Season 2 is out now!

The School of Splice is all you need to build a viable media business today. And it's all audio.

SUPPORTED BY

Meta Journalism Project logo

Nabilah Said,
Editorial Lead, Kontinentalist

“Thank you… for the invaluable advice on audience needs and how to listen to them better. Though I've since left ArtsEquator, the findings from the survey we ran as part of School of Splice has been ultra useful as the organisation finds new ways to serve its community better — including moving away from a content-based approach. I'm now at Kontinentalist, where I'm also finding ways to integrate what I've learnt from the School of Splice to our work within the data-driven storytelling environment.”

Nabilah Said, Editorial Lead, Kontinentalist

Season 1

 

Season 1 is the Foundation course: a quick introduction to the basics of building a viable media business in 5 speedy episodes.

 

Get your fresh lessons, transcripts, worksheets, downloads, and links right here.

Also available wherever you get your podcasts

 
 
Featured
Foundation 5: How to hire, retain, and train the right people
Foundation 5: How to hire, retain, and train the right people

There are no people problems — only process problems. If you have the right structure, right workflows, and the right processes in place, you'll be able to build a strong and effective team. In this School of Splice lesson, we'll talk about how to go about building a great team with the right hiring, retention and training strategies.

Hosted by Rishad Patel and Alan Soon, and produced by those fabulous folks at Lawson Media.

Foundation 4: How to plan and manage workflows and operations
Foundation 4: How to plan and manage workflows and operations

The whole point to operations is to create something. And to do it more efficiently, more accurately, and more consistently over and over again. Welcome to the fourth School of Splice foundation lesson. This one is all about building the right workflows for the outcome you're looking for.

Hosted by Alan Soon and Rishad Patel, and produced by the formidable folks at Lawson Media.

Foundation 3: How to build an audience with your 1,000 truest believers
Foundation 3: How to build an audience with your 1,000 truest believers

2022 will require you to go deeper in building a direct relationship not just with your users or audiences, but with your true believers. Unless you’re able to capture attention and build a relationship, you can’t monetise, and therefore, you don’t have a business.

Hosted by Rishad Patel and Alan Soon, and produced by the mighty folks at Lawson Media.

Foundation 2: How to create a product strategy that works
Foundation 2: How to create a product strategy that works

If we’re going to be in media for the next 10 years, we need to understand how to give people what they want. Find out where the gaps are. Define the problem. Test a solution. Make it valuable.

Hosted by Alan Soon and Rishad Patel, and produced by the amazing folks at Lawson Media.

Foundation 1: How to think about building a viable media business
Foundation 1: How to think about building a viable media business

This is the Golden Age of media. You're able to move quickly and cheaply, often by using the phone in your pocket — and that means you won't need a ton of cash to start. In our first Foundation lesson, we explain how to think about putting all of this together. Hint: Start with your user's need.

Hosted by Alan Soon and Rishad Patel, and produced by the nice folks at Lawson Media.

Season 2

 

Season 2 is here!

The Full-Stack course is an in-depth program with lessons from the students of the School of Splice.

Listen alongside as their coaches walk them through to building their prototype all the way through testing and iterating.

 

Purpose-built audio lessons — with transcripts — to help you build viable media businesses and products for niche audiences.

Available wherever you get your podcasts

 
 
Featured
How to build a website for your startup
How to build a website for your startup

This episode is about Duuya Baatar. Duuya runs the Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development, which helps people support media in Mongolia.

How do you even begin building out a website for your startup? Don't just tell people what you do — tell them what you do for them. And how do you get your website to do that? By thinking of it as an employee with a job description — and a set of goals to hit. Here's how Duuya and Nest did it.

How to build a podcast festival
How to build a podcast festival

This episode features Bhrikuti Rai. Bhrikuti is one of two co-founders of Boju Bajai, a Nepali podcast about politics, media, and feminism in South Asia.

Going into the School of Splice, Bhrikuti had a goal of wanting to connect podcasters across Nepal to help improve the local podcast industry, and to tap into an important growing community. So they decided to build All Ears, an online podcast festival. Here's how they did it.

How to build a newsletter as a side hustle
How to build a newsletter as a side hustle

In this one, we're focusing on Zurairi A. R., the news editor at Malay Mail, Malaysia's oldest newspaper. Zurairi wanted to figure out how to explain what was going on in parliament to Malaysians, and decided to fill that gap with a newsletter. He teamed up with his coach, Pankaj Mishra, to work through building it out.

Also starring Dan Oshinsky of Not a Newsletter and Sarah Ebner of the Financial Times.

How to ask your community what they want from you
How to ask your community what they want from you

This episode is about Nabilah Said, who was editor of ArtsEquator in Singapore. She wanted to find out what her community wanted from their media organisation so they could serve them better.

Nabilah's coach Jane Mahoney had some great advice around thinking about what products to build next. Most importantly, does it meet an audience need? (Hint: what your audience needs from you is very rarely content.)

How to build a media product for your community
How to build a media product for your community

In this episode, we hear from Jason Hendriks, who's trying to grow the Meld Community into a thriving non-profit media around international students in Melbourne.

Jason and his coach Jane Mahoney discuss how to take a community-first approach to product development.

Search for School of Splice on your favourite podcast player, or just pick one of these

What you’ll learn from the School of Splice

💰 How to think about building a viable media business

🚀 How to create a product strategy that works

🙋🏽 How to build an audience with your 1,000 truest believers

 

🛠 How to plan and manage workflows and operations

🐝 How to hire, retain, and train people

 

Meet the School of Splice Class of 2021

  • Annelis Putri

    Annelis Putri

    INDONESIA + FRANCE

    I’m building a media intelligence company that connects global entrepreneurs to business opportunities in Indonesia.

    See Annelis's project
  • Asinate Wainiqolo

    Asinate Wainiqolo

    FIJI

    I want to build an information hub around personal finance for the iTaukei community.

    See Asinate's project
  • Belinda Fraser

    Belinda Fraser

    TONGA

    I’m building a personalised 30-day challenge email-based daily meal plan and complementary weekly fitness routine that Fiji women would want to pay for.

    See Belinda's project
  • Bhrikuti Rai

    Bhrikuti Rai

    NEPAL

    I’m building a podcast festival in Nepal for the community

    See Bhrikuti's project
  • Dulamkhorloo Baatar

    Dulamkhorloo Baatar

    MONGOLIA

    I’m building a simple website to clarify our mission and support the needs of a community of transformative media in Mongolia.

    See Duuya's project
  • Jason Hendriks

    Jason Hendriks

    AUSTRALIA

    I’m building a content/product strategy that creates media that’s useful for our audience.

    See Jason's project
  • Lance Polu

    Lance Polu

    SAMOA

    I’m building a newsletter community around learning the Samoan language through audio stories.

    See Lance's project
  • Nabilah Said

    Nabilah Said

    SINGAPORE

    I want to find out what my arts community wants from us so we can serve them better.

    See Nabilah's project
  • Samantha Magick

    Samantha Magick

    FIJI

    I’m learning ways to ask Fiji’s small business owners what they need to build their business.

    See Samantha's project
  • Sandeep Varma

    Sandeep Varma

    AUSTRALIA

    I’m building an accelerator program to support our community of South Asian writers and content creators in Australia.

    See Sandeep's project
  • Sochenda Aok

    Sochenda Aok

    CAMBODIA

    I’m learning how to develop and articulate a clear mission around climate change in a way that’s useful for Cambodia, and turn this into a viable business.

    See Sochenda's project
  • Zurairi Abd Rahman

    Zurairi A.R.

    MALAYSIA

    I’m building a newsletter that explains to Malaysians what’s going on in parliament.

    See Zurairi's project

Say hello to the coaches

  • Anu Harchu

    Anu Harchu

    MONGOLIA

    Anu Harchu is a creator who focuses on personal finance, sustainability, beauty, travel, and bujo. She’s going to work with Sochenda to help her articulate her mission around climate change, and to build it into a viable business.

    More about Anu
  • Jane Mahoney

    Jane Mahoney

    AUSTRALIA

    Jane heads the reader revenue practice at Private Media in Melbourne. She’s helping Nabilah and Jason figure out how to ask their audiences what they want so they can serve them better.

    See more Jane
  • Pankaj Mishra

    Pankaj Mishra

    INDIA

    Pankaj is the co-founder of Factor Daily in Bangalore. He’s going to work with Zurairi to help him work through his value proposition around a newsletter for his audiences.

    Lots more Pankaj
  • Ross Settles

    Ross Settles

    HONG KONG

    Ross Settles is a professor focused on digital media and entrepreneurship at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of Hong Kong University. He’s going to work with Annelis to help her figure out her product-market fit, and with Sandeep to help him test his assumptions around his community of writers.

    Have more Ross

What it is

School of Splice gives you knowledge as a learning program — and a network because it's community-led.

 

Who this is for

If you’re an early-stage media startup founder, a media professional, or an early-stage newsroom figuring out your monetisation strategy, the School of Splice was created for you.

 

Who’s running this?

👋 School of Splice is the work of Alan Soon and Rishad Patel, the co-founders of Splice.

SOS comes in response to our community, who wanted a low-stress way to learn to build viable media organisations and products.

Featuring insights and knowledge from experts in our community, including Badar Alam, Bidhya Chapagain, Dan Oshinsky, Daniel Marchette, Darshini Kandasamy, Deborah Augustin, Dulamkhorloo Baatar, Erin Cook, Hamish McKenzie, Ian Yee, Jakub Górnicki, Jane Mahoney, Janie Octia, Jeremy Pennycook, Juliana Proserpio, Kantaro Komiya, Kevin Brockland, Kirsten Han, Khalil Majeed, Kunda Dixit, Marium Chaudhry, Masuma Ahuja, Nandar, Nithin Coca, Patricia Torres-Burd, Roby Alampay, Ross Settles, Sarah Ebner, Sheryl Lee, Shubhanga Pandey, Sonny Swe, Talha Ahad, and Yan Naung Oak.

School of Splice is made possible with the support of our friends at Meta.

And Luminate and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and ABC.

 
 
 
 

❤️ to the amazing team at Lawson Media that produces and mixes the lessons.

 

Questions + answers

 

Why are you guys doing School of Splice?

Because we believe the transformation of media will be led by niche, nimble media startups around the world. Journalists are great at reporting — but it’s a whole different skillset to build and run a viable business. We’re a little media startup ourselves and we want to do our part.

Is School of Splice open to people outside of Asia?

Yes! You’re always welcome in the Splice community, no matter where you’re from. Plus, you can listen to a podcast from anywhere! 🤗


Do you have a question we haven’t answered here?

Send us an email here — we have the answer!