Tuesday 14th May: Lessons from the creator economy: how creators are avoiding VC funding pitfalls

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In the latest edition of our series looking at what media businesses can learn from prominent and pioneering creators, Charlotte Henry takes a look at how some individuals are avoiding the familiar pitfalls that come with taking VC funding. She cites Gumroad, which is pitching itself as an alternative to traditional VC, as a potential opportunity to build a new model of funding that prioritises growth over short-termism.

She explains: “While I’m not someone to take the simplistic view that all such firms are vultures, it is certainly true that various previously much-loved publications have been wound down once in their hands. Gumroad’s approach is therefore worthy of some attention outside the creator economy. This is not necessarily because it can be directly replicated, but because it shows a desire to think a bit differently and we all need to do a bit more of that.”

Frankly, given all the news about VC firms demanding skyrocketing, exponential growth from the properties they’ve invested in, I’m a little more cynical about them than Charlotte is — which is why I’m doubly interested in the potential alternatives she suggests. Also, I liked her describing VC firms as ‘sugar daddies’!

When I was a student journalist the worst thing that happened to me was getting roped into doing the Blind Date feature. It’s hard to imagine a better definition of ‘deep end’ than being a student journalist asked to cover campus protests over global geopolitical issues — but this Nieman Lab article explains how and why students of journalism are throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the process.

A few months ago I reported on an advertisers’ conference in which it was stated on multiple occasions that, for all its reported ROIA, TV advertising is undervalued. Well, this WSJ article takes a look at why that might be. Part of it, obviously, is that the internet (ostensibly) delivers Bigger Numbers when it comes to the total addressable audience brands can reach. Eventually we (the entire human race) will need to learn that bigger doesn’t always equal better.

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You’ve heard of news deserts, but now the metaphor has been tortured a little further. These ‘news mirages’ are exactly what you’d imagine — articles that look a little like news from a distance, but upon closer inspection are nothing but flim-flam and empty dunes. As the article makes clear these mirages are most common when someone is trying to push an agenda, and in this case it’s mostly around fossil fuel companies

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