Unicorner - 🦄 Zette: Unlock paywalled articles

Journalism has been in dire straits since the popularization of the internet. More people online has meant a shift in consumer behavior—with most people getting their news digitally and only half as many people subscribed to physical newspapers in 2020 compared to 2000. This shift has meant a scramble for publishers as they compete for a digital presence, leading to one of the most significant problems for publishers today: monetization. How can digital publications make money and what models work best? As consumers of news, we’ve seen ad-supported business models, subscriptions, and many more attempts at making money. Zette is bringing a new business model to publishers while giving readers a unique way to browse the news.

In a world of ad blockers and consumers who can now find information anywhere online, ad-supported and subscription models are a hard sell. This is a problem that CEO Yehong Zhu encountered herself when she realized she couldn’t afford to read the articles her friends were writing. Zette’s model enables users to read content from many different sources, giving them the freedom to read from any source online. With its one-click solution, it’s also removing the hassle of sign-ups and balancing multiple subscriptions that readers face, all while fairly compensating publishers. It’s like Apple News+, but in the words of Zhu, it “meets the users where the user is,” as opposed to a closed ecosystem like Apple’s offering.

Moreover, Zette has demonstrated some of the most important types of traction with an early-stage company. It has cemented partnerships with top publishers and grown a significantly large user base. As it grows, it plans to build out more partnerships and release iOS and Android apps. With all this and more, Zette has proven to be an exciting startup to follow. We hope to report only good news on the company.