Growthspur
At the end of last month co-founder of Washington Post Digital Mark Potts announced the launch of Growthspur - a new company aimed at finding new business models to support local news and information sources in the US.

Training in advertising sales and organising local ad networks amongst sites are just two of the strategies for local sites planned by the new firm.

But while ad-based revenue is the most obvious, Growthspur will also investigate e-commerce, couponing, mobile applications and other possible streams of revenue for its partner sites, Potts tells Journalism.co.uk.

Potts has first-hand experience in this field after setting up - and later closing - hyperlocal network BackFence.com. Growthspur will take lessons from the BackFence experiment, says Potts, in particular the challenge of sustaining funding and momentum for a hyperlocal site once initial interest and funding has faded.

The new venture has some high profile team members - including former Microsoft executive Dave Chase and former digital executives from leading US newspaper groups - and is working with City University of New York's News Business Models for News project led by journalism professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis.

Following the initial launch announcement the firm has been 'flooded with inquiries from sites looking for our help', it said on its blog. Journalism.co.uk got in touch with Potts to find out more:

GrowthSpur will provide tools, training, services and ad networks for independent local media - at the current time, is help with one of these areas more necessary than in others?
[MP] Sites of different types and stages of growth need different kinds of assistance. Start-ups may immediately benefit most from access to tools and training; more mature sites (and sites run by media companies) may be better suited for membership in one of the local ad networks we're creating, so that they can get access to additional local ad inventory and sales.

Is independent local media in the US open to collaboration?
We're seeing a great deal of interest from both independent sites and more traditional sites, such as those owned by newspapers. Many newspaper sites have had difficulty - because of cost structures and culture - effectively selling to small local advertisers, and can thus benefit from the local networks we're organising.

We're not in the content business, so we're not going to try to rethink newsroom cultures. But we can help these more mature organizations reach a broader set of local advertisers.

Are you looking to create networks between local media news and information sites?
We're pretty much agnostic about network membership: if you serve a local audience, with a quality product, we're interested in having you in the network. It doesn't much matter if it's an independent site or an established media site. They all need to reach local advertisers and can do a better job of that by cooperating in GrowthSpur local networks. Very few of these sites are truly directly competitive, so the network should be beneficial to all.

In your launch announcement, you said, 'we make money if you make money'. How much time will Growthspur spend with a project while it's not making a profit?
Our focus is on increasing their revenue and we'll take a slice of that. If a site uses our tools and training and is a member of a local network, it should see a significant increase in revenue and at that point we all benefit. If they don't fully participate, then it's their revenue that suffers.

I suppose there's some scenario under which we'd drop a site that's not pulling its weight, but their motivation should be to make money and survive, so we all benefit.

Have you taken inspiration from other projects in the US or elsewhere, e.g. new advertising models such as Flyerboard or the MinnPost?
We've been particularly interested in the work that Glam has done in creating an ad network for sites serving women, and that was one of our models in thinking about GrowthSpur.

We've also studied other networks, as well, but as far as we know, nobody is laser-focused on serving the kind of local sites - especially the independent start-ups - that we're working with.

Funny you should mention Flyerboard: I'm an adviser to and investor in PaperG, which created Flyerboard, and they'll be one of our tools partners. That's a great example of a cool technology that we can bring to independent sites who otherwise might never have known about it or had access.

What lessons can the so-called 'mainstream media' learn from the entrepreneurial projects that Growthspur is aimed at?
Be entrepreneurial! This is a time of great change in the media business, and you have to be nimble and aggressive and innovative and flexible about taking advantage of that change. The traditional models are breaking down quickly, and you have to be willing to stop clinging to them and try new things.

The 2,000 or so local sites that have sprung up in the past couple of years or so in the US to provide in-depth coverage to local audiences are examples of that sort of entrepreneurial spirit, and those are the sites we're targeting for success with GrowthSpur. We want to support them and make them viable businesses.

What type of sites have signed up as charter partners?
We're already in talks with a wide range of sites, from one-person start-ups to well-established city sites, to sites operated by newspapers and broadcasters.

We've been deluged with inquiries - clearly, we've struck a chord. We'll begin working with our first site partners over the next few weeks and we're really looking forward to finding out more about their challenges and how we can help make them more successful businesses

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