They Got Acquired - How we're using a grant to grow 🌱

Sept. 23, 2022
​Read on web​

Business media often present a buttoned-up, polished version of founders and their companies.

The reality — as you all know know well! — is that entrepreneurship is messy.

Capturing that complex narrative is what inspired Jeff Taylor to launch Courier Media, an online and print publication he sold to email-marketing giant MailChimp in 2020.

But when he launched London-based Courier in 2014, Taylor encountered “a lot of pushback” from potential investors, he said. The company exclusively offered print products at that time, and critics claimed that “print was dead and there was no way a print-centric media business could be successful.”

Undaunted, Taylor raised less than $100,000 from family and friends, then used that money to establish the brand as an unconventional voice for entrepreneurs.

Here's more on how he did it 👇

🗞️ Email newsletter giant MailChimp acquired a print publication. Here’s why, plus how it happened​

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Behind the business

We're trying something new to help us fund operations during this first year of business: a grant.

This fall a grant opportunity came our way that felt right. So I applied — and ended up winning the 2022 Medill and The Garage Media Entrepreneur Fellowship.

The fellowship is awarded through the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and The Garage, the school's entrepreneurship hub. While you don't have to be a Medill graduate to apply — it's open to any underrepresented entrepreneur who is working on innovation in media — I got my master's degree in journalism there 18 years ago. So being involved with the school in this way feels like coming full circle.

I thought hard before applying because I knew participating in a fellowship could be a distraction from running this business. But in the end I decided these benefits outweighed the downsides of splitting my energy:

• Access to university resources: We'll get to tap into the brainpower of the school and lean on student groups to make progress on They Got Acquired projects. One of the requirements of the fellowship is mentoring students, which I find energizing, and I'm hoping I might meet high-potential students who could be a fit to join our team down the line.
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• $80,000 stipend over the academic year: The fellowship comes with a meaningful grant, and non-dilutive funding (funding that doesn't require me to give up equity) is incredibly helpful in these early days of the business. Our revenue growth is promising, but it's not yet predicable or repeatable. This grant money will help cover our expenses, so I don't have to add more of my personal savings to the pot. It literally buys us time to grow our revenue.

Buying time is so meaningful, especially for an entrepreneur who also has caretaking responsibilities that sometimes prevent me from moving as quickly as I'd like. It reduces my financial anxiety and lets us focus on long-term revenue growth, rather than how we'll pay the bills next month. 🙏

We've published a bunch of stories lately where founders have leaned on grants to make early progress. This has opened my eyes to grants as an alternative funding source for startups, so we're now working on a story about these opportunities. Coming soon!

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​
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