Your first 90 days as a media entrepreneur

Brought to you by the fine folks at Outpost for Ghost publishers. Outpost can handle of a whole lot of this launch checklist automatically for you 🪐

I'm always surprised at how long it takes people to launch things.

But I shouldn't be. I used to work with tech founders on their first products. We'd spend months building with them, despite advising them over and over again that it was a bad idea to pour so much effort into an unproven idea. Ask me how InVision fumbled a billion dollar valuation with a multiyear heads down relaunch. Building too long in secret without an audience is a waste of time.

It could never be me! It will never be you!

Instead, you want to launch lightly and validate early that your concept, audience and revenue model are correct.

What does it mean to launch lightly?

Launching lightly means keeping the content/audience/revenue validation at the center of your mind. Don't add extra busywork for yourself like design (for god's sake, unless your design is SPECTACULAR or UNREADABLE, no one gives a shit). Stay focused on proving your model quickly.

Your top priorities as you launch a media business should be (in order):

1. Ship really good stories
2. Find your big fans
3. Prove your revenue model

Here's how you're gonna do that. A 90 day plan for launching your next media venture.