With a team of six veteran journalists and a powerful board of advisors (including Lauren Rich Fine), MedCity News focuses on medical industry news in Ohio and and Minnesota. The site is only one of three “products” offered, however. MedCity News Service and MedCity News Custom give the company a diversified revenue source, in addition to the high CPM advertising the dot-com site has been able to generate.
Chris Seper co-founded the site with Mary Vanac. Both are veterans from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and are part of a growing trend of new media ventures targeting niche business topics with newspaper talent. (TechFlash and Xconomy are two other examples.) I interviewed Seper via email this week to find out how it’s going.
When did the site launch?
Mary Vanac and I walked out of The Plain Dealer on Dec. 17, 2008 (took buyouts from the paper) and started the next day in the corner of a marketing company owned by one of our early investors.
Did you have a business plan at the time?
Yes.
Describe the business opportunity you were seeking to capitalize on.
Two converging forces have created a unique opportunity for innovation in the media marketplace. The first force is the unprecedented disruption of the news and media industries. Rapidly evolving technologies, dramatically changing consumption habits and a shift in publishing power from media companies to individuals and any institution have converged to create specific opportunities for the creation of innovative, online, niche news media that meet the needs of targeted high-value audiences.
The second force contributing to our marketplace opportunity is the emergence of health care as one of this country’s Top 3 growth industries. Given its growing size, its economic significance and its diverse and valuable audience targets, the “business of health care” represents a natural vertical industry channel ripe for niche news reinvention. Health care today accounts for 16.3 percent of our gross domestic product, with more than $2 trillion in health care expenditures in 2007 alone; and stands at the center of a growing debate about both our economic stability and the quality of life in this country. Healthcare – through the growth of Web content, social media, in-house magazines and marketing materials – is one of the leading industries participating in custom publishing.
What is your projected audience and revenue for 2010? (If you can’t offer specific numbers, we’ll take YOY growth in percent vs. 2009)?
We’ll make well over a half-million this year. We made as much in the first quarter of this year as we did in all of 2009, which was our first year.
We’ll consistently have a six-figure unique monthly audience by year’s end. We’ve had six-figure uniques already, but not month-in, month-out.
What is new or innovative about MedCity News?
MedCity News is a content company that delivers original reporting and custom content for organizations and individuals with a vested interest in health care. It is a solution for media companies and organizations that need content, stakeholders who need actionable information about the medical industry, and advertisers who want to speak to this valuable niche audience.
Designed to take advantage of emerging forms of online publishing, content production and targeted delivery, MedCity News has built a business model with low fixed costs; a creative, tiered content strategy; and an ability to quickly scale both geographically and by subject matter. The economic model of MedCity News benefits by generating revenue in three distinct ways:
– Syndication: The MedCity News Service operates like a niche version of The Associated Press by producing content on the economics of health care any publisher can use through pre-negotiated paid contracts or a la carte syndication deals.
– Custom content: Recognizing that in today’s media environment everyone is a publisher, MedCity News Custom provides specific, made-to-order content created by experienced media professionals who are managed by MedCity News.
– Online advertising: Targeted, paid advertising for high-income/high-impact niche audiences within the professional medical industry is available on MedCityNews.com, a destination health care Web site that provides information for industry stakeholders.
We’re following in the footsteps of VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Politico and others. The idea is to become the go-to source for information in your industry segment (tech, politics, healthcare, etc.) and monetize that position.
Are there plans for expansion? Is so, what and where?
We’re raising money right now. We’re in Minneapolis and Cleveland. We’ll open offices in two more “medical cities” by year’s end and continue to grow our sales force (don’t want to say where). By the end of 2011 I want to be in eight locations.