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Women are taking a leadership role in the development of digital journalism in Latin America, according to a new study of 100 startups. The study, Inflection Point , by SembraMedia in partnership with Omidyar Network, offers many clues to achieving the elusive goal of sustainability for new digital media. Click to enlarge. One clue is that women have the skills and experience to lead the way: 62% of the 100 organizations in the study had at least one woman founder, and women represented 38% of the total founders of all the media (p. 41 in the PDF version ). Extensive interviews with the founders -- 25 each from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico -- produced data that clarified the elements of successful business models and showed the best places to invest resources and training. "This finding suggests that women are taking advantage of the low barriers to entry in digital media startups to go around the glass ceilings of traditional media and build their own publishing compa...

A new study of 100 digital news startups in Latin America by SembraMedia in partnership with Omidyar Network -- Inflection Point -- offers many clues to achieving the elusive goal of sustainability. Extensive interviews with the founders -- 25 each from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico -- produced data that clarified the elements of successful business models and showed the best places to invest resources and training. Janine Warner , co-founder of SembraMedia and an ICFJ Knight Fellow, directed the study, which was managed by her co-founder, Mijal Iastebner. (Disclosure: I participated in the study as an editor.) Among the insights: You don't need a lot of money to get started. 71% of the media in this study had startup capital of less than $10,000, but a tenth of those now generate at least $500,000 in revenues (p. 8). Those that focus on business development do best. Those with at least one sales person reported median annual revenues of $117,000; those with no sales ...