Lessons from Splice Beta 2022

Hey there! In November 2022, I had the opportunity to attend Splice Beta at Chiang Mai in Thailand. It is a media startup festival where over 100 journalists from 45 countries took part. It was amazing to meet Alan Soon and Rishad Patel — founders of Splice Media.

My time at Beta reminded me why I fell in love with journalism in the first place. It also made me think a lot of the mistakes journalists/newsrooms make — not knowing their audience, not listening to what the audience want or struggling to figure out how to run a sustainable business. (Do watch this video👇🏽)

I had the opportunity to meet global journalists creating and running amazing ventures. Here’s a quick glimpse of some of the best people I met:

Zara Seidler — The Daily Aus

The Daily Aus is an Instagram-based portal that “offer young Australians a digestible and engaging way to access the news”. Started by Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski, The Daily Aus has over 4 lakh followers. I love the short, crisp visually appealing explainers the team creates.

In June 2022, they raised $1.2 million and are planning to expand to the UK, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Watch how The Daily Aus’ team uses Canva to create content on Instagram. (Also read: How The Washington Post Grew Its Instagram Following From 600K to 6M.)

Sonny Swe — Frontier Myanmar

Sonny Swe runs The Frontier Myanmar — a magazine that has faced severe censorship from Myanmar authorities for its investigative reportage. Its website says: “In 2004, Sonny Swe was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment for breaching Myanmar’s censorship laws... He was released in 2013, the year after the government abolished pre-publication censorship for print media…”

I was stunned by Sonny’s positive energy despite the hardships he has faced in life. During a tour of the Greenhouse (a place for Asia’s media ecosystem to work, meet, train, and entertain), I asked Sonny how he is so optimistic. He simply said, “What other choice do I have brother?”. 

You can read more about Frontier’s story here and here. (During the CUNY program, I read this case study published by the Membership Guide: How Frontier brought a membership model to Myanmar.)

Jakub Parusinki — The Kyiv Independent

Jakub Parusinki, the Chief Financial Officer of the Kyiv Independent was one of the Beta speakers who spoke on — How a team of journalists was fired, reunited, and went on to build the most important media startup at the center of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

To know more about them, read: Ukraine editor Olga Rudenko on starting Kyiv Independent as Russia amasses troops on border by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Olga Rudenko and the Kyiv Independent Are Giving the World a Window Into a Devastating War by The Time magazine.

Rakesh Kamal and Padma Priya — Suno India

Suno India produces high quality podcast from India. After a brief interaction with Rakesh and Padma, I was inspired to explore podcasting myself and I’m delighted to say I have produced three stories for The Hindu BusinessLine so far. (I used Descript for editing, a fantastic tool for new podcasters.) Suno India was recently featured in VOA News: In India, Power of Podcasts Keeps Listeners Connected.

Mili Semlani — Splice’s Community Manager

I had a one-on-one ‘Beta clinic’ session with the community manager of Splice Media — Mili Semlani. I love Mili’s way of handling the Splice community on Slack. She shares useful curation of journalism or media business-related articles, job openings, etc. and she also initiates active participation among members.

Mili told me that managing “a community should always start with the intention of solving someone’s problem or helping someone connect with a like-minded individual. If this is achieved, then the community is bound to thrive”.

Mili gave me ideas on how I can create a similar community for the Chennai Emailer on WhatsApp — share weekly news curation from Chennai, important announcements by Corporation or local events. It made a lot of sense because WhatsApp is the go to source of news for many Indians. (I subscribe to the Splainer (daily news explainer site) and Boom Live (fact-checking news site) on WhatsApp.

(Read on Neiman Lab: “We are just focused on being where readers are”: Pan-African weekly The Continent publishes directly on WhatsApp and Signal. The Continent has now published 53 editions and has more than 11,000 subscribers a week who receive the publication for free.)

JP Campos — The Media Commoner

I also had a one-on-one ‘Beta clinic’ with JP Campos to learn about branding. He gave an interesting perspective about the name of my newsletter. He said that The Chennai Emailer sounds ‘restricted’ to only an email. He advised perhaps I should consider a name that’s not focused on just one content format because new ventures often iterate and adopt different strategies overtime.

He said something like: what if I find more Chennai audience on YouTube or podcast but not so much for newsletters? Or what if you decide to move to Instagram and not emails?. It made a lot of sense. The main lesson I learnt with JP was that its important to be willing to pivot to different content strategies and see what works best for your venture.

Amanda Cua — The BackScoop

Amanda is one of the youngest creator I met at Beta. At just 20, she is running ‘BackScoop’ — “a daily newsletter that makes it fun and easy to stay updated with everything Southeast Asian startups and business”.

I love the design of BackScoop’s website — its super sleek, bright and easy to read. Amanda is also consistent in bringing out her content and I love the curation and the quick interviews of different entrepreneurs; this style inspired me to replicate something similar for The Chennai Emailer.

Amanda uses LinkedIn to promote her newsletter — she often writes short observations of the startup ecosystem, or shares some of her personal life experience.

In an interview with CNN Phillipines, she shared her story. Don’t miss it! Splice Media too interviewed Amanda for a podcast and you can find it here: BackScoop's Amanda Cua on what makes a creator different from a journalist.

Other amazing people:

• Sanne Breimer: A fellow alum from the EJCP program, Sanne runs Inclusive journalism Newsletter. This is what she does in her own words: “In the weekly newsletter I keep track of solutions regarding inclusion and decoloniality in journalism. My POV is informed by 14+ years working in inclusive (international) media and by studying decoloniality. Each post aims to inspire you to take action, through creation, curation, reflection, and praxis.”

• Lach Baniya: Lach is the co-founder of Icarus Media and its subsidiaries GandaWin Magazine and GandaWin Telly. The Peers Project interviewed Lach: The Co-Founder Of Icarus Media On Starting A Business On A Shoestring Budget. She shares "how she empowers the women of Myanmar through her portfolio of digital publications, why education is the gateway to freedom, and why your Plan A may not always be what’s best for you.”

• Beatrice Go: A sports journalist from Philippines, Beatrice covers "sports governance, national teams, and football, and helps out with the UAAP". I follow her on Instagram and recently she shared a podcast interview she took part in the Project Offbeat where she talked about "the career of being a sports journalist, the techniques to learn for this profession (like live tweeting), and the "softening power" of sports journalism in delivering hard news.”

• Anu Harchu: Anu Harchu is a YouTuber and a Content Creator based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Splice interviewed her for a podcast where she spoke about why she "left her career at Bloomberg TV Mongolia to focus on her thriving brand as a YouTube creator".

• Kontinentalist team: Data journalism is a beat I love to learn since I haven’t explored it much. My colleagues at The Hindu BusinessLine bring out some amazing stories every week. I also read Pudding and then the Kontinentalist — a platform that “tells data-driven stories about Asia that cut through the noise, bridging the gap between research and the public”. You can’t miss out there unique stories and visual style. You can read this Medium post on why the firm rebranded itself in 2021. Do follow them on Instagram and check out their brilliantly designed posts.

• Bhanupriya: I met Bhanupriya who runs Behanbox — their mission “is to transform journalism by centering voices, concerns, aspirations and achievements of women and gender diverse persons through in-depth and evidence based reportage and storytelling.”

Lessons learnt

What I love about the brilliant folks I met is that all are aiming at getting better to serve their communities. If I could summarise the lessons that I have learnt, then I could simply recite Splice Media’s core principles. If I had to cut it down further, then its this:

• “Future of media is user centered, demand driven and interest based.”

• “People need services that address daily problems and help them make decisions.”

• “To be useful, you need to understand what people want. Ask them. Listen to them. Act on the feedback. Repeat. This is the mind set the drives a successful media”

• “If you are not creating value for your user, then you are not going to be financially viable.”

Meeting the Beta tribe was one of the best memory I made in 2022. Everyone has an amazing story and are building fabulous news platforms.

If you want to be a part of Splice, then do consider joining the slack group. Many other awesome Beta journalists were left out, but I will write about them next time. That’s it for today! I’ll see you guys soon.