Side Walks Q1 Report: In it Together
We've got opinions on all sorts of things, but our promise to readers is old-fashioned, fact-based, explanatory journalism - wrapped in a new tech package.
Hi everybody. We've hit a milestone here at Side Walks; we just completed our first 90 days.
We launched on Friday, February 7, and today, Gina and I are starting a new feature, our Quarterly Subscriber Report, because we believe the beating heart of journalism isn’t the revelatory headline or great turn of phrase but rather the trust we build with each other.
Our goal with these reports is to bring you into our conversations about building a start-up digital news publication based in Atlantic Canada. We’ll share some of our metrics, report on what we learned over the past 90 days and set our goals for the next 90 days.
So, let’s dive in with our five key observations from Q1.
1. Thanks for Showing Up; 77% Q1 Audience Growth
Side Walks is my second Substack publication, and we launched it by transferring my old newsletter list over.
I started dabbling on the platform in 2023 with a newsletter for friends and family called ‘A Little Wicked Thinking’ and when Gina, Paul and I decided to create a news magazine with a new name and focus, we found it was easier to create a new publication on Substack than to rename my old one.
The vast majority of my ‘A Little Wicked Thinking’ subscribers have stayed with Side Walks – thank you – and we have recorded a steady arrival of new subscribers, recording a 77.5 per cent increase for our first quarter (Q1).
That’s a good start, and our goal is to steadily increase our audience through the next three quarters.
How fast that happens will be determined by how well Gina, Paul and I are able to capitalize on the next few learnings.
How You Can Help
If you like what we’re doing, please talk about us with friends, family and colleagues.
Actual word-of-mouth in which one lovely human talks with another lovely human is a powerful way for you to help us build Side Walks. Gina and I love it when we run into someone on, well, the sidewalk, or at Cochran’s, who tells us someone told them about our new venture and recommended they check it out.
You can share our stories and our publication by using the handy dandy ‘share’ buttons embedded in our stories.
2. We Know Where We Come From and Where We Want to Go
We launched Side Walks because we saw a desire in the marketplace for in-depth journalism that provides analysis rather than opinion.
Here’s the difference: analysis gives you information to guide your thinking, and opinion tells you what to think.
We called our publication Side Walks because we intend to stay grounded and focused on local issues caused by national and global forces.
Consider us your guide, standing by your side as you navigate an increasing amount of uncertainty and opportunity.
Our goal is to create a national publication that explores the implications of national and global change from a local perspective, and while we had a long list of topics to cover, we leaned heavily on our existing business knowledge and sources to get started.
Your response correctly reminded us that the best way to do that is to begin here at home.
In response to your embrace of our Saint John series, we have refined Side Walks’ focus.
To explore the role of East Coast businesses and communities in transforming Canada’s national economy into an East-West corridor that is increasingly focused on trade within Canada and with like-minded countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.
How You Can Help
Invite us over.
If you’re looking for a moderator or guest for your next fireside chat, podcast, radio or TV show, panel discussion or team retreat, call us. We promise we’ll help lead a lively discussion about issues we both value and you’ll help us raise our voices by sharing your platform and audience with us.
3. Clear-eyed Home Team Advantage
Our heads and hearts inform our nose for news.
From a business perspective, we see a hole that we intend to fill. There is limited business coverage and analysis of the Atlantic Canadian economy from both local and national news organizations.
While local organizations do cover the economy, most do so through a public policy or political lens. It’s not wrong; it’s just incomplete, particularly if we are trying to understand how to build wealth and increase prosperity in the region.
As one C-suite executive told me, he has a difficult time identifying opportunities closer to home because, despite his best efforts, he lacks a strong understanding of what actually powers the regional economy and where tangible opportunities reside.
We’re also driven by a touch of homer annoyance at recent national and international coverage that doubled down on stereotypes of the region as beggars at Canada’s economic table.
Both Gina and I side-eyed the New York Times’ piece that painted Saint John as the modern-day successor to 1930s Appalachia. I was the sole audience for Gina’s one-woman rant about the drive-by observations. We were less disgusted with the Globe & Mail’s Saint John feature, although it did earn a minor aging Gen X eye roll and sigh from both of us.
Meanwhile, I found myself yelling at my car stereo as I listened to Liberal strategist David Herle’s analysis of Atlantic Canada’s election results on his Curse of Politics podcast. While he and his guests agreed that voters in Ontario and Quebec voted Liberal because of Mark Carney’s resumé, Herle offhandedly concluded Atlantic Canada voted Liberal because the region is dependent on government handouts. That’s one hell of a cursed stereotype.
Something is happening in Canada, and it’s more than simply a shift in mood. Gina and I do believe the country is about to undergo a fundamental economic shift, and if Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford are to be believed, we’re going to move faster than we have since the Second World War.
Well – hallelujah – Atlantic Canada’s location on the Europe-facing side of Canada gives this region an advantage it hasn’t experienced in, well, I don’t know how long. The East Coast is literally in the name - East-West Trade Corridor – so why wouldn’t we take the lead?
This is our opportunity to tell our economic story, to ourselves certainly, but also to the rest of the country, and to others in the rest of the world who, like us, see value in the communities we call home on Canada’s East Coast.
How You Can Help
Send us story ideas! We are interested in:
Private sector investment or pivots in response to the reordering of Canadian trade.
Opportunities you see in this reordering and the underlying issues East Coast businesses and communities will need to address. Be still my heart, but my municipal planning nerd senses are tingling.
Stories that expand our coverage of the East-West trade corridor beyond Saint John. Tell us what is happening in your community or your business. We gently ask that you refrain from smoke blowing in the backside direction; we’re interested in evidence of actual progress or change.
Send us your questions! Tell us what is making you go ‘hmmmmmm’ and what you want to know about, based on what you’re reading and observing about Canada’s impending great transition.
4. Local Analysis Drives Audience and Revenue
The bulk of our audience growth came within the past month, initiated by the launch of our multi-part series about Saint John’s industrial growth and its role in helping to develop Canada’s east-west trade corridor.
Of note is that both our overall subscriber list, the bulk of which are free subscribers, and our paid subscriber list grew at a similar pace.
While this is great news for our business bank account, it’s even better for our business plan because it tells us there is an audience willing to pay for the type of local news and analysis we want to create.
Thank you to all our paid subscribers. You are Side Walks' first adopters, and we appreciate the vote of confidence you have given us by paying for a brand-new product that is admittedly still evolving.
Today, we are introducing a new subscription offer – group subscriptions – which offer a 25% discount for groups of four or more subscribers. Put us in, coach! Let us help keep your team informed, get the classroom discussion going, or level up family after-dinner conversations.
How You Can Help
You can upgrade to a paid subscription, which gives you access to all our stories, our archives, let’s you comment and help us get a community conversation going. Plus, you’ll get a first glimpse at new offerings as we roll them out.
We have five options. You can:
Pay by-the-month for $8/month;
Buy an annual subscription for $80/month;
Become a journalism champion for $250. Thank you to our champions who stepped up to support us in our first few months!
Buy a discounted group subscription for four or more subscribers.
Give a gift subscription.
5. Our Q2 Goal: Increase Our Audience & Explore Sustainable Business Models
As we head into Q2, we will dive into coverage of east-west trade developments and what that means for local communities. On the business side, we will focus on driving subscription growth and various methods to drive revenue growth.
Our long-term business goal is to determine a sustainable business model for the type of journalism we want to practise. Now that we have some real-world experience with Side Walks, we’ll use what we learned in Q1 to inform Q2 research into different business models.
We see a clear path for a for-profit premium, business-focused journalism product, and we also see an opportunity for a non-profit model for public service journalism. We want to explore the pros and cons of each a bit more fully and consider if a hybrid model might work.
How You Can Help
If any of you have experience with business models or the media business, we’d love to chat and get your feedback on our larger vision with you.
And hey, our door is always open for friendly conversations from potential investors, sponsors or advertisers.
Thanks again for supporting our work. We launched Side Walks to start a conversation. Thank you for being the first to join in.
Side Walks Home Page
Catch up on all our stories.