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Launch HN: The Juggernaut (YC W19) – A Publication for the South Asian Diaspora
Hi HN! I’m Snigdha, founder of The Juggernaut (https://www.thejuggernaut.com https://www.thejuggernaut.com), a subscription publication for the South Asian diaspora. We charge <$5/month for original stories on South Asia and its people. I’d love your feedback — new subscribers get a free week trial :)
I’m Indian-American and grew up in New York. Being Indian wasn't cool growing up. Western media mostly focused on South Asia's poverty (Slumdog Millionaire) or stereotypes (Apu, taxi drivers). That started to change as I grew older. I saw more South Asians in the news — from those in spelling bees, which I used to participate in, to presidential candidate Kamala Harris, to tech CEOs like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella. I realized I didn’t know what was going on in the region or with South Asians nationally, let alone in my own city. My mom would forward me news on WhatsApp and I couldn’t talk to her about it meaningfully. I also found that journalism was becoming targeted: The Athletic for Sports, The Infatuation for food, Blavity for black millennials. And I noticed that as China grew, publications started China sections and readers loved Bill Bishop’s Sinocism, a newsletter with sharp China analysis. But there was no national, inclusive, well-reported publication for South Asians, the fastest growing demographic in the US and the largest diaspora in the world.
So, every weekend, I’d write a email newsletter (https://www.inkmango.com https://www.inkmango.com) linking to the best articles on South Asia(ns) with my thoughts on a pressing issue, from the Harvard affirmative action lawsuit to South Asian representation in Crazy Rich Asians. The newsletter grew to the thousands. After doing this for a few months, I realized linking to other publications wasn't enough. I was craving coverage I wasn't seeing. That’s why I decided to figure out what it would take to start a new publication with our own reported stories. We called it The Juggernaut.
We are starting with one new story a weekday. Our stories have included profiles on South Asian founders, an interview with comedian Hari Kondabolu, an essay on the erasure of Freddie Mercury's brownness, and an exploration of the rise of the Subtle Curry Traits Facebook group.
Media is difficult. People like free content. We launched behind a paywall because it allows us to pay journalists well and quickly, and invest in better journalism. And paid doesn’t mean exorbitant. I’d love to know — what publications do you read and why? What makes you want to pay for something? What pitfalls should we watch out for? Happy to answer any questions/comments; you can also email me at snigdha@thejuggernaut.com.
- rushabh 8y agoAll the best for your launch. The website has too little information to be interesting. In 2019, your content has to be influential or free.
- snigdha 8y agoThanks Rushabh - do check out our articles tab, which has a lot more information (www.thejuggernaut.com/articles). Say more about what you mean by influential? And tell me more about why you think it should be free? Recently, the likes of BuzzFeed and HuffPo have all been having layoffs because the ad model has become broken in media. What other business models have you seen that you find interesting?
- thekhatribharat 8y agoWell, Juggernaut should definitely take a look at Brave's BAT (https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/) as a revenue model. BAT is an Ethereum-based utility token that users reward publishers with. BAT can be exchanged with Bitcoin/Fiat on exchanges like Uphold (https://uphold.com/ https://uphold.com/)
- rushabh 8y agoI work in open source, which is also kind of in a similar problem. A way to think of open source is that its a utility, like the highway system. The people who make money from highways are the car companies. I think a similar challenge exists with journalism. Writing and publishing has become so cheap and I can easily fill my time with reading reasonably good content on free blogs or Medium that paying a tiny publication may not be a good idea. (I already subscribe to newspapers and Economist) If you have exclusive content, then you can charge for it. https://the-ken.com/ https://the-ken.com/ is a good example of a small publication that has done well as it focuses on a niche, early adopter community.
- billfruit 8y agoWhile it is an interesting endeavor, two things come to my mind: Especially with respect to South Asia, there is a tendency to pusstfoot over matters, which while being very important, are also very nuanced. For example: caste, it is a complex phenomenon that still deeply affects people, yet many treatments try to air brush it away. Also it is an extremely diverse region, whereas it get often portrayed as a largely homogeneous monoculture, when in fact it isn't.