My Start-Up Spirit Journey
During my final semester studying Social Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, I took the Startup Sprint course designed to teach us to build a journalism start-up. It was a 10-week module, packed with dense product building information. One week we were doing our landscape analysis, and the next we were creating a prototype.
Each student was working on their own start-up related to their Practicum, creating a project around their community. Unfortunately, I changed my community during the first weeks of the semester. I decided to change to a subject I was more passionate about, and that did take a toll on my start-up project. I changed my community from hackers and hackathon-goers to a community of people not trusting fact-checked articles.
Throughout the semester I was constantly updating and changing the definition and the scope of my community, which gave me a hard time to complete the prototype phase of the class. During the 10 weeks, I was trying to figure out a way I could both define and serve my community, which was a challenge in itself. Creating a prototype without a clearly defined community was extremely hard, and the wrong way to create a project.
My project idea was based on my experience and knowledge of the misinformation and fact-checking world. I was planning to do more than I could handle. I wanted to create my own website, start a hashtag on Twitter, create a Medium page, and start a Sub-Reddit all at the same time. It was too much, and I had no clear vision of what my community needed or who my community was. The products I aimed to create all were beneficial, but no one knows to whom.
What is my project?

My project is called VerifyThis. It is a forum that encourages commenting, debating and verifying, fact-checked news articles. This allows readers from various backgrounds to join the conversation and voice why their truths do not match those of others’. This project aims to fill two gaps in the fact-checking industry. The first one is commenting. People do voice their concerns and criticisms towards organizations that do fact-checking, however, it is rarely a part of the conversation. Secondly, I aim to create a bridge between these readers and journalists. Allowing a conversation, beneficial for both parties to occur. The prototype of this project will live on Reddit. A site where communication is key, and where moderation is easy.
The steps I took
Unfortunately, I came to the realization that I have created a project the wrong way, towards the end of the semester effectively demolishing the time I have to finish my practicum and the prototype for the Start-Up Sprint class. I quickly tried to understand what I know and what I can bring to the table. I worked as an anthropologist for 2 years before joining the CUNY J-School and have an undergraduate degree in Anthropology. With this experience and knowledge, I decided to start from scratch and do all the research my classmates had done a year ago when they first interacted with their communities. However, I did not have the time that my classmates had, so I needed to create a plan.
I decided to focus on the community I have mentioned, people who do not trust fact-checked articles. I started listening. My community had an online presence, so I decided to start there. I created a data set of about 50 people who have criticized a fact-checking organization. This data set was mainly for me to understand who I was dealing with, what their backgrounds were, why they were talking about fact-checked articles, and how they feel about them. I was conscious not to record Trolls by using tools like BotSentinal that can estimate the likelihood of the account being a troll account.
By compiling this data, I was not only able to see who my community is, but I was also able to hear from them, and I was able to watch them without intruding or taking any action.
I noticed a couple of key elements. First of all, a lot of the accusations that are thrown at these media organizations are not backed up. There is a widely spread rumor that the Founder of Snopes was spending the company’s money as his own. However, these accusations are rarely backed, and when they are, the piece backing it up can be tied to websites known to spread conspiracy theories.
After compiling this data set, I formed a set of questions I want to answer during the research period. 1- why people are resistant to facts? 2- What happens when you present them with facts 3- will they accept the fact 4- Will my effort change anything? By answering these questions, I aim to understand how the community thinks, what they find to be truthful, and if there is a way to change, or alter these boundaries that some people might have when it comes to trust.
Next steps in my project
I am now figuring out who my community is and what I can provide them. I will also be writing about misinformation and how journalists write the fact-checked articles on my medium publication. Later I will create a place where journalists and readers can converse about the issues they are having. This can be achieved on a forum site such as Reddit. I also intend on picking a narrow topic and working on that. For example, President Trump’s impeachment process would be a great area to narrow my work. This would allow me to get real-time responses and reactions from readers as the impeachment process continues.
After narrowing my focus, I intend to start a conversation around specific fact-checked articles. By using specific articles, I aim to allow readers to explain what they think about the article an have a conversation around the issues they see. My end goal would be to get journalists who wrote the articles to join the discussion.
What did I learn about the process of developing a product?
I understood that what I have learned during my 3 semesters in the Social Journalism program about the engagement is VERY important. I failed to use these techniques, hence I failed to build an applicable prototype for this class, but I was able to learn from my mistakes, and am currently trying to fix these issues by connecting with people, talking to them, understanding their issues and seeing where and what I can do for them.
In the Start-up Sprint class I did learn to create a project, I might have not done it the best way, but using Lean Canvases and creating value propositions, summarizing the product and conducting interviews to try to understand if my project would be useful for the community are some of the major points I was able to take away from the class.
But by far the one thing I learned was to do something, be pro-active. Create things without having everything set and allow your community to see what you are working on, write short pieces that aren’t exactly what you wanted to write about, but are in the same realm. This is by far the most important thing I have learned. We can start a website within seconds now, create a logo by answering some quick questions, you can create a beautiful landing page in minutes. There should be no hesitation to create content. Realistically, the amount of people that might see your work is so low, that you can always change, adapt and add to what you have done, but if you don’t publish anything, if you continue to procrastinate about creating a fully functioning final product, this will lead you down a dark alley without a light in sight.