James Breiner: Entrepreneurial Journalism

Miranda Mulligan, right, and me, left, with the startup teams.

Versión en español aquí.

We hear a lot about the next Silicon Valley, but we don’t hear much about the Valley of Death. That is where 80 percent of tech startups go to die.

Startups die or join the walking dead mainly for two reasons: they don’t have enough cash or they don’t have enough knowledge to get to the next stage of development. They are unable to show investors that their project could be commercially viable.

The Media Factory News Accelerator, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, wants to change those odds of making it across the Valley of Death.

I am here on site for two weeks as a mentor in the program and am intoxicated by the ideas and energy of the startups and trainers I am working with. Latin American journalists are both more serious and more carefree than Americans. They have bigger obstacles to overcome in their daily work than we are used to in the U.S. (threats, censorship, truly dismal pay) so they are more aware of how precarious a free press is; but they also know how to forget about the clock and enjoy jokes, food, music, and friends.

Founder Mariano Blejman, a veteran journalist and hacker, has assembled a group of investors and brought in the first group of startups for a three-month acceleration project. Mariano has been working on this for more than a year, and we have talked about it at various stages. I feel lucky to be a part of it.

Cash and training

Each of the startups is getting $75,000 to develop their projects, and they are getting training with a series of experts.

The teams are housed at Nxtplabs, which is itself a startup accelerator for Latin America and one of the three investors. The other two investors are the Media Development Investment Fund and North Base Media. The International Center for Journalists is sponsoring Blejman’s work as a Knight International Journalism Fellow.

• Francisco Coronel, cofounder and CFO of Nxtplabs, described the stages of funding for startups, and what they need to do to attract each successive level of investment.
• Attorney Carlos Kaplan showed the teams the advantages and disadvantages of various legal structures for their companies, and their tax implications. Depending on their ownership structure and their long-term goals, he told them, they might benefit from establishing their companies in the U.S. 
• Magnus Arantes, an investment manager from Brazil who specializes in startups, described his country’s advantages for startups (market size, wealth, developed industries) and disadvantages (high taxes, export and currency barriers).  

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