New Rules of Entrepreneurship for a Media Startup

Recently I blogged about the shift that’s occurring in the outlook of New Entrepreneurs–and by New, I mean entrepreneurs who have started ventures in the post-Bubble economy of the past six-12 months. (We need a name for this new world order. Any suggestions?) I reached out to my network to find examples of what’s changing, and got a wide and interesting response. One of my old colleagues from CMP Media got in touch and we had a fascinating conversation. Seth Nichols has been vice president of digital media for Questex Media Group Inc., a business-to-business media and information provider, headquartered in Newton, MA. The company, which is an outgrowth of Advanstar, has more than 100 print and digital media publications, conferences and events as well as other information products. Earlier this month, Seth completed the purchase of one of Questex’s properties, Cadalyst.com, which is a publication and website for computer-aided design professionals, and launched his new company, Longitude Media.

To understand why this is interesting, you need to appreciate the dynamics of the business-to-business media industry today. It is in a shambles. Companies are downsizing, eliminating products and laying off employees more than ever before. The market for advertising of all kinds is under severe pressure. And amidst all this, Seth buys into the market. When I asked him to explain his reasoning, he talked about how things used to be when he and I were at CMP in the go-go days of Internet media. The outlook of media executives at that time and well after–call it the period roughly from1996-2008–was toward transactions. In the ’90s it was about positioning for IPOs; in the early 2000s it was about positioning for private-equity M&A. For a very long time the conversation has not been about creating value in the core asset.

The core asset in the media business? What is it?
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