Entrepreneurial questions and answers

For part three of our homework assignment, we were asked to answer the following questions about our semester project:

Question: I have read your idea and I would like to understand a little more about it. What need does this idea fill? Is this a need that you have yourself? Who would share this need?

Answer: I personally do not have a need for this idea, but it fills an area of journalism that does not currently exist. Now that journalism is entering a fully digital age, I think it is time to start embracing unique ways in which we tell stories; my idea fills a need to tell stores in a new and digital approach. My idea is aimed primarily at the gaming community, so it would be fans of video games and the video game industry who would share this need.

Q: At this point you should have some idea of who the average user of your product will be. What is the profile of that person?

A: Like I said before, the average user of my product would be a fan of video games and the video game industry. That being said, it would be hard to put a profile on this person. The common stereotype of a gamer is a nerdy individual who spends hours upon hours playing games, but that stereotype isn't necessarily true. Anybody can play video games, so it is impossible to make an accurate profile of a user of my product.

Q: Who wants this product that you intend to develop?

A: Anyone who has an interest in news and/or video games would have an interest in my product. The idea is to appeal to both everyday news readers and gamers, and I think this would provide both types of people a unique way to experience news.

Q: What problem or need are you satisfying for your customers? (Remember, the customers aren't necessarily the people who will be using your product. For example, television audiences aren't customers unless they pay for the product, as in HBO. The customers are advertisers.)

A: It's hard to deny that two of the biggest industries are the gaming and news industries. I think it would be a great opportunity for advertisers to get their products out to a large population. 

Q: Who wants this product?

A: Gamers and those interested in new ways to tell journalistic stories want this product. The video game community is critical, but it is also willing to try new things. There are unique innovations in the gaming industry all the time, and gamers are always willing to try something that could potentially improve their gaming experience. 

Q: We all have to live. Where is the money in this product?

A: Like other news outlets, the company would offer different subscription packages for the news stories and the video games. 

Q: You are a journalist. Where is the journalism in this product?

A: Although my company would be making games, it would also be dedicated to delivering factual and ethical stories on a daily basis to prove that we are serious journalists. In addition, hired reporters would make sure that each game is as factual and ethical as the articles. We would be making games, but we would be making games for the sake of telling stories in a new and interactive way. 

Q: We've read that passion is key to success of a new venture. Money alone will not sustain it. So where is the passion in your product?

A: I have loved video games ever since I was a child, and for the past three years I have been learning how important and integral journalism is to the world. These two things have had a large impact on my life throughout my college career, and I don't believe it is enough to work in one of the industries. I want to make good video games that tell well-written stories.

Semester project discussion

For part two of our homework assignment, I sit down with three of my friends to talk about my semester project idea, which is a news company that makes games based off of news stories.

My semester project idea

Our homework assignment for this week consisted of three parts. The first is to clearly and concisely write out our semester project idea in a couple of sentences. The second was to run our idea by three people, and the third part was to answer a series of questions that our professor made up for us. Here is the first part:

My semester project idea is a news company that aims to appeal to the gaming culture by developing small video games on a monthly basis based off of top news stories that have strong narratives. In addition to this, the company would secure its position as a news outlet by reporting on international and gaming news. The company would embrace the digital age of journalism, and it would allow readers to comment and share articles.

My interview with Sandy Posa

Our assignment from this week as to interview an entrepreneur from any field, so I chose to speak with Sandy Posa. Sandy used to work with my dad at Gillette several years ago. As he explains in the interview, he always invested in early stage companies and continued to do so after he left Gillette. Here's what he had to say:

Joel Kost: Describe what kind of business you do and how you’re an entrepreneur.

Sandy Posa: I’ve got been working for large companies for most of my career. On the side I’ve invested in a bunch of small early stage companies over extended period of time since 1990, I would guess. So when I left Gillette like your dad did, I started becoming an angel investor. For the past five or six years I’ve invested in probably half a dozen start-ups in that period of time. With a few of the companies I’ll either get on the board or I’ll work with equity.

JK: Why did you decide to work with smaller business after you left Gillette?

SP: A lot of my career has been in the early stages in big business. That’s always been my best work. It was sort of a natural evolution. When you look across the venture community, there isn’t that many people that want to be involved in early stage companies. Most of our dollars got to high-tech stuff. By and large there’s a hole in the market for early stage producers.

JK: Can you describe the product you’ve invested in now, the cleaning product?

SP: There’s this technology that’s been around for nearly a decade, but its never been commercialized really well. It’s a product that’s based off electrolyzed water. And what it is, is a combination of salt, water and electricity, with the right kind of device. Believe it or not, that produces sanitizer. It will kill mold, bacteria…really mold and bacteria from flu virus, to mrsa, to everyday bacteria. It effectively kills that. It also has cleaning properties to it. And it’s made with salt water and electricity. It has some very green, eco friendly characteristics to it, as well as sanitizing properties that are difficult to get without harsh chemicals.

JK: Why are people reluctant to invest in it?

SP: There’s a whole series of reason why. Most of the other people who have tried to commercialize the technology are trying to do it on industrial side. Nobody’s tried it on the commercial side. It’s a really small number. I think the commercial cleaning business is north of 30 billion a year. And it’s basically all kinds of stuff. There’s been very little innovation, very incremental innovation for a long time.

JK: What are some of the other companies you have invested in?

SP: One that’s a little bit on the rental beat. It’s a database of rental apartments. If you’ve very tried to rent an apartment, it’s really a tough experience for consumers for a couple of reasons. And this company has a database that consumers and brokers can access. And that database doesn’t exits anywhere else in the country.

I’ve invested in a consumer business that is involved with Glow Design, and we design really cool products. One of the lead items is cases for your iPhone. We design for some really neat applications.

It’s a very eclectic group of companies. They all have kind one thing in common, which is addressing consumer pain points. Those are the common things that I look for, companies that solve that problem.

JK: So you tend to look for companies that try to solve consumer problems or work with technology?

SP: Yeah, That’s generally what look for.

JK: What has been the hardest part of being an entrepreneur?

SP: For me personally, is I’m not someone who raises capital. I just don’t like to do it. So I like helping the operation side of companies. The biggest problem is having to raise capital.

JK: What is your favorite part of being an entrepreneur?

SP: I like to get involved with younger and dedicated people. That’s fun for me. And eventually these companies will have the ability to change some of these markets. It’s also a little bit of a hobby.

JK: Do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs?

SP: I think if you’re at an early stage and the idea stage, a couple things. One, it’s a longer haul that you think. You’re going to have to get yourself attached to companies that have made it. It’s a very real commitment if you’re going to do it. You have to be really devoted to your idea. And the second phase, I haven’t seen one company evolve who’s original idea hasn’t’ turned 180 degrees. You have to know how businesses evolve. And number three, you have to know how to work with people. If you do and you get friends and family to invest in you early and get good market traction and validation, the earlier the better.

Now this News: another great and original contribution to news

I love watching well-made video stories made by The New York Times and The Boston Globe, but sometimes I just wish there were short video clips that updated me about current events. Enter Now this News: my recent obsession.

Now this News is a website that offers short (often between one and two minutes) videos reporting news ranging from politics, world affairs, science, and popular trends on the internet. The journalists who report are fun to listen to and watch, and there is new content all the time. Aside from news reports, there are also videos that re straight up video footage of current events. For example, Now this News is currently featuring footage of the Kenyan mall siege. 

Now this News is great because its easy to use and its content can be shared easily. The videos won't take up much of your time but they are very informative and fun to watch; it's easy to get lost while exploring its content.

But what exactly makes Now this News unique? It's really that it fully embraced the digital age and is one of the few news outlets that reports purely through multimedia. It's casual, fun, and most importantly relevant. In a time when everyone is panicking about news, its comforting to see a news outlet that has so much fun with what it does.

Thoughts after reading Ken Doctor's "runway" article

Ken Doctor wrote an article the other week about Jeff Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post and how he plans to give the newspaper a "runway." It's an interesting piece that I suggest you read.

But there's one thing that I can't get off my mind after reading it: are newspapers destined to be bought and nurtured by millionaires and billionaires until the news industry recovers from the shift to the digital age? That what it seems like.

At first this made me sad and rather depressed. Has the news industry fallen so far that it needs to be bought out of its trouble? Something about that just sounds awful.

But at the same time, these corporate powerhouses have the two things that the news industry needs: money and faith. Doctor says in his article that Bezos' investment in The Washington Post is both expensive and long-term. Nobody, not even millionaires, would make such a large investment if they didn't have faith in the news industry. Journalists may have to rely on others to help their profession recover, but if it works in the long then I guess it can't be that bad.

My idea for my semester project

Last week I had this crazy idea of making a reporting/video game company that made video games based off of top news stories. As crazy as it sounds I think it's a great idea and I'm going to pursue it as my semester project. This class is all about taking risks, and this idea seems as risky as you can get.

To review, my idea was to make a video game company dedicated to making games based off of top news stories. I don't know what the news appetite among gamers is, but I'm sure this would be an effective method to educate them more about journalism and important current events. In a way it's the opposite of video game journalism; there would be video game developers making games based off journalism.

So what do I have to do to make this happen?

Well to start, I think the games would be smaller projects than big-budget games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto, and I see them being released on the iOS app store and Google Play. It's cheaper to make games on this platform and mobile devices are quickly becoming gaming consoles of their own. If the company did this, it would be able to produce content quickly and effectively while reducing costs.

In terms of employees, it would consist of both reporters and game developers. If a game based off of a top news story is to exist, it would have to have excellent narrative detail and no factual errors. The reporters would get this information and sit down with the developers to discuss how they could make it work. The reporters would also have to have knowledge about video games so they could contribute to the development process. To make this project more journalism-esque, I think it would be good for the company to have a website or blog to write actual news stories on. This way the company's followers could play the games and read the stories.

The only thing I'm really concerned about is ethics. Some stories are obviously not appropriate to make games about (Boston Marathon bombings, Connecticut shootings), but where do you draw the line? This is something that requires some serious conversations.