Building The Current: What Pakistan’s Marium Chaudhry learned about starting up
“Having kids and a family should not stop women from pursuing their goals.”
Takeaways
Karachi-born Mariam and her business partner Mehmal Sarfraz invested their savings into co-founding The Current to tap into news interests of younger audiences as mainstream television media focused on the older audiences.
Bootstrapping the startup, working from parents' bedrooms, to sharing an office space with three other startups, and eventually becoming one of Pakistan's fastest growing digital platforms, The Current’s team has seen tremendous growth amid the pandemic.
Chaudhry hopes to connect with other women media entrepreneurs and collaborate.
Every founder faces loneliness about business and growth prospects. They should divert their energy and remember they are not alone.
She runs an Instagram account @YouDontKnowMyFood as a way to focus on other interests.
Context
After 12-years at Pakistan’s prime news channel Geo News as a producer, Marium Chaudhry decided to invest her life savings into a news startup ‘The Current’ and focus on making news equitable and accessible to the millennial and younger demographics, often dismayed by polarized television news coverage.
From caring for her daughter while working on election coverage, to sharing a co-working space with three other startups, to squeezing 12 staffers to run the news website and winning Google News Innovation Challenge within a year, Chaudhry’s journey has been inspiring for media entrepreneurs, especially women and minorities.
Eight tips for news entrepreneurs
Don’t produce any content you would not watch or read yourself. If you don’t want to watch/read it, no one else will.
Never underestimate your competition and don’t ever think you don’t have any. There is always someone who is doing something better, bigger and you must learn from them.
Read/listen to news and constantly ask yourself how you would do it differently. If you learn how to view the same news story from a different peg than others, you’ve made it.
It’s better to not be the first to break the news, better to present it differently with double-checked facts.
The best way to be innovative: imagine the craziest idea and then figure out how to execute it. You might not be able to fulfil your initial vision but if you actually chart it out, you might come close to figuring out how to do it.
Your startup is about what you want to share with everyone but you should also target what will make you money. For example, create content that will be more appealing to an international US/UK/EU audience because a view or a click from that region generates more money.
Collaborate with people who can do what you lack the resources to do. When your content is then cross promoted across platforms, it will increase your reach and also inform more people about your presence.
Do weekly data analysis to find out what is working on your site and focus on that. If there’s something close to your heart that isn’t working, either try it a different way or let it go.
Other quick tips
Love what you do and be utterly unabashed
Learn from the best
You can’t do it alone… and teach what you learn
There will be restrictions you never thought of… but you will learn to overcome them
You won’t make much money
Business plans are imperative
Keep a job. Any job.
Be patient. This is the long haul
Don’t start a media startup unless your gut is based on experience
Think big and never ever hesitate to ask
But always base your instincts on analytics, surveys, research
Divert the energy and remember you’re not alone
Remember those who inspire you
Never forget why you became a journalist in the first place