The GNI Startups Lab’s “Planning For Revenue Growth” program proved transformational for Laura and Hilary. The coursework on financial planning helped The Anchor co-founders better understand their budget, giving them the confidence to hire a full-time marketing and revenue employee. Hiring and onboarding their new hire meant The Hingham Anchor was able to produce their popular summer camp guide ahead of schedule and to connect with potential sponsors in time, which had never happened before. The new hire is also able to focus on new revenue streams that Laura and Hilary did not have time to pursue, such as connecting with real estate agents to sell listings.

Working with their Startups Lab coach, Sam Gross instilled a sense of accountability and inspired Laura and Hilary to attack the projects choking their to-do list. Sam’s advice to hire a contractor to solve their website problems instead of migrating to a new CMS resulted in significant cost-savings and shortened their GTM strategy for connecting with new advertisers. Sam also encouraged The Anchor co-founders to promote their reader revenue program immediately and continue iterating on the details, instead of waiting for the right moment to launch.

After graduating from the GNI Startups Lab, Anchor Media secured enough advertising commitments in the first month of 2023 to fund their website operations for the rest of the year.

Successes:

Launched and promoted The Anchor’s pilot reader revenue program

Made a full-time hire to focus on revenue generation and marketing

Fully funded annual website operations in less than one month of active selling