I haven’t posted on Livin’ on Prayer in a while because writing is a high-effort endeavor for me. It doesn’t come as easily as it does for literally everybody that I work with in local journalism.

TL;DR: If you want to join a scrappy, gritty meetup of local news publishers in Chicago next year, say so enthusiastically right now.

LION Publishers announced that it won’t host a big fancy summit in 2027. The reason why is clear and understandable: a big summit costs way too much money, time and effort. Some things in business get easier and less expensive with scale; the events business does the opposite.

There’s another good reason not to host one, but this probably didn’t make the list of reasons why. Big journalism conferences tend to be boring, stuffy, out of touch and the foods eh too.

LION’s recent conferences weren’t that, but they also weren’t quite reflective of the constituency of the organization either: scrappy, mostly broke operators of hyperlocal news sites across the country.

In a conversation I had with Chris Krewson about the early days of LION, he lightheartedly referred to those conferences as “keggers” and “punk shows,” and he was right.

The early days, or the roots of LION, were low-key conferences in cheap space at Columbia College in Chicago. No frills, shitty stale bagels, and a grassroots spirit and camaraderie. (Dylan Smith corrected me — food was covered and there was an open bar every night)

The idea of after-conference fun wasn’t a cocktail reception; it was a drunken march to a dive bar underneath an overpass. And then you got to spend the night in a leaky, moldy Travelodge or Best Western.

Ah, the good ol’ days.

I don’t long for what used to be. I understand that LION had to grow and mature, get funding and all that. Shit changes. Chris has done a great job growing LION into what it is today.

I do long for what’s practical.

When LION made the announcement about the future of the conference, my phone blew up. Why? Because some people think I should take the lead on organizing something similar to the grassroots kegger.

Here we go again. Rewind about three years.

Back in 2024, LION hadn’t held a national conference in years. Some of the original LION members had dropped their memberships and grumbled that they wished there was still a meetup in Chicago like there used to be. They missed the learning, the fun, and the depth of the connections they made.

At those early LION events, when you met someone, you met them. It wasn’t a polite conference conversation. You were kindred spirits working side by side on something that mattered. It wasn’t the kind of conference where you spent half the day wanting to go hide in your hotel room.

That feeling kinda got lost somewhere as LION grew up.

So a few LIONs and I started planning a Chicago meetup where we’d do lightning talks and keep it very publisher-centric. No institutional or academic types pontificating. No Google News Initiative to bribe and brainwash us. Just publishers out there doing it, sharing what they knew with other publishers.

I think the word got out, because eventually LION announced that it would once again host a Chicago conference in 2024.

That kinda took the wind out of the sails of our little meetup. But we decided that we’d instead organize a one-day event immediately before the LION conference. It would be lightning talks and then we’d catch a Cubs game. It would be called “Doubleheader.”

And that’s what happened. Doubleheader was a blast. We got to go to LION anyway. Long Live Local News, a rallying cry created at Red Bank Green, started spreading to other outlets.

The next year, LION’s conference was in St. Louis. We did the same thing: lightning talks and a Cardinals game. That’s when the full-size Long Live Local News flag broke out.

And this year, we did it one last time in San Diego.

I closed out Doubleheader by telling everybody that it might be the last one, due to the rumors that LION was planning to sunset the big conference.

So here we are.

I hereby propose a gritty, no-frills, two-day 2027 meetup of local news publishers in Chicago, the week after Labor Day.

The focus is on learning and walking away thinking, “oh shit, that’s the most I’ve learned all year.” Cheap space, lightning talks, publishers teaching publishers, and probably some shitty bagels and coffee

If you’re a real one and you’d actually come to Chicago for this thing, fill out the form. If 100 publishers raise their hands, I’ll organize the damn thing.

Again, this form: https://forms.gle/rLTTrqrid9FHSHC5A

Long Live Local News.

LION Isn’t Hosting a Big Conference in 2027, Now What? was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This past summer I walked into my office and there was a subpoena from the United States Department of Justice on my desk. Another from Google’s antitrust defense team.

Seemed my little dinghy had been swept up in the federal antitrust case.

It wasn’t my first priority to deal with that day. I had more pressing shit to do.

I figured, like many times before, that I’d see my way out of this one. And maybe even try to squeeze something good out of it.

…

Building a company is like playing a video game where new and weird goons pop up at each level. I’ve made it far enough that I’m “successful” in a lot of people’s eyes. Of course, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not even halfway up the mountain. And to others, I’m a meaningless pipsqueak still unworthy of recognition on the plane of existence.

At one time (12 years ago), I was a bright-eyed startup wannabe trying to pitch USV, applying to Y-Combinator and TechStars. Rejected from all. I was adorably stupid and undeterred. I decided to bootstrap. A grand adventure awaited.

Looking back, as challenging as it can seem, I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world — everybody who’s made something resembling “progress” feels inclined to share some tips for the journey.

If you’re new to this, here’s my guess: You, like me, will read this and ignore virtually any good advice. But read it anyway. Maybe it’ll be helpful on your journey.

And in the words of Wu-Tang, I’m gonna give it to yeh raw.

These are the stages of bootstrapping a startup.

ONE LAST THING. If you want to greatly improve your odds of moving through these stages, particularly the middle to later ones, you should be doing these things:

• Reading and learning: All the stuff you need to know was put in a book by someone who’s been there before you. The knowledge of the world is out there for you. Don’t be an idiot and ignore it.
• Connecting with other founders: Connect with people at your stage, and people preferably a stage ahead of you. Learn from them. A maybe even one person who’s super far ahead — a mentor. Be humble. Share your failings and challenges. They’ll help if you’re sincere in asking. If you want to meet other founders, well, I’m typing this on a flight back from SaaSAcademy’s Intensive in Austin.
• Working on yourself: If you want to be good at a sport, train like an athlete. The mind works in tandem with the body. Work on growing your relationships and your role in your community. Work on you, but don’t forget that it isn’t all about you.
• Work on others: As you make progress, help others along the way — especially those who are sincere in asking for your perspective or help. Do it with no expectation of anything in return.

1. Idea

This is where most startups die. Cool idea, perhaps among friends, lots of talk — nothing ever gets off the ground. Probably better that way because those fuckers don’t execute.

2. Start Something

Ah, action. Developers are good at this. Start building out the prototype. Build all the hard parts and neglect to build the boring-but-necessary parts that makes it usable or presentable — let alone saleable.

Since building the “hard part” was also the fun part, they’ve lost interest and moved on to another project.

They gave up at the first sign of a real challenge — just sticking with it.

This one fizzles out.

Probably better that way because those fuckers don’t have the grit to follow through.

3. Finish Something

Holy shit, a completed project. You made it through the boulevard of broken dreams!

Hopefully, you’re ready to learn an entirely new skillset because you have to learn to sell, and if you want any preview of what’s to come, you’re going to suck at it.

At least for a while. Or maybe you’ve got a “business” co-founder who can sell. That would be sweet.

On that note …

4. Sell it to Somebody

I hope you didn’t just build some cool shit without ever actually asking anybody if they thought it was useful.

If you did, I hope you didn’t ask people who were going to tell you what you wanted to hear.

A lot of ideas die here. This is where some serious blows to the ego take place.

They hurt a lot more if you initially thought you knew anything or were capable of anything.

But you’re not, because you’re an idiot who knows almost exactly nothing relative to all the things that can be known. Just accept it. That’s the path to learning.

The humble founders, with time, find their way through. Your metaphorical hands and fingers may be really fucking bloody from scratching and clawing your way to the other side of this one.

But if you keep trying, you’ll pull it off. In the end, you may wind up selling a completely different product. Or maybe partially different. Lots to learn.

5. Have a Model that Works in Theory

Yay, you sold something. How many of those things do you have to sell to pay your own salary?

1,000 of them? How is that supposed to happen?

Ah right, now we need a model where we can sell enough of the things at enough of the price to pay yourself in a way that’s actually practical.

This is where you figure out whether you attempt “self-service” signup and payment or do 1:1 demos.

6. Achieve Model (or Some Mutant Bastardization of It)

You achieved the model if you can actually or theoretically pay yourself to work on the damned thing full-time.

This is where being young is helpful because you probably don’t have any standards of living. Living in squalor and eating garbage is what you were already doing anyway.

If you are, financially speaking, a fat pig who took some time away from your career to scratch an itch, this is going to be harder to pull off because you have to make more money faster and you’ll have to keep telling yourself you could get a job any time you wanted for the same pay.

And of course, there’s everything in between. I had gotten a taste of working as an SWE at a publicly traded company and had a wife and house at this stage, so it took longer — 4 years. Lots of side gigs and living on my wife’s teacher salary.

7. Hire Someone

You can’t do it all alone. Even if you can practically perform all of the duties, you’re handcuffed to the back of a truck now. You need to be able to take a breather.

Start by hiring someone who can do the stuff you suck at or at least do the things that distract you from talking to customers 1:1 and learning. Eg, an assistant to take care of low-level but time-consuming tasks.

Over time, one-by-one, hire people who specialize in the jobs that distract you from evangelizing, recruiting, making money, and crafting the vision. Think: development, customer support, sales — eventually marketing.

PS: Just because you hate planning and spreadsheets doesn’t mean everyone does. In fact, there are people who actually love those things and they’re exactly who you need.

8. Hire More Than 10 or More People

Can you routinely hire without fucking up?

Have you moved beyond hiring people just to fill spots, or because they were simply available, said the right things, or they came on a recommendation?

Have you learned to hire good and passionate people who fit in with each other and want to learn and be the best?

Goals, quarterly planning, weekly planning, monthly checking. Can you effectively sit at the front of the boat and tell everyone to row at the same time while keeping things moving in the right direction?

9. Remember What the Fuck it Was You Were Supposed to be Doing in the First Place

If you made it this far, congratulations. You may it out of survival mode. You spent so much time figuring out how to survive and grow that you might have forgotten about your hope and dreams and the Huge Fucking Vision you had to begin with. You might have checked your own expectations.

Hell, at some point, you may have fantasized about having a normal 9–5 and being a good and happy employee which, prior to starting this thing, you could never imagine.

Like Sinatra says, “I thought of quittin’ baby, but my heart wouldn’t buy it.”

Bring it all back. Dream big. Flex.

10. Stand for Something

Sometimes we go through the motions and figure out why we’re doing it later. It’s like childhood — it’s only when we’re adults that we start to get a grip on why it was all necessary and who we are.

So now that we’re here — make a positive impact. Treat other people, especially those on their way up, the way you would like to be treated.

And have a lot fucking fun on your ride. Because that’s why you did it all in the first place.

—

The challenges never stop coming, so the good news is that you never stop learning.

I have made every mistake imaginable through every single one of these stages. I’ve seen really smart people give up. I’ve seen the allure of careers and money take out otherwise passionate people.

If you want it, you can have it. Fuck anyone who says you can’t, including all the “survivor bias” assholes. The only thing that can kill a business is you: whether you give up, or you took on a time-bomb like debt or VC money.

Go fucking get it. Let the naysayers kill their own dreams, not yours.

Stay young, stay cool, and stay hungry.

• Kenny Fucking Katzgrau

—

Kenny Fucking Katzgrau is the CEO of Broadstreet, Publisher of RedBankGreen.com, and like every entrepreneur, a prolific maker of mistakes.

This past week, we got a message from a reader: a local high school student, Madelyn Sanchez-Berra, had won a YMCA-sponsored essay contest and was presenting it at an annual event hosted in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Madelyn had been known to us because recently, her high school club had been defunded due to alleged discrimination.

Madelyn and three other members of the Red Bank Regional High School Dreamers Club “filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights alleging it has been ‘singled out for nine years’ of discrimination.”

The complaint sparked community outrage and a special session meeting of the Board of Education. At the meeting, the club was reinstated.

The story came in via an experimental service that we built at RedBankGreen called “Partyline.”

I mentioned it briefly in a Local Media Association Q&A here.

Right now, pre-approved readers can submit short stories by texting our website — hooked up to a registered number through Twilio which forwards messages to our Wordpress site— where the content is grammatically checked and formatted by AI and set up as a post draft.

Partyline is a play on the lower-cost, shared subscriber lines once offered by telephone companies. Our Partyline number uses the original Red Bank exchange, 747 or “Shadyside Seven.”

Without Partyline, and our community’s involvement, our team — now totaling three people — may not have known about Madelyn’s essay much less have been able to cover it so immediately.

This is beyond simply soliciting tips from readers. It more effectively puts the power of the press in the hands of the community — perhaps even better than the democratization of publishing that the internet has made possible via Wordpress and social media platforms—because with Partyline comes the ready audience.

…

During the summer, I met up with author and professor Jeff Jarvis at a New Jersey coffee shop.

I’d known Jeff for a while through our mutual participation in events hosted by the Center for Cooperative Media.

Jeff had just published The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet — and was about to head off for a talk at Google on it.

In the book, he deeply explores a theory originating from the University of Southern Denmark that, in Jeff’s summary on a recent podcast, argues:

1. Prior to the printed word, “ideas, thoughts, and information were passed around, mouth to mouth, in a conversational society. It changed along the way, there was no sense of ownership or authorship of stories.
2. With the dawn of print, “Our cognition of the world changes … inside these containers, or books — the Alpha and Omega neat beginning and a neat ending.” The printed word, and those in control of the press, become the authority.
3. Although we’re still in the midst of so-called “print culture,” with the dawn of social media and democratized publishing, things are beginning to look a lot like the pre-print days. Knowledge is passed around click by click. It changes along the way.

Jeff goes on, “We will have the opportunity to recapture some of what we might have lost in the age of print, though we will not forget what [we can] bring with us from print.”

As Jeff notes, his friend David Weinberger has stated that the “smartest person in the room is the room itself.”

…

As much as the press has radically spurred advances in literacy, education, science, government and more — it is still subject to a fundamental weakness that eventually emerges in all social and technological change: when a new status quo emerges, that same status quo will, with enough time, become resistance and block further progress.

And so, the “one-way” or “authority model” nature of local news media today has run into several problems that have emerged

• With declining staff, the press has fewer and fewer resources to accurately portray the story of the community it serves
• The stories that do get told are more frequently of those in power
• The psychological baggage of “what has worked in the past” is naturally blocking progress at legacy media companies

Fundamentally, the power of the press has always been in the hands of a few, and that favors those in power and the status quo.

Our vision for Partyline at RedBankGreen is to marry the printed word with the conversational dialogue of our past and future. To elevate voices that would otherwise go unheard and better tell the story of our community (see the ViBE model).

It is in the delta between today and tomorrow that an opportunity exists to hear those that we would otherwise not hear.

…

Madelyn’s essay recounts early and impactful experiences. One such experience:

But when a white man falsely accused me, a naive eight year-old, of stealing his daughter’s bracelet and called me a “dirty Mexican thief,” it became clear that I was somehow unwanted in America, my birthplace, my home. From then on, I developed a complicated relationship with my identity and I became fully aware of the fact that my journey towards achieving my dreams would be difficult.

She goes on to explain what the Dreamers Club meant to her, and why it was so important.

One club in particular made me feel most welcomed: the RBR Dreamers. In the Dreamers club, I felt safe, I was able to be myself, and my wildest dreams seemed to be at my grasp. I could make it into a selective school such as Cornell University and I could become an electrical engineer. My internal conflict with my identity disappeared whenever I walked into my room. I beamed with pride knowing that I am a Mexican-American, that we have some of the best food, that we are hard working and compassionate and take strength in our independence.

The publishing of this essay provides a powerful and unique perspective of someone that we need to hear. The sequence of events that ultimately led to its publishing began with a message from a Partyline user.

To add, the meeting where the Dreamers were reinstated was live-streamed in partnership with the high school newspaper partly due to a tip from someone who knew about our upcoming Partyline initiative.

This is the kind of community collaboration and conversation that we need to see in our post-parenthesis era. The smartest person in the room really is the room.

By continually innovating, breaking down and rebuilding our definitions of what local news is and how it's produced — we can consciously and continuously lift up those in our communities and around the world.

And there’s no higher purpose than that.

—

Kenny Katzgrau is the Publisher of RedBankGreen, CEO of Broadstreet, and dad to two small but insane boys whose names, he recently realized, sound very optimistic: Ken and Will.

Red Bank Green for 100 years. Long live local news.

Innovation in Local News as a Driver of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is a repost of my annual email to Broadstreet customers, which I broadened to include all Publishers. As a publisher from Rhode Island wrote in reply, we’re in this together.

To Publishers and staff everywhere,

This email was not written by AI.

No, that would be inauthentic — something I aspire to never be again in this lifetime.

When we’re young and learning the ropes, it’s OK to copy what’s going on around you while you try to figure it all out. When you do, unleash it.

Each year, I write these end-of-year letters. I really try to put thought into them and share my perspective, what’s been learned, and what we’ve accomplished at Broadstreet.

For starters, we:

• Purchased RedBankGreen
• Got subpoenaed by Google and the DOJ (my original post)
• Launched Flux (Broadstreet Analytics, GA4 alternative)
• Launched two of our coolest ad formats ever (here and here)
• Got a new logo and tagline
• Relaunched RedBankGreen with some really cool stuff
• Built a physical button to see if ads really work
• Made all of our best resources available on our new “Free Stuff” page
• Launched Skyline and brought on our first partners
• Began planning for our first free tier in 8 years, Hitchhiker (sorry, no link — details soon)
• Added 6 new people to Broadstreet’s team (and welcome TJ Roache, who many of you already know)

Most importantly, I gained a much clearer view of who I was and became a more authentic version of myself at scale.

When you’re authentic, you get comfortable. When you’re comfortable, your vision becomes clearer and the execution of will becomes less effortful.

So, what was it we were supposed to be doing around here? There must be something important if we’ve made it this far.

Ah yes, designing and carrying out a plan to help small publishers kick the shit out of Google, Meta, and anyone else sitting on their turf.

I want small publishers to be the best place for advertisers to spend their money. If we do that successfully, we’re going to be a real problem for our Silicon Valley overlords.

The only people that I’m writing to are those who believe we can do it.

If you don’t believe it, or just a “maybe,” you may want to consider whether that attitude is informing your actions elsewhere. And you may want to kill this tab.

So now that it’s just us —

We need to strip away what we think we know about publishing and advertising and get back to the things that made it such a gem in the first place.

I believe the beauty and greatness of all things lie underneath. It’s not something that is additive.

By subtraction, we’ll probably arrive at what we already fundamentally knew. The truth is always there, and it’s always right under our noses.

If you made it this far, I want to thank you for something.

I want to thank you for putting up with my mediocre performance for so long. It had its bright spots, sure — just know that it was because I was still learning. And hell, I’ll always be learning.

But going forward, you’re going to get a different view of me and Broadstreet.

The future is golden. Let’s lift each other to new heights in 2024.

- From Kenny and the team at Broadstreet

PS: Thank you to all of the smart but very busy people who took time out of their day to meet, talk and teach me a thing or two this year. I don’t ever forget things like that.

The Future is Golden 🥂 | Annual Letter to Publishers and Staff was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I was meeting John Ward for drinks to celebrate the hiring of a very well-known New Jersey TV reporter for RedBankGreen. It’s top secret, so more on that later.

I walked into Triumph Brewing in Red Bank (check out their ad on RedBankGreen, it’s lit) and bumped into the VP of Marketing of the local YMCA.

I was buzzing because we had just posted our first reader submission via Partyline and I’d written a crude algorithm to order the stories on the homepage and position them for mobile.

So naturally, I talk her ear off about all of the wonderful things we’re doing and she can’t even get a word in.

Then she says, “That all sounds exciting, but will you be able to replicate it?” I asked her to elaborate and she said, “I mean repeat it in other towns in the area.”

There it is again. I can count the number of people who think that I’m going to start a network (a la Patch, TAPinto, etc) on several hands.

And seriously, if anyone at Patch or TAPinto is thinking I’m going to launch a network, heaven help them — they’re probably shaking in their boots.

Let me just say this —I have one focus: to make RedBankGreen work.

The newspaper model isn’t completely broken but it needs rethinking and rebuilding. And there’s no point in trying to scale anything that doesn’t work. The solution is making the atomic unit viable. I don’t believe that something so broken magically becomes (truly) viable through economies of scale.

I’m a software developer, and in the spirit of open-source, I have vowed to be transparent in everything that I do and share everything that I know.

Have you seen our pitiful starting balance sheet, by the way?

I don’t care if I don’t make a dime from it. I do just fine with Broadstreet. If Broadstreet benefits financially or through newly acquired perspective (and it already has), it’ll be a pleasant side effect.

Local news won’t be saved by an individual. It’ll be saved by lots of smart individuals working with each other and copying each other’s ideas.

As Gandhi said, be the change that you want to see.

Be the person or organization that if replicated thousands or millions of times, would make the world better.

Find something that works for you and share it. Give freely and it will come back in all kinds of ways.

If you liked this message, and you want to help make that change, share this post. Otherwise, it belongs to the void.

—

Kenny is the Publisher of RedBankGreen, CEO of Broadstreet, and his version of Rosebud would probably be Snuffles, his long-lost stuffed polar bear, who was last seen exiting the backseat, passenger side window of a Oldsmobile on Route 80 circa 1988.

PS: Snuffles is his password for everything (not).

New Hire; People Think I’m Trying to Build a Local News Empire was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I don’t claim to be a journalist — I respect the profession too much to degrade it like that.

To be fair, I did spend a year as the managing editor of the worst college newspaper on the planet (picture a bunch of engineering students pretending to be reporters), but I’m absolutely certain that I didn’t learn a thing.

So here’s a text message thread between me and the editor (and founder) of RedBankGreen discussing whether the fact that our local Chipotle is charging $1.60 for a cup of tap water — is news. I think I have a valid perspective.

But do I?

I’ve already been lampooned by some journalist neckbeard on Reddit, but I’m curious what other real journalists think. Valid or beneath them?

Update: I asked a bunch of local journalists in a Facebook group and the verdict was completely split between “hard pass” and “the readers would be interested to know.”

—

Kenny Katzgrau is the Publisher of RedBankGreen, CEO of Broadstreet, and by far the biggest and grandest idiot of them all.

Is a $1.60 for a Cup of Water at Chipotle a Story? was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We installed a button at a brick-and-mortar storefront to see if their ad with us was actually working.

Here was the original ad (which has since been through many iterations).

And here was the report to suggest that it was doing very well, and the reason I wanted to prove that it was working:

So armed with a few encouraging datapoints, I’m already dropping “our ads actually work and we’re the only ones on the planet who actually cared enough to find out” into sales conversations.

—

Kenny Katzgrau is the Publisher of RedBankGreen, CEO of Broadstreet, and has idolized Stu Pickles, Caractacus Potts, and Data from the Goonies since he was a kid.

We Made a Physical Button to Prove an Ad Works was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At roughly midnight on October 26th, I deployed the first cut of the new Red Bank Green.

Built as a custom theme from the ground up based on some really rough wireframes I did on my iPad — pagespeed went from 40 to 98 on desktop and 24 to 78 on mobile, although there’s more refining to do.

I started the deployment at 4 pm and, of course, found out things were busted at the last minute and then it took me until midnight to get things in a passable state. The kids were asleep and I was exhausted and decided to just say “fuck it” and push.

So, deploying at midnight had nothing to do with the impact on readers.

When it comes to changes like this, I’m very much a lean startup/scrappy business disciple: We occasionally push broken things and rapidly iterate on them until they’re good. Broadstreet customers know we can be like that, but it leads to some real innovation because you’re not putting a ton of effort into something that you don’t know will work.

I’ve seen publishers delay launches week after week to get some padding and line spacing correct. Nobody cares — push and commit to fixing it ASAP.

By the way, shout out to Web Publisher Pro for the assistance in the switchover.

Anyway, this industry needs innovation — rapidly creating and testing new things. What I always found strange about the news industry was this search for “a new model” for sustainability when the industry really didn’t try iterating on the old model that historically worked really well: advertising. They just threw up their hands and ceded the territory to Google and Facebook. No doubt partly influenced by Google News Initiative.

For Nassim Taleb fans, consider the Lindy Effect.

So speaking of innovation, here’s what’s launched and what’s coming.

By the way, this follows the ViBE concept that I described in this video and in my announcement to the community.

The Header

This is custom artwork that I had made of Broad Street in Red Bank, NJ. In the summer they make it a pedestrian plaza called “Broadwalk.” Some people said, “use a photo” but anyone can do that. And I wanted to emphasize some of the best elements, like the Reusille’s clock.

You can see that, on the billboard in the very back, I tucked in a reference to the 100-year vision.

This image, to me, represents our three core values: The Vitality of Red Bank, Community, and Fun — alongside our 100-year vision.

The Community Pillar

We’ve got three primary tiers of support: Community Pillar, Local Authority, and Local Legends. Local Authority isn’t live yet, but you can see what it looks like in that ViBE video I linked.

I went totally native here, and plan to do so gradually with the other units.

This messaging will not be static per client — there will be three creatives at minimum, possibly 4, per client.

1. One for long-term branding and awareness
2. Another for a quarterly campaign or support of a short-term initiative
3. One is to bring the personality (owner, director, etc) out of the organization. I want people and fun content.
4. Potentially, one to work in their social media posts dynamically

By the way, Community Pillar is an annual buy and probably the most foundational to my revenue plans.

The Clap

Click on that bad boy and see what you get: Confetti.

I don’t know how to make it stop and if you click too many times I’m pretty sure it’ll crash your browser.

But in the perfect world, clicking on that does a few things:

1. Counts the number of claps at an advertiser level, not the ad level — building up some social proof and hopefully, some value that the client won’t want to lose should they think of allocating budget elsewhere
2. Provide a mechanism for readers to give our business a pat on the back — something that we can send to clients in an automated weekly digest (you got 77 news claps this week!)
3. Keeps it fun. Have you ever seen that before? We (me and you) really need to be doing things that have never been done before.

By the way, this is related to a suggestion from Scott Brodbeck at ARLNow.com. There are definitely forward-thinking people that I count on for good conversations and he’s definitely one of them.

The Lobster

OK, this isn’t about the Lobster Roll ad in particular — but the format itself. It’s a Broadstreet format called the Super Snapshot. I sold this little nugget in 24 hours and repeated that two times over within weeks, and then made the format available to Broadstreet customers.

Watch this video to understand how powerful this unit is. I spoke with the client, sent them a spec within minutes, and the deal was done.

.8% click rate in the reports — that’s nuts. Nothing performs like images and text. I think ads can be truly informational and forcing them into IAB specs (300x250, 300x600, 728x90, 970x250) has the effect of making them painfully ineffective and scream “ad.”

And you know what? Advertisers like buying weird and different shit too.

Sometimes I hear: “But my clients never ask for anything like this — they just want to run banners”

Bro, that’s all they know. It’s your job to show them what’s possible and deliver the most effective vehicle to them getting the value they were hoping for when they bought an ad with you. If you don’t believe that, then people who do believe that are going to kick your shit in.

One of the most important pieces

“Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

I can give all the impression and click data that I want in a report to the client. Hell, if could actually track people clicking on an ad and then visiting said advertiser — it would still be my data and potentially bullshit in the advertiser’s eyes.

The most powerful confirmation for a small business is that somebody walks in and says “I saw your ad.”

So, I’m hoping that the nice people of Red Bank do that occasionally. It only takes a few.

Nobody, including me, likes spending money on marketing and not knowing if it leads to results. I go to great lengths to track leads through the entire funnel for my paid campaigns at Broadstreet, always experimenting, measuring and tracking.

When I don’t know if something’s working, it gets cut — end of story.

Everyone’s known a coworker who acts like they work but doesn’t ever seem to actually do anything.

Is it a surprise if the company decides to stop paying them?

Publishers and reps: Do not be that employee.

Partyline

This is coming soon, and maybe the most important piece in the “Everyone” portion of the ViBE model.

I registered a Twilio phone number for Red Bank Green.

You can text Red Bank Green, and we’ll automatically catch the text and use AI to spin up a short draft/blurb categorized under “Partyline.”

Partyline is a reference to the shared subscriber line. Sounds fun, I wanna be on Partyline.

In theory, registered readers can submit their own personal news and interesting things in Red Bank. This pays homage to the old Red Bank Register, which was part of RedBankGreen’s inspiration. Obviously, it’ll come with challenges.

I believe that news publishing should not be one-way. Red Bank Green should be as true a reflection of our community as possible. It’s incredibly important that more voices are heard — we have an incredibly diverse, small town of roughly 10k.

My thesis, which I’ll elaborate on in a future post, is that it’s only through innovation and disruption — in the delta between what’s possible today and the future — does the opportunity for new players exist.

Innovation in local news can be a powerful driver of diversity and inclusion. And news, unfortunately, has remained more/less unchanged for hundreds of years. The incumbency of the old model is actively keeping unheard voices unheard.

Jeff Jarvis wrote a compelling book touching on this and many other facets. He was nice enough to meet with me for coffee in the Jersey the day he gave this talk at Google — and we had a really thoughtful conversation.

So anyway, more to come. But I’m here to be at least one player breaking things and rebuilding them.

A lot of this is unproven, but it’s important that we try.

PS, follow me on Medium. I have like 7 followers. I’m good at tech, and bad at audience. Maybe Ned Berke or Melissa Chowning can help me out! I do think it’s a good story to tell.

—

Kenny Katzgrau is the Publisher of Red Bank Green and Rick Astley for Halloween.

By the way, this one is NOT done with AI. I actually did this in front of a green screen.

It’s Alive: 5 Innovative Things To Check Out on the New RedBankGreen.com was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I love a quick sales turnaround. I’m relaunching RedBankGreen in a week or so, but that’s not stopping me from selling. I actually having fun selling ads, which sounds a little crazy.

If you need to sell but you’re stuck procrastinating or just hate the general idea of it, here’s my simple system to keep it fun for you and the client.

This is assuming you already have the sales meeting or one fell into your lap. I’ll cover cold outreach at another time, which is also super easy.

Step 1: Ask this question

“What are some comments you hear a lot from customers the first time they visit?”

Every business owner hears the same comments over and over. These comments are a gold mine because they’re either an indicator of what preconceptions the general public has about the business or what the general public will like about the business.

“Oh, they say they didn’t even know we existed”

“They say their friends love the ____ and told them they had to stop by”

“They say they thought we were just a brewery, not a restaurant.”

These are a handful of actual examples that I’ve heard in the past 3 weeks.

These are the problems you’re going to solve or the things you’re going to promote. Sometimes it takes a little prodding or discussion to get some good material.

So now you’ve got the gold. Explain how we’re going to use it.

Step 2: Make a recommendation with two options: one cheap and one expensive

Tell the client what you would recommend to solve that problem or get the word out — something that you would personally be excited about.

Don’t ask what they would prefer if you can avoid it. If you create a state of indecision or uncertainty, you’re going to hurt your chances of closing it — and to be honest, they don’t know what they want or what they’re doing anyway. You’re the expert, not them.

Take this Lobster Roll place that I just sold a campaign to. The owner said nobody knew they existed.

So I said “Let’s get a big ass picture of one of your Lobster Rolls up and stop people in their tracks. That’ll get a ton of attention.” Almost word for word.

I said we had two options:

1. Put it right below the story, but before the comments. Price is $475 per month.
2. Put it in the sidebar for $300/month.

In either case, it only makes sense if we run it over the course of 3 months minimum — we want to make sure readers see it over and over and we beat it in.

I said the first option would kill it. Lo and behold, he said he wanted that option.

Just two options: The one that makes sense and the cheap rat bastard option, as I refer to it. It makes it simple. And to be honest, everyone’s had the experience of cheaping out on something and later regretting it — I know I have.

Step 3. Send client a mockup and a simple sales agreement

I try to make everything straightforward and frictionless. I send a mockup (noting that it’s not final) along with a simple sales agreement and a payment link.

It’s important not to drag things out because you want to wrap this up while it’s still top of mind for the client.

I go extremely casual on sales agreements. At the local level, you ain’t suing anybody if you know what’s good for you. Just something to get us on the same page. Here’s the template I personally wrote and use.

Follow up a couple of times per week if needed, and do not start the campaign until they pay. Ideally they close within 24 hours — but if they start to ghost — stay upbeat, positive, and persistent. They’re busy as hell and with enough prodding will get around to it.

“Hey, Labor Day weekend is coming up — let’s wrap this up so you’re live before then.”

Here’s a video of how I used this exact process with a new advertiser at RedBankGreen.

PS: I sold another one yesterday. Like that green wrapper? Going to make wrappers a Broadstreet feature.

How to Sell a Local Ad in 3 Steps was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ad sales agreements at the local level are basically just important for having a mutual understanding of how things are going to work.

You’re pretty much never going to court over or even get remotely litigious, because you don’t want to shit where you eat. In a small town, the word will get around.

Anyway, I wanted to keep it super simple:

• A single page, or close to it
• Personal
• 7 terms (I like 3s, 7s, and 10s for things — just looks and feels thought-out)
• Flat pricing — no confusing CPM jazz for a little guy
• Setting expectations/guidance around frequency
• I’m going to call the shots when needed — aka, ask forgiveness not permission

On that last point, business owners can take their sweet time getting back to you on simple things. There are a lot of reasons for that — the biggest being they’re just busy as hell and honestly don’t know what they’re doing or want in terms of marketing anyway.

As for the creative: super simple, one of Broadstreet’s Instant Snapshots. Very simple. 500px wide below the story and before the comments. Image, title, description, link — and will swap out the image and text a few times over 3 months. Worth $1500, right? Pic below is almost the actual size.

So, you know, I want to keep friction to a minimum.

On that note, for a shorter-term campaigns: it’s up-front and on the credit-card. They gotta show they’re serious — I really don’t want to have to come kneecapping, know what I mean?

—

Kenny Katzgrau is the Publisher of Red Bank Green and a straight-up gangsta. He posted his sad starting balance sheet and P&L here.

This is What My Ad Sales Agreement Looks Like was originally published in Livin’ On A Prayer on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.