Deadline: 1-Aug-21
Applications are currently being accepted for the 2021 Google News Initiative (GNI) Startups Boot Camp to help aspiring news entrepreneurs in the U.S.
This is an eight-week fully-remote program starting in September 2021.
GNI will be accepting up to 24 solo founders or teams of aspiring entrepreneurs who have identified a community’s need for better news and want guidance and coaching on how to launch, or continue to develop, a news offering that delivers a solution rooted in journalism.
- Made for journalism: A laser-focused, and immensely practical curriculum that is focused on doing over listening
- Live seminars: Weekly live video seminars with a small cohort of like-minded journalism entrepreneurs
- Personalized coaching: Weekly one-on-one coaching to help you move your idea forward toward launch, or growth
- Annual LION Membership: A year-long “aspiring entrepreneurs” membership to LION Publishers.
Date
- Classes will begin the week of September 7 and end the week of November 5, 2021.
Benefits
You should consider this boot camp if:
- You have identified a community’s need for better news, information and/or engagement and think you can deliver a solution
- You’re less than a year into running your news business and want to re-evaluate some of your core hypotheses and make adjustments to improve your financial sustainability
- You’re committed to public-service reporting with communities, not on communities
- You’re committed to making your business idea financially sustainable as quickly as possible
- You’re able to commit at least eight hours a week for eight weeks to turn your business idea into reality (ideally, you can commit more time)
- They are especially interested in entrepreneurs who want to serve communities that don’t often see themselves or their stories reflected in their local news.
Outcomes
The ability to describe your business idea concisely and compellingly
- A realistic revenue forecast for the next six, 12, 24, and 36 months
- A set of three-month objectives and a plan for how to achieve them
- A deeper understanding of your community’s needs, and how your project will meet those needs
- Confidence from having run small experiments to prove your idea and that have provided you with valuable, objective data on your business’s viability
- Knowledge of which technology and tools are the best fit for your undertaking
- A “continuous innovation” mindset that will help to keep your project relevant for years to come
- And, most optimistically, some customers!
What kinds of business ideas are eligible?
- Efforts focused on delivering local news and civic information
- Reporting-based businesses focused on encouraging civic engagement
- Already-launched businesses focused on single-subject reporting that is not geographically bound
Eligibility Criteria
- You should be based in, and plan to launch in, the U.S. or Puerto Rico. If you decide to apply to a future part of this program, you will need to be authorized to work in your country of residence.
- You should be comfortable with written and spoken English, as all sessions and assignments will be in English only for this session (I hope they can deliver the boot camp in other languages in the near future.)
- You can join as an individual or as a team. If you already have a team, up to two of you can participate in the boot camp sessions and coaching. (Sidenote: If you do have a team, a good goal is to have one person for each of these core expertise areas: editorial, business and/or marketing, product and/or technology.)
- You have some journalism experience or a business background and passion for the community you want to serve.
For more information, visit https://www.gnistartupsbootcamp.com/
