Nothing is set in stone yet and I don’t even know what I’m going to be approached about, but I know that it may be something about making YkOnline.ca a joint venture. YkOnline.ca is my local or hyperlocal blog that I started almost a year ago. It is my pride and joy and I truly see the potential within it and the need for it in the community.
That being said, I want nothing more than for it to succeed. That is why I am torn about the possible opportunity of making YkOnline a joint venture. Losing something that you built from the ground up is hard, especially something you’re passionate about. That is not to say I would loss the site completely, but going into a joint venture I would loss a certain percentage of control. I’m personally worried that once another person comes along I would fold to any idea they offer. In some areas I’m not very good at standing up for myself, which is a self-confidence issue.
Part of my reasoning for being a little paranoid about a JV is because I don’t understand what it is. I’m obviously looking for help with the site; it is hard for me to keep it up-to-date with current information on a daily base. What I was hoping for in a partnership was someone who shares the passion of the community rather than someone with a journalism background. That’s not to say that wouldn’t be great, but as someone with out any journalism background I would feel intimidated and feel as though I didn’t have the smarts or any good ideas for that matter to contribute.
Then we run into the question of money. I have put countless hours into YkOnline.ca over the last year where I have made no money, then add in the cost of running the site. There is no way I could give up 49% of the site with out getting a good deal in someway or another. The site currently makes no money but come the end of April I will start to push getting advertisers and try to generate revenue through ads. If YkOnline.ca were to split between more than me, how would we split the revenue? Considering I would probably sell the ads, invoice, and do all the dirty work, what does that entitle me to. Many of these questions will be answered upon meeting the possible partner, but I’m just putting them out there so I have an idea.
Now you know the situation, so my question is how would you go about this if it were about your blog, or hyperlocal site? What you even consider it? What would you want out of it? What is your general opinion of Joint Venturing a site like YkOnlineca?
