of note:
The 404 team DIYs as much as possible. They pay for hosting through Ghost and set up litigation insurance, for example, but everyone makes their own art for stories instead of paying for agency photos. (The reporters are also the merch models). Everyone works from home, so they don’t have an office and don’t plan on getting one anytime soon. The team communicates through a free Slack channel. Koebler mails out merchandise from his garage in Los Angeles. Every month, the team meets (virtually) to decide how much they can pay themselves. (The number changes each month, but everyone gets paid the same amount.)
While I love that they are profitable, this sounds like a massive private investment from all involved which is not a good model as a whole
To me it sounds like a journalism co-op, how is this not a good model? Everyone contributes to getting it going, and then everyone gets an even slice of the pie. They keep their overhead minimal to keep costs down, and everyone has incentive to put out their best work. Sounds solid to me.
Well, the line between a minimal overhead, self employed lifestyle and an abusive workplace are fuzzy in those kinds of arrangements
They each put a quarter share of $1,000, per the article:
The four cofounders each own 25% of the company, and at launch each put in $1,000 to cover initial costs.
Isn’t that what most small business owners go through? My brother and his wife own a business and they hustle waaaay more than I need to as an employee of a large business with all the HR, retirement etc baked in. I don’t think they went net positive for like 4-5 years.
The thing is it’s profitable because they pay themselves less than they make in income. We don’t really know how sustainable their pay is
