Hometown

Local news. Completely reinvented.

Ljuba Youngblom
CEO & Co-founder
ljuba@hometown.is

Transcript

1. Hometown Local news, completely reinvented. Ljuba Youngblom CEO & Co-founder ljuba@hometown.is
2. Motivating Problem
3. “When is this going to get fixed?”
4. “Is anything being done to help?”
5. “Who even are these candidates?”
6. We’re losing touch with the challenges and opportunities facing us in our communities
7. END OF AN ERA • Leads to chasing clicks and lower quality content that people value less • Reliant on Facebook and Google for distribution • Limited control over reader experience • Limited ability to innovate on content format (dependent on FB instant articles and Google AMP) An ads-based business model Local newspapers used to do this, but they're dying
8. Ad Sensational Not local Click-bait “Local” news Pulitzer Prize- winning paper of record for two Bay Area counties
9. A nation of informed and civically involved communities OUR MISSION
10. WHAT WE’RE BUILDING A local news service that scales to the entire country MISSION A national of informed and civically involved communities PRODUCT STRATEGY Own the entire experience BUSINESS MODEL Free and premium subscription tiers Respect readers’ attention Foster understanding and empower action Scalable content
11. WHO WE ARE Proven entrepreneurs with deep product, design, and engineering experience Full-stack engineer, product manager (7 years) Rick Marron Entrepreneur, product manager, designer (15 years) Ljuba Youngblom
12. LAST STARTUP Ljuba co-founded Automatic Labs and lead product
13. A better local news experience WHAT WE’RE BUILDING
14. Local news that informs, explains, and empowers EDITORIAL VOICE • Sensationalized stories sow anxiety and limit understanding, but drive ad impressions. • Leave the user with little sense of "what can I do about this?” Existing Local News Hometown
15. Local news that informs, explains, and empowers EDITORIAL VOICE Hometown Existing Local News • Stories that take a longer view, educate along the way, highlight progress, and lead to action.
16. Low-friction content formats that respect your time and match your level of interest READER UX • Teaser headlines hide the lede, and force you to click to learn anything meaningful. • 800-word articles have a 72-hour shelf-life and can never tell the whole story. Existing Local News Hometown “According to Larry Brooks, director of Alameda County Healthy Homes Department…the soil does not present a current health risk because it is under the blacktop”
17. Existing Local News • Instagram-like updates put the most important news and context up front. • Updates lead to long-lived and scannable storylines for in-depth understanding. Low-friction content formats that respect your time and match your level of interest READER UX Hometown
18. The most important local news for you, no matter when you check it TARGETING • Important hyper-local stories don’t make it to the audience that cares most about them. • We rely on the stories finding us via social media. • Even if you do find it, it's impossible to keep tabs on it. Existing Local News Hometown
19. Hometown Existing Local News • Targeted by relevance factors like where you live, work, and where your kids go to school. • Hometown shows you what matters most since you last checked the app. • Follow storylines to you to get notifications about an update. The most important local news for you, no matter when you check it TARGETING
20. Community- guided reporting makes our content even more valuable INVOLVED CITIZENS • Clicks are a poor proxy for value to readers • Comments sections are unstructured, often off-topic, and terrible. Existing Local News Hometown
21. Hometown Existing Local News • Users show what they want reported by following storylines and asking questions. Community- guided reporting makes our content even more valuable INVOLVED CITIZENS
22. Scalable by design
23. A reading experience based on long-lived storylines, not short-lived articles CONTENT STRUCTURE Traditional news Hometown “Point-in-time” Article Update Article Teaser Long-lived Storyline optional
24. Central content repository lowers marginal costs of serving new geographies REUSABLE CONTENT Local storylines Background content e.g. Police use of facial recognition Oakland Portland Tampa Kansas City Atlanta
25. Automated data scanning and analysis system make this product possible TECHNOLOGY EXPOSE Elastic Search UNDERSTAND AWS Comprehend Google Places INGEST AWS Transcribe ScrapingHub AWS Textract City & county websites Meeting videos PDF reports Email newsletters Twitter News sites Reddit ••• Data Sources Hometown Data Ingestion System Hometown Newsroom Dashboard Monitoring storylines, alerting of upcoming content
26. Hometown is a national, local news service SCALABLE QUALITY
27. Traction
28. Launched and iterated on a local news aggregation app in Oakland MVP
29. “Hometown has made me feel more connected to and informed about my city. Curated updates on the most important issues and events from several sources all in one place. Learn who’s who and what’s happening without the spin. If you’re involved in Oakland—politics, schools, services, culture—this app is a must.” – App Store reviewer (we don’t know this person) 4.9 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ …great way to hone in on local news and topics instead of getting wrapped up in national politics. “ …its a really great idea and well executed without being too complicated. “ This app really pleasantly surprised me. “ This app is awesome! I love having one spot to go to for news and updates about the town. I check it everyday! Keep up the great work! “
30. Next steps
31. Oakland, CA: Population 450k PILOT REGION Plan details • A user get ~20 updates/week • Cost of production: 10min → 10hrs each • Region they apply to: <0.5mi area → Bay Area • Content production team: $265,000/yr • 2.5 reporters • 1 editor • Break-even is at 3,680 subscribers (without taking advantage of scale) • 0.8% of the population • 15% readership, 5% of those subscribe • By comparison, 14% of all American adults say they pay for local news today (Pew) $6/mo
32. Revenue Cost Economies of scale reduce the marginal cost of geographic expansion BUSINESS MODEL Metros $50M $25M $0M 1 20 10 30 30 Metro Regions — ARR: $47M — TAM: 170M Subscriber rate = 1%
33. Thank you. Get in touch! CEO & Co-founder ljuba@hometown.is Ljuba Youngblom