Why I'm building a news startup during the media apocalypse
Media is more fractured than ever and independent shops will continue to pull attention from legacy outlets.
The first months of 2024 have been a bloodbath for news media.
Mass layoffs and business failures have plagued the journalism industry, while the rise of artificial intelligence threatens to take over more and more writing and research gigs.
Nonetheless, at the beginning of April I quit my dream job at Business Insider to launch Opening Bell Daily with my cofounder, Anthony Pompliano.
I explained why in a May 28 interview with the team at SBS Comms, featured in their morning newsletter. You can read the original post here, or scroll below to view a portion of the Q&A republished on this page.
We’ve seen a ton of new media organizations pop up in the last few years. Some to great early success, some not so much. Why start Opening Bell Daily now?
Newsrooms are doing layoffs seemingly all the time, so I wouldn't say it's necessarily riskier to strike out on your own versus staying in a legacy outlet. Opening Bell Daily is important to launch now for a couple reasons.
First, information in financial markets and investing has arguably never been more critical. Everyday life is getting more expensive and markets are volatile, yet newsrooms increasingly hide this content behind paywalls.
Meanwhile, in my view, the media landscape will continue to fracture. The days of just a handful of news giants are over. Independent operators and creators have cut into the attention game with great success.
That's forced legacy publications to compete with startups and more nimble shops, and I don't see that trend reversing.
Why start with the newsletter? Are you planning to move into longer form content?
I am super bullish on newsletters. I used to write Business Insider's daily markets newsletter too.
Today, there have never been more examples of media startups that build sustainable, scalable businesses entirely on top of a newsletter platform, such as Beehiiv or Substack. It's straightforward, and with email, you own your own audience compared to relying on Google Search or social media followers.
Part of what we're trying to build too is the morning habit of starting your day with Opening Bell Daily. That's something that is unique to newsletters.
More content in the form of audio and video podcasts, as well as long-form stories are also in the pipeline.
What are you reading right now?
I recently finished two excellent books, one non-fiction and one fiction.
"The Smartest Guys in the Room," which is about the rise and fall of Enron, the fraudulent energy company that collapsed in the early 2000s, and "Table for Two," a short story collection by Amor Towles. He's my favorite living fiction writer, and it's a very New-York centric book.
