I won’t bury the lede. TechCrunch is launching a subscription product called, appropriately and deliciously, Extra Crunch.
Extra Crunch, as it says on the tin, is an additional layer of content, coverage, product and events-based offerings for our most regular and engaged readers. This will consist of articles that go more in-depth on topics in the entrepreneurship and startup universe, of course.
In addition to cutting closer to the bone on the topics we already cover on a daily basis, we’ll be tackling a lot of the practical nuts and bolts issues that confront founders, entrepreneurs, analysts and tech workers — from issues like inclusion and diversity to navigating hiring, legal and product decisions to mental health and wellness in high-performance environments. We want to gather the expertise and knowledge of the founders that have come before and those that are in the thick of it now.
Leading this project is Executive Editor Danny Crichton, a writer and editor with a fantastic understanding of both media and the “other side” of the equation as a venture investor and VC consultant.
He’s joined by Managing Editor Eric Eldon, who you may know as the guy I Costolo’d to get this job. He spent the last five years on his third startup — a technology and media company — and brings an invaluable understanding of the entrepreneurial journey.
Travis Bernard, who guided us through a transformational period in TechCrunch growth has been leading ops on this project — one that is simple in premise but becomes exponentially more complicated to do the right way. They’re joined by a team of people new and old that will be making an attempt to create something uniquely TC and uniquely valuable in the industry.
Our COO Ned Desmond began and championed this project for two years, and has been beyond instrumental in figuring out how to launch a subscription product at a publication that runs at breakneck speed inside a corporation with a lot on its mind. It’s been a pleasure to know that no matter what obstacles we ran into that he would not only be there to figure out how to get us over the line and to this point.
In the near term, we’re going to be pulling apart the journeys of some companies you recognize, and some that are on the cusp, to produce a guide-book of sorts that makes for a compelling read as well as sound analysis. In the long term, we hope to make Extra Crunch a repository of all the things that no one tells you, no one wants to discuss in-depth or you just have to figure out ad-hoc as you build a company.
The plans for Extra Crunch reflect our belief that honest and informative content around building startups doesn’t start and stop at Success Porn or Failure Fascination. There is so much territory to explore in between about how to build and scale sustainably and responsibly.
Quietly, and with the gratifying support of management, we’ve been reconfiguring TechCrunch over the past few years to focus on making sure that we’re providing useful, engaging content to readers, not just advertisers. While our audience — you folks — is still one many advertisers would love to reach, that’s their job, not ours. Instead, we wanted to re-align all of our goals around what we saw as the future of sustainable journalism.
This isn’t easy to do for any organization at scale, but we’re uniquely privileged to have a long, loyal readership that may not always agree with our take but appreciates that we’re coming at it from a place of honesty and belief.
There are four main components to our offering:
Price:
- $15 per month or $150 per year
- 30-day free trial
- U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany and Spain, but we’re planning to expand to more EU countries later this year
Editorial:
- Deep profiles of startups that have achieved late-stage success, including how they got there and where they’re headed next — everyone will get a free taste of that this week
- Profiles and databases of experts who any startup should think about working with, including how-to guides, based on recommendations from founders
- Regular articles about key components of company-building, from TechCrunch staff, outside experts and more
Community:
- Regular live conference calls with TechCrunch staff and guests
- 20% discount on tickets to all of our events including Disrupt for annual subscribers
- More features coming soon
Product:
- List Builder to help you quickly track the types of companies TechCrunch covers that you care about most
- Rapid Read Mode to help you quickly skim through the dozens of stories we publish per day
- And one more thing: no banner ads on the site or in video pre-rolls
We hope that you’ll take the journey with us as we continue to cover the daily news of emerging and established technology companies, startups and entrepreneurs, as well as find new ways like Extra Crunch to build a direct relationship with you where we can provide something of lasting value in exchange for your local currency.
Over the past few years, TechCrunch as an organization has been able to resist a lot of the market forces and fads of the media world. We have pivoted away from the shiny objects of the moment and toward a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our core readers, and it has paid off. Not only have we nearly doubled in readership over the past few years, we’ve done it without going inorganically broad, attempting to squeeze out more value per eyeball or making our events pay-to play.
This has only been a success because every writer on our staff new and old, every videographer, product engineer, events staffer and salesperson has been on the same page. And, of course, because you, our readers, have allowed us to grow and figure out what we need to be for you. Thank you for that; it’s been a wild ride and I can’t wait to show you what we have for you next.
You can sign up for Extra Crunch here.
Matthew Panzarino
Editor-in-Chief
TechCrunch
