NewsTilt Founder: 'Everything Started Going To Shit'

NewsTilt was supposed to rescue journalism. Instead, it shut down less than three months after launch. Now cofounder Paul Biggar breaks down why the startup failed. In a posting on his personal blog, Biggar says that soon after launch, "everything started going to shit." The challenges the company faced were "the lack of traction from launch, that we had lost the faith of our journalists, and because there were communication issues between Nathan (my co-founder) and I. This combination also killed our motivation." More revelations: "We weren't intrinsically motivated by news and journalism.""We did not have the money to fix the issues with NewsTilt, and it would have been tough to raise more.""The journalists we picked were too good...In hindsight, this may have been a big mistake. The kind of writer we actually needed was one that was hungry to succeed. Someone who would write five pieces a day, and who wanted nothing more than to be a big-time journalist.""I don't understand news readers. I certainly wasn't one, and I didn't know many people who really were.""We didn't really know anything about the industry, or what readers wanted." It sounds like a total shitfest, to be honest. But Biggar says he's convinced that the idea behind NewsTilt could be a success in other hands, though: "The journalists wanted...to be in control of their own destinies. They don't like how their newspapers are essentially fucking up their lives and possibly their pensions, and they don't like the content mill alternatives. They really loved the model that we only made money if they did, and that a 20% cut was the way to go about it." Either way. Three months and then boom, nothing. Lessons to be learned here about working on your passion, to be sure.

Fishbowl

NewsTilt Founder: 'Everything Started Going To Shit'

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman