking. More on this to come.
  • Stay true to what makes you special: Our mix of journalism and community focus has continued to be our focus. We must serve a community that needs us enough to pay us to do that work.

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  • Strive for diverse revenue: From our outset, we have wanted to make money in an array of ways. So as our events business dominated our revenue several years ago, we’ve worked to limit that and now actually lessen its impact, as a percentage.
  • Keep individual clients limited: We have actively sought to keep all clients under 20 percent of our overall revenue. That’s meant we’ve pursued an array of corporate clients to supplement our smaller sponsors.

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