Join our News Entrepreneur Community on Slack

If you're an established or aspiring independent news publisher — or you're just interested in learning more about the industry — you can request to join our News Entrepreneur Community, a Slack group designed to help publishers learn from each other by sharing resources, templates, advice, and lessons learned from their work.

The Slack group includes channels focused on revenue, business operations, tools and technology, diversity, equity and inclusion, and other business topics, as well as a private discussion channel for LION members.

 

Request an invite or sign in here.

 

Here are a few of the questions and topics being discussed in the News Entrepreneur Community:

  • How should I set prices for my newsletter advertising?
  • What's the right time to start paying myself as a founder?
  • What tools or services can I use to translate content?
  • How can I find a co-founder or partner for a startup venture?
  • What CMS works best for a local news publisher?

LION Publishers Community Guidelines

Check out our LION Publishers Community Guidelines for more details.

Privacy

All private channels and direct messages are considered “off the record,” meaning they shouldn’t be screenshotted, quoted, or shared publicly in any way without explicit permission from the person who posted it. The public channels can be considered “on the record” — but it’s still a good habit to ask before sharing anything outside this community.

Reciprocity

The LION community is full of smart, generous people who go the extra mile to help answer questions and share expertise. We hope you’ll tap into that collective knowledge, as well as contribute to it, so that we can continue to build on the spirit of reciprocity that makes the LION community so strong.

Respect

We want to leave space for lively conversations, and even disagreements, in this group, but we expect those conversations to always remain respectful and civil. As moderators, we will not tolerate personal attacks, offensive language, or harassment of any kind, and we reserve the right to warn and/or remove anyone who doesn’t meet these standards. Not sure if something crosses the line? Please check with a moderator before posting it, or err on the side of caution and step away.

How to request an invite

Once you request an invitation to join the News Entrepreneur Community, you should receive an email invite from Slack within 2 business days. If you don’t hear back from us or see an invite in your inbox, you can follow up at [email protected].

Additional LION Resources

The News Entrepreneur Community is one of many ways news entrepreneurs can get advice and support through LION. Here are other resources we offer:

  • The GNI Startups Playbook is a step-by-step guide to developing and launching your own news business, featuring the best advice from founders and experts who’ve done it before.
  • The Project Oasis map is a sortable and searchable database of 700+ digital news startups in the U.S. and Canada, and the accompanying report is a detailed analysis of what we’ve learned about these startups, their revenue streams, and their progress toward sustainability.
  • The GNI Startups Lab is a six-month program that offers coaching and capital to founders whose news businesses are ready to next the next step on the path to sustainability. We also partner with Google News Initiative on the GNI Startups Boot Camp, which helps aspiring news founders get their business ideas off the ground.
  • The LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship is a new program supported by the Meta Journalism Project that offers direct funding to LION members to help them hire revenue-generating roles.

What other resources would you add to this list? Email us at [email protected] to let us know.