Entrepreneurs tend to take for granted how easy it is to start media companies in the U.S., notes Ricardo Bilton. The abundance of capital and potential ad revenue and lack of governmental censorship make it relatively simple for anyone with an idea to get something started, he writes for NiemanLab:
Media entrepreneurs in other South American countries face similar challenges, and they lack a central place to share ideas on how to solve them. SembraMedia hopes to fill that gap. The site, whose name is a play on “to sow” in Spanish, is trying to build both a directory and digital community of media startups in Latin America. The hope is that by bringing them together, SembraMedia can help founders turn ideas into reality, and startups into sustainable businesses….
The effort is similar to ALiados, a network of independent news organizations in Latin America launched in 2013. The goal there, as with SembraMedia, was to help the member sites find sustainability by teaming up on grant applications and marketing initiatives.
“Our mission is to support people who are creating new projects. One of the best ways to do that is to empower as many people as possible and bring them together,” said Janine Warner, SembraMedia’s executive director. (SembraMedia is supported by the Institute for Nonprofit News, National Endowment for Democracy, and the Cook Family Foundation.)
