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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.

Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.

Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?

Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.

But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.

A few money rules

  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.

A few ground rules

  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:
    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money

Some basic money guides

Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.

  • Benefits

    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%

  • Rent

    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.
      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month

  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)

    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.
      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content

    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).

  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns

    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.

An important staffing note for nerds.

  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.

One final thing to remember

  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?

About

info for my SRCCON Session

Resources

Readme
Activity

Stars

7 stars

Watchers

1 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

Packages

Contributors

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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors

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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors

, 'i');
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try {
var __m = "*";
var __re = new RegExp('^' + ".*" + '

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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors

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})();
(function(){
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var __m = "youtube.com";
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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors

, 'i');
if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) {
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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
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Contributors

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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors

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Two million dollars and one hour: notes to help you not shit the bed.
Notes to accompany my SRCCON session.
Starting a news site is a balancing act: How can you achieve maximum editorial quality, awesome design, and kick-ass frontend apps (and the backend to support them), while having an infrastructure that doesn't go down, happy employees, an office space, and--eventually--achieve profitability?
Spoiler alert: We're totally not going to solve that in an hour.
But this session--like running a real business--is an exercise in managing the trade-offs, to figure out a strategy, and to achieve a balance that gets you moving towards profitability.
A few money rules
  • The Blackbeard Venture Fund has invested $2 million in your news startup. Each coin in the pirates purse you've been handed is worth $50,000.
  • You have two years to get your company in the black: There is no series B round, there is no exit strategy other than simply actually making money.
  • For this exercise we define "in the black" as self sufficiency, not actually paying the money back.
  • That means, by the end of year two, you need to be able to generate enough money to at least cover your monthly costs.
A few ground rules
  • This isn't just about moving coins around. You also need to develop a site people care about: You need an editorial POV, an audience, a publishing strategy, + plans for people actually finding out about your stuff.
  • Your group will need to decide on an editorial direction, how to staff it, and how to achieve profitability.
  • You need to give a TWO MINUTE PITCH at the end of the session. That pitch should include:

    • What the idea is
    • Who is it for
    • What's your staffing look like
    • How you allocated your budget
    • How you're making money
Some basic money guides
Hey: This is a room full of really smart people, and I bet you all have better ideas on some of this stuff (read: SERVER COSTS) than I do. But I did some basic blocking here.
  • Benefits
    • fine benefits: multiply your salary lines by 30%
    • good benefits: multiply your salary lines by 40%
    • silicon valley benefits: multiply your salary lines by 50%
  • Rent
    • Manhattan rent is around $65/square foot.
    • Portland, Oregon? $25/square foot.

      • Average guides say assume 100-150 sq ft per employee.
    • Going virtual instead? Slack is $7 per head per month
  • Servers (A lot of this pricing depends on what you're doing, obviously.)
    • A content-heavy site, without a lot of computing bells and whistles, served smartly, runs around $100/month per million visitors.
    • If you're running EC2 instances, Rackspace Cloud services, or Heroku Dynos--which you'll want to if you're doing any real computing (running news apps, building a custom backend or dynamic frontend, etc)--your pricing will be quite a bit different.

      • Very lightweight (running a single app for an interactive or two that's well cached, for instance, or heavily flatfiled, storage-only setups): $100/month
      • Midlevel EC2 (running apps with heavier compute needs): $500/month
      • Highlevel EC2 (running basically everything off a cloud stack): $1000-$2000/month
      • You milage could vary wildly. There are calculators:

  • Content
    • Going to go freelance? Reputable rates are (broadly) $250-500 per piece.
    • Obviously, there are plenty of places on the internet that pay less.
    • Less can mean free: but have a strategy for how that keeps up (and gets started to begin with).
  • Ping-pong tables, Ball Pits and Nerf Guns
    • Ima let you price this kinda thing out on your own. But remember they will require square footage.
An important staffing note for nerds.
  • DON'T FORGET SUPPORT STAFF: Who cuts your checks, balances your books, answers the phones? Probably not you or the folks doing the reporting.
  • If you're going to make money from selling ads or putting on events or some other way, there's probably staff involved in that too.
One final thing to remember
  • Your costs reflect where you are in the process. Maybe you don't need bulletproof servers while you're in the early stage of building. Maybe your front-end dev needs grow as the site does? Maybe you don't need a ball pit... at all?
About
info for my SRCCON Session
Resources
Readme
Activity
Stars
7 stars
Watchers
1 watching
Forks
0 forks
Report repository
Releases
Packages
Contributors