From an MVP to ‘ruthless’ prioritization, four lessons from LION solopreneurs

When LION Publishers launched a peer group for solopreneurs earlier this year, we were overwhelmed by the immediate and enthusiastic response. So many people signed up to participate that we ultimately had to cap the group at 24 members.

We heard the message loud and clear: Solopreneurs need more support.

Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs who started and run their news business independently (without additional full-time employees), currently comprise just under half of LION’s membership. So we knew it was a good time to develop a dedicated space for these publishers to support one another based on their shared experiences.

To help us launch and lead this group, we worked with Nicci Kadilak, the CEO and co-founder of Burlington Buzz, a digital newsroom and daily newsletter serving the Burlington, MA, community.

Since May, the group has been meeting once a month. We sat down with Nicci to hear what she’s hearing from other solopreneurs. She also shared some advice for anyone interested in starting their own news business.

Whether you are a solopreneur or thinking about becoming one, here are the four steps you should take and a few resources to help you along the way.

1. Develop your minimum viable product

The first thing any news entrepreneur should do is decide on their product. Will it be a newsletter or a website? Maybe a podcast or an app? Whatever it may be, you need to determine how you want to deliver information to your audience. 

And here’s the secret no one talks about: You don’t need a perfectly polished product to get started. 

Instead, focus on creating a minimum viable product. As defined by the Google News Initiative, a minimum viable product is a prototype that has the basic features that preview what your product will accomplish in the future. 

But how do you get from zero to MVP? 

When Nicci was envisioning the operation that would become Burlington Buzz, she started with a simple question: What does my community need? 

She knew there was an appetite in Burlington for hyperlocal news, so her next step was picking a product that would deliver this news to them. In her case, this was a newsletter because she had previous experience with them from her career as an author. 

“For me, it was a natural fit to do a newsletter,” she said. “It was really about using the channels I had available.” 

Nicci recommends that when deciding on your MVP, ask yourself two questions: 1) What do people need? And 2) How do I provide a product that meets that need? 

From there, flesh out your idea. Decide how often you’ll publish, which platform you’ll use, and what features are absolutely essential to include. Remember: Stick to the basics, and you can build bigger (and better!) down the road.

And again, don’t let the pursuit of perfection keep you from experimenting with your minimum viable product. 

“If you were to look at the very first newsletter I sent out, it was not very pretty,” Nicci said. “But it was enough to get the readers engaged in the work I was doing. It was enough to fill that immediate need. You don’t need to have all the fit and finish in order to have something that still serves the needs of the consumer.”

Recommended Resource
Google News Initiative: Start Building Your Revenue Model Lesson 4: Build News Products

2. Make your first budget

We know: Creating a budget can feel daunting, especially if you’ve never made one before. But a budget is key to making smart financial decisions to help you reach your business goals. 

Nicci made her first budget as a participant in the 2022 LION/GNI Startup Lab because this exercise was a program requirement. 

“I made a budget when someone forced me to,” she said. “That was the reason I started taking the business side more seriously.”

Making that first budget was integral to helping her set goals and grow her business. 

“Once I knew and took account of what was actually there, then I was able to set some goals,” she said.   

When making your first budget, take stock of your revenue and expenses. What do you expect to make from membership, advertising, or grants? What costs do you need to cover? 

Then, you can break your budget down into three variables. This is how Harry Bucklund of City Bureau recommends breaking it down in the News Entrepreneur Academy course “How to Create Your Budget”:

• Where you are spending and earning money: What are you spending it on, and which accounts is it coming from? 
• Why you are spending and earning money: What organizational purpose is it going toward? Categorize those purposes into buckets, like payroll, supplies, or insurance. 
• When you are spending and earning money: When do you plan to spend money or bring money in? Break this down into months or quarters.

Ready to build your budget? Get started using the resources below.

Recommended Resources 
News Entrepreneur Academy: Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs
News Entrepreneur Academy: How to Create Your Budget
LION Budget Templates
LION Financial Planning Workbook

3. Think strategically about your staffing plan

Once you’ve taken a careful look at your finances, you’re ready to move on to a staffing plan. 

When running an operation by yourself, it may be tempting to bring someone else on board as soon as possible to help divide the workload. However, before you do so, there are several factors you should consider, as laid out in our News Entrepreneur Academy course “How to Create a Staffing Plan.” 

First, think about your budget. What are the compensation expectations for the roles you would like to hire? Could you pay people fairly for the work they would do? If you don’t yet have the budget to pay staff fairly, consider waiting before you expand your operation. 

Then, brainstorm what types of employees best fit your current needs and budget. Even if you don’t have the means to hire full-time staff, there are other options available. Think through what you can accomplish through contractors, volunteers, and part-time hires versus full-time hires. Contractors may be a good fit for one-off needs or short-term projects. Volunteers or part-time employees may work well for ongoing but not intensive needs. 

Working with contractors can be particularly helpful for solopreneurs. Nicci recommends that solopreneurs think about what they need to do themselves, and where they could save valuable time and energy by bringing in a contractor. 

“Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should,” she said. 

For example, if you aren’t familiar with building a WordPress site, you could take the time to learn and do it yourself. But if you have the resources, bringing in someone could be worth the money to allow you to focus on higher-priority tasks. 

“It can be difficult for solopreneurs, who are often self-taught and self-motivated, to hand the reins to someone else,” Nicci said. “But being strategic about how you use your resources can help you focus on the tasks that are most important to you.” 

“There’s room and space to make your time more valuable and more efficient by utilizing the resources that you have available to you,” she said. “And it really is just a cost-benefit analysis.”

Recommended Resources 
News Entrepreneur Academy: How to Create a Staffing Plan
News Entrepreneur Academy: Assessing Organizational Capacity

4. Prioritize in order to avoid burnout

When you’re solely responsible for your organization’s day-to-day operations, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by an always growing to-do list.

Nicci has heard from many fellow group members that burnout is an ever-present threat. So she gave this advice: Be ruthless about prioritizing. 

But here’s the rub: You can’t prioritize if you’re trying to do everything yourself. To help you decide what your priorities are, Nicci suggests taking stock of your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. 

“It’s about trying to figure out: What do I like doing and am good at? What am I good at but I hate doing? What do I need an expert for?” she said. From there, she said, you can figure out what you can prioritize, what you need to do, and what to bring someone else in to do. 

Another group member, Future Tides Founder Cara Kuhlman, discovered how to deal with burnout the hard way. The year after she launched the newsroom, she started a new job, was planning a wedding, and joined a nonprofit board, all while developing Future Tides. 

“I simply took on too much,” she said.

The experience taught her to prioritize “ruthlessly,” she said. That means taking stock of her goals, and deciding what she needs to do to accomplish them. This year, Cara said her priorities are shaped by the need to grow her audience and recommendations from the LION Sustainability Audit, which she keeps on a Post-It on her desk to constantly reference. 

She also has systems to keep herself organized. When she can’t get to something right away, she jots it down in a searchable list, like Evernote. She uses Google calendars to set reminders and organize tasks. 

Cara says that having the right systems in place is important, but balancing that approach with flexibility is key. 

“There’s a time to be thoughtful about your workflow or processes and then there’s times you just need to get some things done,” she said. “Don’t let inefficiencies linger too long, really truly delegate where you can, and create space to reflect or regroup because priorities do change.” 

Cara also makes self-care a priority. She compartmentalizes work and her personal life. She disconnects by going sailing and tries not to work late nights. And she tries to be realistic about her expectations for herself. 

“I tell myself ‘anything is better than nothing,’” she said. “I have high expectations, so I need to be extra gracious with myself.” 

For other solopreneurs struggling with burnout, Cara has some advice: Don’t be afraid to do things differently. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way. It might feel like the only option, but the path of solopreneurship isn’t clear so why not do it differently?” she said. “We each have different motivations for pursuing this incredibly challenging work, so when you are struggling, take a moment to remember why you are doing this.”

Recommended Resources 
News Entrepreneur Academy: Addressing and Avoiding Burnout
Eisenhower Matrix