5 Things I Learned As A Good News Messenger

Surprising lessons in business, life and the business of life!

In 2008, @dhimant and I started a positive news movement in India called The Better India. Starting from scratch and growing it to a scale of significance has taught us a lot. Here are my top 5 lessons learned:

1. It is important to look beyond the obvious

When we started The Better India news site, we were trying to find good news from various sources, and it was an uphill task! We were seriously thinking of giving up as it seemed there really wasn’t much happening. It was only when we switched to publishing original content that we realised there are plenty of good things and good people out there…just that they go largely unreported by conventional media!

2. There may be more people craving for change than you think

Six years ago, we thought that we (people looking for positive news) would be a minority. Otherwise why are all newspapers, magazines, news channels etc focusing on the negative and the sensational? Now we know how wrong we were. As we grow, we are seeing the transformation of positive journalism from on-the-fringes to mainstream, and we are happy to observe that conventional media has also taken note of this and brought in some change.

3. People are willing to help without any expectations

We started The Better India as a team of two. Today we have over 100 contributors on a regular basis. But we wouldn’t have grown this far if we had not got the initial push from a few good Samaritans who joined us without expecting anything in return. Besides the huge help in terms of effort, it went a long way in boosting our morale and keeping us going.

4. Stick to something and results will show

Yes! We have stuck to it for almost 6 years now. And though at the beginning we intended it to be a purely informational site about good initiatives for people to feel happy and inspired, we soon began seeing real, tangible impact, and that was a cherry on the cake! Now the initiatives and people we talk about are able to raise funds, get volunteers, get resources, get skills — whatever it is they want by getting featured on The Better India. And boy! Do we feel good!

5. A social enterprise should not be run solely for profit but should be sustainable

It gets difficult for an initiative like ours to make a distinction between profits and sustainability, as we focus on “unsung heroes” who are by definition people or organizations with limited resources. So we have to keep innovating to pay our expenses as well as grow. It has been a challenge, but it has been a helluva interesting one!

Also read: The journey behind The Better India