Personal—Journalist turned Entrepreneur

Journalists would make for successful entrepreneurs. The skills, strengths and individuality of reporters would give them a good shot in this profession.

Both journalism and startup culture have major obvious differences, especially if you judge a career based on average salary. But as a student journalist I feel vetted to assert this. I think reporters could look at it as a potential career pivot, while still using their journalism strengths and skills. 

It wasn’t until I was “boots on the ground,” reporting from Flint, Michigan with a team of journalists that I realized how powerful they truly are.

They’re hard deadlining, fast learning and agile thinking. When they get stuck, they’re deep seeking, cold networking and interview outreaching. 

They develop their craft to create something valuable for people. They’re standard bearing and they’re critique seeking. They are agile too; they study quickly and explain clearly.

From what I’ve heard, starting a startup looks like taking a risk on an idea, studying it, iterating the idea through feedback or interviewing, failing and starting again. They will get turned down and there are lots of physical and psychological intensities that they face to make their idea real. Writers make their ideas real through writing, sometimes retreating to a fancy hotel room to write a book [J.K. Rowling booked a five star hotel room in her city of Edinburgh to write the final book in the Harry Potter series, titled “The Deathly Hollows”] or a cabin to seek learning [Bill Gates with his famous annual week of learning, where he finds peace in a private cabin with a stack of papers and books.] Journalists are more outward than these writers since they are working directly with each other and with the public [i.e. Jeff Howe's and Mark Robinson's Crowdsourcing].

Going from journalism to entrepreneurship would be quite the challenge, but journalists don’t fret a challenge. For show, just ask a journalist why they are staying in a hollowing industry.