Magazine startups are expensive August 23, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Magazine , trackbackAs I do more research into the launch procedure for a startup magazine, it has become more and more apparent that raising the capital to do this right is going to be difficult, if not impossible. We have a few aces in a few holes that we can pull out, but we’re crafting Launch Scenario, Plan B just in case.
Ideally, we would have somewhere between $500,000 and $5 million to launch our magazine. That would allow us to do things right, with focus groups and direct mail tests, and thousands of subscribers across the nation.
More realistically, we will likely have no money from venture capitalists, who aren’t willing to wait the five years it takes for a magazine to become profitable. Hence, Plan B.
Plan B involves a lot of hard work and a lot of risk. We can’t afford to test on focus groups, so we’ll have to trust our gut instincts. We can’t afford to hire a magazine designer, so I’ll be learning Quark. We can’t afford to hire a circulation consultant, so we’ll have to learn the intricacies of direct mail marketing ourselves. If all this flies, we can get by on a shoe string until the very last minute when we’ll need a few hundred thousand dollars for the direct mail subscription campaign.
It’s going to be exciting.
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One word of advice .. or caution: GEORGE.