If you want to learn how to launch a news media startup, all you have to do is read this article by the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism.  You’ll be all set.

I’m kidding.

But chapter three is a good starting point.

And fortunately, it’s useful for more than just digital media entrepreneurs because it looks at pre-launch considerations, branding, marketing strategies and other big bases that need to be covered.

If you’re going to open a lemonade stand and you want people to buy with credit cards instead of quarters, you’re going to have to be serious enough to consider everything from your audience (target market) to you business model. Ideally, you’ve got the gumption to see how the concepts in building a digital media startup can apply to a non-media startup.

But this still leaves us with a large amount of existing news media companies with a presence either in digital or print or both. How can existing news media companies, having been blasted in recent times surrounding political contexts, keep themselves afloat as businesses and as members of a community of journalists?

After all, their job is to keep the powerful accountable and keep the public informed.

Media expert Ken Doctor lists a handful of approaches in his Newsonomics article. He suggests that news organizations want to develop a mutually beneficial relationship between audience and news source. The points he makes about projecting strength, avoiding news overload, showing impact, all should be taken into consideration by the entrepreneur looking to start their own digital media company. Starting from the bottom gives fresh ideas a place to grow faster and allow for dynamic changes much easier than heavily established media companies. That needs to be appreciated by media entrepreneurs.