El Míster: 100 days at full speed
El Míster is my fourth media venture. The first was called Ajugar.com.mx, the second MXSports, the third Cámara Húngara.
Let’s start at the beginning…
What is El Míster?
It is a content platform specialized in the sports industry (business, finance, innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, sustainability, web3 and others).
We are a newsletter.
We are a podcast.
We do industry research.
Until before the Mister, all had failed. Why?
I admit it: In all the previous ones I had believed (almost firmly) that the ‘content’ was enough to be a success in all senses — editorial, audience and of course, commercial. And of course, it was not like that.
My application to the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program was like something that was remote to me and that probably would not come. It’s not that I’m pessimistic — I suppose starting four media means much less being pessimistic — but there have been few opportunities in sports journalism to develop projects.
Is it?
Many of these “journalism support” institutions do not know or have not been told that sports journalism is also important to tell the story of today’s world. Important to explain migration, corruption, the economy, mental health…
And even worse, many complain about the “poor quality” of sports journalism in the region, but I wonder, how can sports journalism improve if it does not have support, knowledge, learning, if there are no opportunities?
So I applied with some doubts. But when I received the notification that I had been accepted, it was one of the most important professional moments.
A 100 day program. What can you do?
How does a program empower you to believe that what you are doing has value and the people can pay? How does the mind of a journalist become that of an entrepreneur? What matters more, quality or quantity?
It has been an exciting challenging 100 days, even despite the language issue. I am Mexican, a Latin American, and it was my longest program in English. It is one thing for you to talk or have a conference in English, but taking everything in this language was challenging for me personally.
What did I learn on this route?
1. Know your audience (even the last detail). Who are they, what is their name, where do they work, why are they with you? As much information as possible is always better.
2. Be self-critical. It’s okay to be wrong, of course, but don’t close yourself off thinking that your idea is like a statue that doesn’t move, on the contrary, it has to be moldable.
3. Learn to read the data. Saying that you have 4 million likes seems more powerful than having 5,000 subscribers, but many times it is the opposite. Because nowadays knowing who are those who are with you, what they like, what they do, segmentation can be powerful to market and/or become relevant to an industry.
4. No-code tools can save your life. I’m going to put it like this, a decade ago I paid more than 4,000 dollars to have a website made for me, today I wouldn’t even pay for that. Technology allows us to grow and show that the quality with which you do your work is worthy of attention.
5. Never stop learning. Many times I have heard people say that because you are over 45 or 50 you are already beyond obsolete, which is one of the biggest lies out there. I believe that you either have the learning gene or you don’t. Training is also an act of humility that you can hold onto to continue growing.
6. Networking (with purpose) opens doors. It’s not doing RP for doing RP. The first thing is to know what is your value as a media, journalist, entrepreneur and what you can offer to others, and then look for alliances that promote you and of course, that these qualities also help you form solid relationships, promote others, and that growth happens not only in one direction but in both. Networking has many benefits for the positioning of your product.
7. Be unique. The Internet offers us (almost) everything, so the most important thing when you start your own media company is to identify what makes you different, where is your value, what do you contribute, why people have to stop to listen (read or see) what you have to say. The media — I’m sure you know — are experiencing a crisis and personally I think it’s because for years (that’s how they worked and they did it well) they focused on giving news. Today I think the news is irrelevant if we don’t explain why and how. A basic question is, why do you make that content, who benefits, who harms, what do you want, what do you contribute to the debate or topic?
8. Create communities. Especially for media entrepreneurs, it is essential to produce empathy to drive engagement, because behind us we do not have a machine of money or people, and it is precisely at this point where we must be sensitive and have the vision to understand who the information or content you produce. I believe, and I have said it on other occasions, that the media right now should think as if they were a sports team, create fans and followers more than readers or consumers.
9. Resilience and patience. They are a couple of qualities essentials. After three failed ventures, El Míster is the first to see the light of day and has a business model that has responded to my needs. And here, beyond strategies, I can say that what we have achieved has been thanks to being patient with the results. I am a lover of processes and that has allowed me to take small and solid steps, but I also believe that resilience has been one of my main qualities. Surrender? It’s even worth thinking about it, because things don’t always work out the way you want, but after that crisis it’s worth rethinking what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and then maybe turning around, changing the route and continuing. There’s nothing wrong with that.
10. Rigor. This value is fundamental and is the most basic of journalism. Although today clickbait is part of the constitution of some media, as an entrepreneur, with few human and financial resources, it is a priority to exploit all the tools you have to achieve goals. And in our case at El Míster, rigor is essential to achieve objectives such as: attracting attention, having credibility, generating empathy, admiration and being followed.
These 10 points are part of the learning and path I had in the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. Some I reinforced, but others I sized them in their proper measure.
El Míster was born at the end of 2020 as a sports business newsletter and little by little we adapted to the trends to later add topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, management, web3, sustainability, finance and others.
And how do we apply all this in the business, management and legacy route of El Míster?
I would say that after these 100 days of acceleration, we have taken the following steps:
- Meet our subscribers. Before, I was obsessed with growing the subscriber base, but after several EJCP sessions (and a client who asked me questions that I couldn’t answer 100%), I understood that I had to meet the people behind giving me their mail and we undertook the task of finding out their names, positions and what they did. We did a survey to find out who our readers were, what they thought of us, what they liked, what they didn’t like, where our area of opportunity was. From that survey we now know, to give an example, that more than 250 people who follow us are senior management people: Presidents, CEOs, General Directors. It is, to say it in some way, our elite group.
- Identify our value. For 10 years I was the sports editor of El Economista, an economic newspaper in Mexico, I received many congratulations for the content we produced. I can proudly say that we created a quality and attractive content model, but it stopped there. The reason? Because I did not identify the real value of what we did. Now at El Míster, thanks to the EJCP sessions, I understood why all the content we do is relevant, how journalism could contribute to our the community, and above all what we are capable of doing.
- Exploit no-code tools. Although we already use them, we learned about many more tools that can help us now to better present content and new projects that we have in mind, such as Miro, where we are testing out making an MVP with maps and concepts to explain issues in the sports industry. We also implemented Notion and Airtable for theme and database organization.
- Membership program. It will be in the month of April (perhaps the end of March) when we launch our membership program. We know who consumes us, we understand our value and what we contribute, which is why we have decided to take this leap. The idea is simple, I don’t want your money to “support quality journalism,” I want your money because I know that I can help you make decisions, what is being done in other parts of the world and apply it, I can offer you a look that in LATAM is scarce: research.
The Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program helped me, in summary, to know what we are, the value we have and, above all, to know how we can help. Today, before money, I care that my followers are loyal, that they feel committed to us. First we want to make them fall in love and that, for me, is right now one of the most important points of the project.
You can follow Ivan and his project on Twitter @elmisterperez.
