Everything I learned in Journalism School doubles for running a DIY business (Part 1)

13 Sep

The Smarter Upstarter by Amy Cuevas Schroeder

If you had told me, at age 18, that Journalism School resembles business school in any shape or form, I would have hightailed it out of Media Studies 101 on the first day of college.

That's me in the back row, wearing red, with my eyes shut. We were having a yard sale. This is like 1998, I think.

As a freshman, I was confident in my identity as a creative kid with dreams of living in a big city and writing for a living. I also thought business was for suits—and definitely not for liberal, activist-oriented, dreamer types who despise Calculus.

Going along with the anti-suit thing, entrepreneurship never entered my vocabulary, mainly because I associated “entrepreneurial” with math, economic theory, and other yucky financial junk that I didn’t understand.

But now, thinking back, I’ve always been entrepreneurial in the sense that I like to create, improve, help people, and solve problems.

A decade since Media Studies 101, my curiosity and knack for writing led to a journalism career, which led to publishing an arts magazine, which led to learning a lot about, well, business.

An early issue of Venus, the zine-turned-magazine I started publishing in college in the mid-1990s.

And, now that I’m an official grownup, I realize that a lot of what I learned in Journalism School resembles the same skill set that I apply daily as an entrepreneur.

And I owe it all to the of School of DIY Business. My unaccredited degree boils down to an informal, scrappy, and free version of an MBA. Better said, it’s the hands-on, learning-while-doing approach to running a business.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned in journalism school and how they double for entrepreneurs:

What They Say in Journalism School: Write a tighter nutgraf.

What I Think They Say in Business School: Give me the bottom line.

How This Doubles in DIY Business School: What’s the point of your business, why is it needed, and do you earn a living from it?

Translation: A successful nutgraf, or “nut paragraph,” announces the point or news value of a news article, feature story, or blog post. The nutgraf is an article’s summary statement that wraps up (ideally) the point of the story. As in, what’s the point?

In business, the bottom line sums up the profits and loss of a business. It is the amount of profit that is realized after all expenses and taxes have been satisfied. As in, what’s the deal? How’s the company doing? Give it to me straight.

For instance: Taking nutgrafs a step further, news journalists produce good ledes (opening sentences and paragraphs) that attempt to identify who, what, when, where, why, and how as quickly as possible (i.e., before you lose the reader’s attention).

Bottom line: Once you identify the gist of your story/whether your business is profiting or losing money, you’ll be ready to write the next paragraph/set new goals and move your story/your business forward.

How this plays out: In DIY business, you must know who needs your product, what your business stands for, when you should sell your product or service, where to offer it, and why it’s necessary.

What They Say in Journalism School: The reader is the most important person in the story.

What I Think They Say in Business School: The customer is always right.

How This Doubles in DIY Business School: Ideally, you are your customer.

Translation: When you know what makes your audience tick, you will know how to intrigue, inform, and entertain them. In business, when you know your customers like the back of your hand, you will be able to produce a valuable product or service for them.

For instance: You should know how much your readers/customers earn (I don’t need to tell you that there’s a big difference between $10K earner and the $200K earner), how much time they spend online, where they live (there’s a big difference between Brooklyn, New York, and Brooklyn, Mississippi), how old they are, what they care about, what bores them, what they don’t know, and what they need help with.

Bottom line/summary statement: Once you know your demographic and what they want, you can fill in the gaps with your content or business.

How this plays out: For instance, you would never see a headline that reads “Is It Just a Hook-Up, or More?” in the Wall Street Journal, nor would you read one that reads “GOP Balks at Taxes to Pay for Jobs Plan” in Seventeen.

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Schroeder produces Smarter Upstarter to help creative people be better business people. @diybusiness @amyschroeder