I’m on day five of News Entrepreneur Boot Camp at the Knight Digital Media Center (at the Univ. of Southern California) and I. AM. EXHAUSTED. After classes from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. they send us to the hotel with homework! These people were not kidding about whipping us into shape.

The assignments are geared at preparing us for a 5-minute presentation we are each giving to four potential funders Thursday morning. The funders includes a venture capitalist, two bankers, and an “angel.” Tonight I have to turn in my presentation, which is not ready to share, unfortunately.

But here’s what I’ve learned while preparing:

• Invest in your readers by showing you read them (their comments) as much as they read you.
• Create rules of engagement for your site to encourage the type of interaction you want to see.
• Community engagement can create passionate content.
• Showing an understanding of social networking is crucial to raising money today.
• Use social networking to be everywhere and spend nothing.
• For marketing and promotions, don’t do anything you cannot measure.
• Mine data. Ask yourself what is the data in my field? How can I present it?
• Think of competitors as potential collaborators.
• The product is never the challenge. It’s getting the customer to write the check.

Related posts:

Which 30-second pitch for BargainBabe.com is the best?

Dispatch from boot camp: work smarter

Off to news entrepreneur boot camp

Tagged: on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 · 4 Comments »