New website for start-up entrepreneurs launched

Publishing group Private Media, run by entrepreneurs Eric Beecher and Amanda Gome has expanded its stable with the addition of a news and information site for start-up entrepreneurs, called StartupSmart.

The site, which is updated daily, is the brainchild of Amanda Gome, who launched SmartCompany three years ago. SmartCompany now sends a daily edition to 30,000 people and according to Nielsen figures had 212,856 unique visitors in August.

The owners of Crikey and SmartCompany identified the need for a start-up site for the 8% of Australians thinking of starting a business every year and the 320,000 plus businesses launched annually.

“While Australians are great dreamers, very few companies ever get over $2 million revenue or employ more than 20 staff,” Beecher says. “And what usually stops these companies getting larger are mistakes made at the beginning.”

Gome points out that more than half the businesses that start-up every year never employ staff. Of those that do, 70% employ between one to four staff and 30% between five to 20. Only about 9% of all businesses have 20 to 100 employees and less than 1% have 200 employees or more.

“We identified a huge gap in the market to provide news and information to people thinking of starting up and during the first few years of running their venture. At that time you can feel very alone and make many mistakes that impact on the business later on. We aim to provide that community with deep, intelligent news and information that is written in a lively, accessible way to help them start smart,” Gome says:

Private Media has more publications on the drawing board. “Part of our strategy for growth is to identify opportunities in highly specialised market segments and to quickly roll out high quality, online editorial products that appeal to well-educated, high income individuals,” Gome says.

In the past publishers have found that targetting this niche using print publications was too expensive.

“But we now have a business model that works. We can quickly build a community with which advertisers want to engage. In fact they often ask us why we didn’t do this sooner?”

Advertisers that have taken partnerships on StartupSmart include ANZ Bank, Servecorp and OfficeWorks. Gome says she expects StartupSmart to be cashflow positive from the start.

“There is a lot written about online media publications losing lots of money. But Private Media is a different story, with all publications having positive EBITDA in 2009-10. We have a paid subscription model working very nicely at Crikey and advertisers are happy to give us repeat business because we get them results.”