Putting an End to 'Junk Food Media' with Hidden Compass

Ethan Peyton: Hey everybody and welcome to the Startup Savant podcast. I'm your host, Ethan, and this is a show about the stories, challenges, and triumphs of fast-scaling startups and the founders who run them. Our guest on the show today is the co-founder and co-CEO of Hidden Compass, Sivani Babu. 

Hidden Compass is a woman founded independent journalism outlet behind award-winning stories and groundbreaking expeditions. Now. Savani's bio alone could fill an entire episode. So I've just picked out a few highlights that I thought were the most interesting. So Savani is a lawyer by training, but she's always had her hand in the world of journalism. 

In fact, she's received multiple awards for both her written and photographic pieces. She's chased storms through tornado alley, hung out of helicopters over California wildfires, and searched for polar bears in the Arctic Circle. And of course, she's also built a startup. Now, needless to say, I'm friggin' stoked to get into this conversation, but before we do that, you've gotta subscribe to this show. Just hit the subscribe button or follow button or whatever on the app you're using and that will get you following this show. 

Thank you very much for your support. All right, let's get on with this thing. Sivani, welcome to the show. We are glad to have you on board.

Sivani Babu: Thank you so much for having me, and I'm excited to be here.

Ethan Peyton: I'm super stoked that you're here. And I wanna say that I've spent a lot of time in this research and I was having a really difficult time trying to figure out how to best start this episode, because there's so many things going on. There's so many cool stories that you have about the startup world and journalism in general, and obviously all the amazing adventures that you've been on. But I guess I decided to go in the most standard way possible, which is usually the best, and that's just to ask, what is Hidden Compass?

Sivani Babu: Well, Hidden Compass is an independent journalism outlet and modern exploration society that is taking on this era of junk food media and clickbait. And we do that by putting humans first, by uniting our audiences with the humans, the causes and the possibilities behind the award-winning stories we publish, behind the groundbreaking expeditions we back, and incorporating people and bringing people back into that place where they feel like they're participating in journalism and storytelling and exploration.

Ethan Peyton: All right, we're gonna go super deep on Hidden Compass and everything that y'all are doing over there here in a minute. But I want to get into one of those different things that I thought, oh, should we start it here? Should we start it there? Again, you just gave me so many different avenues to take. So there was a story about your first call for submissions, and this was in the early days of Hidden Compass. Could you fill us in on this story?

Sivani Babu: Absolutely. So when we launched Hidden Compass in 2017, my business partner, my co-founder, Sabine K. Bergman and I, and others who were working with us at the time, put out a call for submissions. And we were a new publication. Nobody knew who we were. We were not big names in our profession and our industry. And so our biggest fear was that no one else would submit stories to us. No journalist, no writers would trust us with their stories right off the bat. We were doing this because we had found the need as journalists ourselves. And we wanted to see these types of stories out in the world. We wanted to write them as writers, but we also wanted to read them. And so we relied on that. We put out a call for submissions and we were overwhelmed by the number of submissions and pitches we got. It was hundreds and hundreds of emails coming in right off the bat. And that was a moment of, okay, at least from the writing and the journalism side. There is a desire for this. And that was incredibly validating right off the bat. The next question, of course, is, okay, writers want to write these stories, do people want to read them?

Ethan Peyton: So what do you think caused that massive influx of submissions when you weren't even sure that you were known enough to get really anything?

Sivani Babu: It was that desire. It was the same desire that Sabine and I felt as journalists and writers who were frustrated with our profession and our industry. We are in this era of junk food media, of clickbait driving things. The media that we consume, the stories we consume, it's mass produced, it's unhealthy, and as writers, we didn't want to write those types of stories. We didn't want to write lists. We wanted to tell stories that were nuanced and nerdy and challenged our readers and showed that we believed that they were intelligent. And there were fewer and fewer publications, it seemed, that were willing to publish those stories. And so that frustration is what led us to found Hidden Compass in the first place. But it was also, it wasn't just frustration, it was hope. Because we were coming into this, Sabina and I both came from other backgrounds, other careers, and as we entered this industry, journalism had been my first love. I'd been involved in it before I'd gone to law school. But as we were entering, So many people, mentors, friends, were telling us that it was a profession and an industry that was dying, that the best days of journalism were behind us and everything going forward, frankly, was crap.

Ethan Peyton: Hehehe

Sivani Babu: And that's what we kept hearing. But we looked at that, and perhaps because we hadn't been in it for the first 20 years of our career or first 10 years of our career, we could look at it and say, wait a second, is this something that's dying or is it just something that's in transition? And if it is in transition, can we potentially help shape that? Is there room for something else?

Ethan Peyton: So then maybe that is the answer to this question, but my next question is what is the problem that Hidden Compass is solving?

Sivani Babu: It is this problem of junk food media. We live in this era where, I'll give you an example of just how mass produced it is. When we were pursuing our first round of investment a few years ago, went through a national publication, looked at their travel exploration vertical and looked at the last hundred stories they published. 84 of them were essentially the same four headlines, but it was Mad Lib style. Right, it was insert a new place, insert a different season, insert a different number, but it was the same. Writers, photographers don't get paid well enough to produce nuanced in-depth content a lot of the time. And so it's this stage that we've set, and a lot of it is because we've superimposed the financial model of print on the internet age. And that has proven disastrous. You know, we're letting clickbait. drive content. We're letting click-through ads and selling user data help make decisions about what is being published. And that's led to not only this unhealthy media, but also the distrust in media metastasizing. And so that's the problem that we're trying to solve.

Ethan Peyton: So then let's talk a little bit about this clickbait issue. But before we jump into that, there's a book that I think has some relevance here and maybe it's actually anti-relevance and the book is Fahrenheit 451. And in that book, they outlawed books, they outlawed and burned, you know, all of this, I guess media you could call it, these books. And essentially their goal was to control the flow of information. And that was, I think, in that book, the concept was that you have to have a, the citizenry needs to know what's going on in the world. And if information is controlled by one institution, then it is not the best thing. But I think that we're seeing kind of the exact opposite of that coin right now. And that is that there's just too much. There is. way, way too much media. I mean, you're using the term mass produced and that definitely has one feeling of like, it's all just like what you said, it's mad lib, it's stamped out and pushed out the door, but I think a word there that is important is mass. There's a ton of it. I looked it up earlier today, 3.7 million videos per day are uploaded to YouTube. And so I think that these publishers, even if they are trying to create stuff that is not junk food media, they're having a really hard time cutting through the noise. And so let me then get to the point here. Is this massive amount of media the reason for the rise of clickbait? Or is it something else? And bonus part two of this question, is clickbait purely a bad thing?

Sivani Babu: So I'll start with the first part of that question. And I look at the finances of it, right? When publications started transitioning to putting things on the internet, a lot of them didn't really think that the internet was going to be a huge deal. There wasn't a lot of foresight when that technology was coming in. And so people were giving things away for free. And... people as consumers got used to consuming those things for free. And so it became about quantity over quality because paywalls became hard. And that's changing a little bit. People are starting to realize that if they want high quality content, they have to pay for it. If they want reliable news, high quality stories, they have to pay the people who are producing them. the journalists, the photographers, the editors, all of that. And so that's starting to change. But initially you had this model and the internet was just supposed to support the print model. That's what most major legacy publications initially started things as. And when it became clear that more and more people were going to start consuming the bulk of stories and news on the internet, then the financial side came second. And by then it was already too late. we already had this need for the advertising on the internet is click-through advertising predominantly. And so what does that require? Well, that requires volume. And if you're focused more on volume and you're no longer getting the subscriptions that you need and the revenue that you get from subscriptions and traditional advertising, if you're no longer getting those pieces and you're having to rely on this click-through advertising and now selling user data, then that's driving your content decisions because you need to keep the doors open. And so what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: I'm not sure.

Ethan Peyton: Right.

Sivani Babu: But whatever it is, that is a feedback loop that has been extremely detrimental to journalism. And I don't always love saying media as a whole, but that's what we're talking about. Journalism is one subset of the media that we consume. And then the second part of that is, is clickbait inherently bad? Is junk food inherently bad? I mean, I try not to, it's the same thing, right? It's about moderation. It's a big tent, not trying to shame someone into not doing the things that are enjoyable. But that said, we don't encourage people and as people we generally don't wanna sit down and eat only things that are unhealthy for us. And it's the same with what we're putting in our brains. There is a time for that candy, there is a time to enjoy it. All of that is great. But. It is changing the way you react to stories and to news that we consume. And if it is about what's sensational and it's about generating that outrage, is that leading to a public that is well informed and able to confront difficult issues that are nuanced? And we've seen this rise in a lack of nuance, things being seen more as black and white and not being able to have that compromise or that conversation that might be difficult as a result of this.

Ethan Peyton: So then it sounds like this click bait, is it a bad thing? I mean, I think that can be broken down whether we're talking about like the click bait, I guess is copy or an image or something that is trying to get someone to click into an article to generate views or add impressions or whatever. But then you've got the kind of other side of that. of that coin, which is the actual content of the article. And I think that if you talk specifically just about the title, the thing that is the actual bait to get the click, I mean, good copywriting is just that. It's good copywriting. If you've got a great title, and number five will surprise you, then why not use that to get people into your article? I think maybe the, maybe, and it sounds like, the actual issue is more this mass produced junk food media that is once you get the person in there, then just having them read something that you threw together in 15 minutes just because you were on a deadline and you've got to do it to keep your job, maybe that's the real issue and that we can't necessarily blame the copywriters who are writing those titles over there.

Sivani Babu: And I don't blame journalists for the stories that they have to write in order to make a living. I blame the system that we've…

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: …created and that we've allowed to, not just that we've created, but that we've allowed to flourish. And the lack of participation and knowing how to participate, right? It's a two-way street. We look at what we do at Hidden Compass as a partnership. And traditionally, that might seem like a partnership between us as... the publication side of what we do and the journalists who we work with. But we see the audience very much as part of that partnership. And we're all in this together. And we're all trying to create a world where there is more nuance and where these stories matter.

Ethan Peyton: So then from the content creator's perspective, how do you get your, you know, let's say I do write something that is of value or I create some piece of content that is of value. How do I get that article, that video, that book, that podcast in front of the people that I needed to get in front of without contributing to the problems that we just spoke of?

Sivani Babu: It's a challenge. There is no doubt that it's a challenge. For us, we accept submissions and pitches from journalists all over the world. There is no, you know, you don't have to have worked with us previously. You don't have to know one of us personally most of the time. That is not how it works. We have a submissions inbox that we actually do have someone who goes through that. And that works for us. But there's no doubt that there's a lot of gatekeeping that also happens in the industry. And that's also why we've seen this massive proliferation of stories, of videos, of photos, that people are just posting online on their own and on whatever platform, whether it's YouTube, TikTok, what have you. That's because there's no gatekeeper anymore. The other side of that though, is if it is done responsibly, some of that gatekeeping helps the audience know that, okay, I can trust this publication, I can trust what's in here, I know that this has been fact checked. I know that this has gone through a process of editing where multiple people have spent the time and the effort to tell a story that is truthful, that is interesting, that is important. And so there is a balance there. So if you are the person who is writing the story or who is making the video, it's not easy to get in front of the right people, especially if you don't already know them. And that's where networking comes in. That's where all of those sort of old fashioned things are still really important. In this world, the print journalism world, a lot of it is still relationship based. And that is both helpful and to the detriment of the profession as a whole, because it means we don't necessarily hear from the voices we need to be hearing from. And... I think a lot of what needs to happen is on the other side, on our side, the editors, the publishers, making more of an effort to get to the voices that need to be heard.

Ethan Peyton: And I think that all goes into what you were saying earlier of the business of journalism or of content creation seems to be a factor in what is getting in the way of the positive aspects of this industry. Let me ask you a question that is really, really timely in this era. And it's just going to become, I think it's going to become more and more relevant. Or I guess I could be wrong. But how does AI play into this conversation that we're having?

Sivani Babu: I think it's going to continue to, it's starting to play into it and it's going to continue to grow, like you said, in its role. And that's where what we're doing with things that are human-centric, I think it's going to become even more important. As someone who reads a lot, who reads, I still get physical newspapers, I still subscribe to multiple magazines, all of those types of things, I want to read a story that is written by a human.

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: And I think- there are going to be a lot of people who want that. And there are just things that AI can't do because it is about creating a human connection. We tell personal stories in Hidden Compass and those, and we talk a lot about personal journalism, first-person journalism, first-person narratives. And so it has that research component, but the person writing it is part of the story. And there are things that AI just can't accomplish. And there's a great example of this, is a story that we've published, that's in our current issue, which is our legacy issue, a celebration of us reaching 100,000 readers. And that is a story called, Out of Desolation. It's a great story told by a person with all of these intersecting identities. He is... He's a gay man who was openly gay during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era in the military. He is an outdoorsman. He is a literary nerd. He's an author. And all of these things come together to tell this story, both of identity, his, and also digging into the history of Jack Kerouac. And it's a very personal story. And that's where the human connection is going to be increasingly important.

Ethan Peyton: All right, so it sounds like the, if I were going to summarize all of these kind of issues that we just talked about, it seems like they really stem from a misalignment of incentives. And you can, basically if you break anything, any sort of disconnect down, you can almost always find some sort of misalignment of incentives. But I mean, so does that sound right to you or do you think that it should be described in a different way?

Sivani Babu: I don't think that's wrong at all. I mean, I think that's exactly right. And I also think it is this phenomena of the technology outpacing the industry itself, right? Starting with the internet, but we're at risk of that again with AI. Cause there's a version of what happens where some major publications just say, we're gonna reject this technology and we're gonna pretend that it doesn't exist and. it's gonna take on a life of its own instead of, okay, what is the foresight we need to have? How do we look forward? How can we use this as a tool and be transparent about it? And harnessing the power of what it can do as opposed to letting it take off on its own and then be the tail wagging the dog. And I went off on a little bit of a tangent. So the misalignment of…

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: …incentives. So coming back to that, I do think that's part of it. But I don't know that it's the misalignment of incentives so much as this failure to adapt.

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: Publications need to make money. There's no doubt about that. Journalism needs to, they need to be able to pay the people to spend the time to produce the nuanced, thoughtful story, to pay fact checkers. I mean, we're seeing that disappear as publications have to cut staff, fact checking, copy editing, all of those types of things start to go. And that's because there was no adaptation upfront. And so I don't think it's the incentives that are misaligned. I think it is, I do think the incentives are misaligned, but I also think the means are misaligned. And because the goal is still... none of these publications set out, especially these legacy news publications, they don't set out to misinform.

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: That's usually not what they're trying to do, but they don't necessarily have the resources to focus on what needs to be focused. And they're also using these analytics. And we like to talk a bit about at Hidden Compass about the feedback loop. of analytics and the self-fulfilling prophecy of analytics, which is, I produce a story, people only read the first 300 words or they only last for 30 seconds. Oh, people only want to read 300 words. And so now this entire story is 300 words. Well, maybe, but…

Ethan Peyton: Right.

Sivani Babu: …maybe it's actually that we're just producing stuff that only keeps people's interest for 300 words. Is it what…

Ethan Peyton: Yeah, exactly.

Sivani Babu: …we're producing? Right. And so that is the, you know, correlation and causation and all of those types of things. And so I think the means need to be aligned. I think the goals need to be more clear. And I think we need to go back to putting the people who are behind the stories front and center. And that's not comfortable for journalists in this day and age. They don't wanna be in front of the byline. I didn't get into this profession because I wanted to be in front of the byline or doing interviews and being on podcasts and appearing in videos. That's not why I got into it.

Ethan Peyton: Right.

Sivani Babu: But I also know that people trust people. They don't trust organizations. And so if you can build those relationships with people and the audience and our writers and us as co-founders, my co-founder and I have had to get very comfortable with being on video. And we do that a lot so that we're talking to our audience and they know who we are. We have quarterly coffees with the co-founders where people join us online and we just talk. And... If we start building those relationships between the people who are involved in this process, I think that's how we move forward.

Ethan Peyton: So moving forward, I read something in, I don't know, you wrote it somewhere, that you're re-imagining, quote unquote, re-imagining the business of journalism. And so this sounds like it's trying to mend those misalignments that we were discussing earlier. So can you tell us about the business model of Hidden Compass and how it's setting up kind of a different structure, whether that be for the reader or for the... or for the person who writes the article and for Hidden Compass itself.

Sivani Babu: Sure, so like I've been saying, right? A lot of the problems stem from the reliance on click bait, the reliance on click through advertising and selling user data. So when we set out to, not initially when we founded Hidden Compass, but when we set out to build something that was bigger than what we originally envisioned, we started looking at what other publications were doing and why it wasn't working. And then we started drawing inspiration from other industries. And for us, some of that came from the food industry. Some of it, and we can come back to that, and some of that came from what has happened with crowdfunding over the last several years. And we started looking at, okay, if we're not going to have click-through ads and we're not going to sell user data, what needs to happen? 

And for us, the answer to that was we need to reengage the audience and not treat them like a transaction. We need to treat them like a partner and allow them to invest in the people behind the stories and allow them to invest in the future of exploration and become a part of that. And so our model is very different. There is no there is no currently no advertising and there are no subscriptions. But what we do have are at the very base level, we have these patronage campaigns. And what those are with every story we publish, we pay all of our writers, but we also launch a patronage campaign where readers can contribute to support a story that moves them, a writer that they believe in, whose work they wanna see more of, that they wanna support. 

And at the end of the campaign, so it's a three month campaign with each issue and each story. And at the end of that campaign, we split the proceeds 50-50 with the writers. So they get a second paycheck and we keep some of that. It's a way to support us. And then on stories that are not part of our, current issue, it goes into a general hidden compass fund and all of that stays with the company. And then we want to engage people with experts and connect them with experts. And so we started hosting a speaker series, a virtual speaker series, we do live virtual events. Those are ticketed, there's certain people who are part of our ecosystem who have admission to those events, but they're open to the general public. 

And those are ticketed events where we... foster this curiosity with the world that underpins everything that we do. And so everything from we've had speakers on, the role of humans in rebuilding iconic ecosystems. So talking about redwood conservation and what's the role of humans in reforestation. Our next one is going to be a supernova expert talking about how a supernova can help us understand a lot about the world around us and connecting these big issues and these interesting things. And we talk about climate change. We talk about all sorts of things with our readers. So they get to... interact with experts, people who are at the top of their game in this field. And then we have the Alliance, and that's our modern exploration society, which I mentioned when I described Hidden Compass right off the bat. And we took inspiration from exploration societies of old where people were part of supporting exploration. And back then it was a very small subset of the population. There's no doubt.

Ethan Peyton: You mind if I sneak in? Could you give me, not an example, but could you give us a, what is an exploration society?

Sivani Babu: So historically, there have been these societies, and National Geographic Society is a good example. So what we think of now when we think of National Geographic is not the same as what National Geographic in the late 1800s was. And back then, it was people who wanted to support financially exploration, but also wanted to learn about what's cutting edge, what's at the forefront. And the magazine that we're all so familiar with was the journal you got for being a member. That's what it was back then. 

Similarly, you had these explorers of old that we sometimes talk about, like Ernest Shackleton and others, who would have to raise funds from the general public and from these types of societies in order to fund their expeditions. And what we wanted to do was put a modern twist on that concept, one that is more global, one that is more diverse, one that is more accessible. And so, the annual membership is a membership to the Alliance. And that's our version of this exploration society. 

And these are folks who not only want to be more connected and connected to each other and connected to us, but they also wanna have a say in the future of exploration. And the way right now, the biggest way that happens is through something we call the Pathfinder Prize, which is a $15,000 grant that we give annually. We're actually... currently open for proposals for this next year. And we get proposals from all over the world. We have an advisory panel that selects the finalists, but then our members get to hear live pitches for those expeditions, and then they vote on who we fund each year. And then they get to follow along on that expedition and be part of learning what these explorers learn.

Ethan Peyton: So this is definitely not in the, I don't keep the like exploration and membership stuff in really the same box in my head as journalism. And I think that is probably, you know, the part of the reason that we're here today and having this conversation is because things like that are so separated in the minds, I guess I'm assuming that, you know, that they're separated in the minds of a lot of people if it is in mind, but where, so where do you see journalism ending and this kind of, hey, we want the people to fund, you know, fund these next stories and explorations that they then want to learn about whenever those things are done. Where does one end and the other begin?

Sivani Babu: The key for us is the editorial process and whether or not that still exists. So something that is completely crowdfunded and there's no safeguards and there are no barriers and there is no process of verifying, to me is no longer journalism. The process of verifying the information is key in that. And we also have these conversations internally because it's not an easy one. How much... Do we want, how much can we allow people to be involved before it compromises journalistic integrity? And there is a fine line in there, but it's also a mix of, okay, can we get them involved in certain ways? Are they going to dictate what stories, like the entire issue of a magazine? Of course not. That would, that to us would be a bridge way too far. 

But can they help us choose these expeditions when we have already vetted the proposals and have decided that these are all proposals we would be willing to fund, this subset of proposals. Okay, now can they go in and pick the one that we're actually going to fund and does that actually compromise journalistic integrity for us? We've decided that it doesn't.

Ethan Peyton: So then let's go back to business real quick. And I wanna know how does this business model scale for Hidden Compass, but also is there something that these more standardized media companies, I guess you could even say, what's the word that they all use? The mainstream media, how can outlets like the New York Times or the LA Times or Fox News or something, how can they start to use business models like this in a way that scales to their level but also starts to solve some of these issues?

Sivani Babu: I don't presume to be able to solve these issues for someone like the New York Times. That is a very large organization. This is where

Ethan Peyton: Well, they're gonna hear this and they're gonna say, dang, she's got the best ideas, we're…

Sivani Babu: You're right.

Ethan Peyton: …gonna do it.

Sivani Babu: Right. Well, but part of why this is something we are able to, a space in which we are able to innovate, is because we are small. It's because we have that flexibility. It is very difficult to turn a large ship. That said, I think we've seen the New York Times. There was for a while a campaign where they tried to humanize their journalists a bit more. And I think that is actually very important. for a lot of these legacy publications to do. It's also really important for them to hang on to the editorial integrity, right? To not cut their fact checkers, to not, and I'm not saying that's what the New York Times has done, but there are publications that have, right? They have, that's an area where they fall short now. And at some point they have to make a decision on whether it's going to be quantity or it's going to be quality. 

We currently are in this moment where we are being bombarded by stories. Even the high quality news stories that do come out, it is about, okay, how many things are we going to publish in a day? We publish 20 stories a year. And there is both incredible freedom in that, and there is also a lot of pressure to make sure those 20 stories are incredible stories. But it also gives us the time to make sure. They're incredible stories. We don't have the, okay, this is good enough. And so we're gonna get, it needs to be up on the site in the next 30 minutes. So it's going now. We don't have to deal with that. We're also not a hard news organization. We're not dealing with breaking news. And that's not how we approach things. But I'll also say that, you know, we're also internally talking about, what is the hidden compass version of advertising look like? Is there a way? for us to leverage some of the important and the traditional aspects of this profession, this industry, the industry side of this profession. Cause there, you know, I consider journalism a profession but there's a business to it. And there…

Ethan Peyton: Mm-hmm.

Sivani Babu: …that is something that we're also, that we're obviously focused on. And is there a way for us to do that doesn't undermine editorial integrity and that isn't creepy, frankly?

Ethan Peyton: Right.

Sivani Babu: I mean, I don't like it when I've looked at something and now the ad is popping up all over. I don't like that feeling. It makes me feel gross, right? I don't want that. And we don't wanna make our readers feel that way. And so is there a way to do that? And it's funny because some of that is looking back at, okay, what worked in print? And can we make something old new again in this environment?

Ethan Peyton: All right, so if you haven't figured this out yet, we are solving the issues of journalism right here, right now. So let's talk about the other side just real quick, the consumers of this media. And you mentioned that they were conditioned in the early days to not want, they were getting these articles for free or this media for free, but now there's kind of a new... uh, not new really, but a growing sentiment around paywalls and people's willingness to pay for quality media. But do you, I mean, do you think that, I guess the question is, what do the, what does the consumer of this media, what steps can they take to move towards these solutions as opposed to deepening the problems that we're talking about?

Sivani Babu: I think the big one is to support the publications and the writers, the journalists, the creators, whether they're photographers, journalists, storytellers of other forms, who are... showing that they believe the reader is intelligent, who are honoring that intelligence in the reader, and to support those publications and be willing to support local journalism, to be willing to put the money there, but not just the money, right? We get that not everybody can do that, but can you amplify the things that are high quality instead of sharing the little junk food bit? Can you amplify something that is more nuanced and is going to provide more value? And it's incumbent on us to, as readers, as someone myself who consumes a lot of media, it's incumbent on us to think about how does, first off, how does what I'm about to read affect me? And I don't mean the issue that I'm about to read about, but is this something that is going to spark curiosity? Is this something that is going to be good for my mental well-being. And that doesn't mean avoiding difficult issues, far from it. It means looking for the places that are tackling these difficult issues in nuanced, and I say that word a lot, but in nuanced and important ways, interesting ways. And so we have a responsibility to support what we wanna see in the world. And to, you know, the next time you hit a paywall, maybe don't complain about the paywall and think about, oh, right, there is a human at the other end of this that if I want them to produce good things, needs to make a living.

Ethan Peyton: Right. So we've talked a lot about journalism, the problems, the possible solutions, you know, what Hidden Compass is doing. I wanna move on to some less heady topics and some more kind of on the ground tactical stuff, but I wanna make sure that you've covered the pieces that you wanna cover and that you've said the things that you feel need said. Is there anything that you would like to... that you would like to say before we move out of journalism as a concept.

Sivani Babu: No, I mean, I think we've talked about journalism a lot and I could talk about it forever, but I think people should go support their local journalism outlet and start getting used to the idea of paying for what they wanna see in the world.

Ethan Peyton: So, all right, let's get into tactics. In your company profile, you mentioned that Hidden Compass has a robust email marketing strategy that quote unquote celebrates nerdiness and fosters curiosity. Can you tell us what that strategy looks like and fill us in on all of the secret sauce to the success of that campaign?

Sivani Babu: Sure, so I don't start by saying when we did our sort of branding of Hidden Compass and we talked about brand archetypes, for us what we settled on is the badass nerd. And that is something that we bring to the different pieces of what we do, right? It is what we are trying to convey in everything we do. And so we have a monthly newsletter that is, we call it the Navigator, and that is a... A dive into a very specific topic. And so our last one in advance of what we knew was gonna be the speaker series that's coming up was a newsletter that was entirely about supernovae and both historically and culturally and scientifically what they mean. And that was also stemmed by this discovery a few weeks ago of a supernovae that we're currently observing. 

And so we, and we've done, you know, we did an entire newsletter on the indigenous Arctic and talked about what indigenous peoples have lived in the Arctic historically, what those, what languages are spoken. And what we try and do is connect the people on that newsletter list with resources and stories so that they can further their own curiosity. And a lot of this for us came from market research, from talking to our readers and learning that one of the things that we were so excited to learn that our readers did was that they would read a story and then they would go down their own rabbit holes of research because something in that story sparked their curiosity and they wanted to learn more about it. And we want to bring that to the newsletter. So we do this newsletter. We also do a newsletter periodically for members of the Alliance that we call The Curiosity Spiral and…

Ethan Peyton: Hehehehe

Sivani Babu: …it usually stems from something that came up in an ally event. So those speaker series events are open to the public, but they are part of ally membership. And so this last one that we did was about, we did that Redwood conservation and someone had asked a question about certain Native American tribes and what role they were going to have when the dams on the Klamath River. start coming down this summer. And that sent us into our own curiosity spiral. And so we did a whole newsletter that spawned from a single question that an audience member asked in an event that we had. And so the secret to that has been talking to our readers, knowing what they are interested in and also knowing that if they're into Hidden Compass, it's because they're curious about the world. So how can we... feed that.

Ethan Peyton: So really getting to know your users and not making these newsletters about, hey, we did this, we had this story, but more about, hey, you've said that you're interested in this, this is for you. Is that right?

Sivani Babu: Yeah, and it's a balance, right? Because we also need to get our news out there. We want them to know about things that are coming up with us. You know, they've gotten probably a few emails about the Pathfinder Prize and other things. So it is a balance because this is also our opportunity to talk to them about what we're doing and keep them engaged with what we're doing. And so it is finding that balance, but making sure that we continue trying to provide value beyond just our company and making us a resource for other things.

Ethan Peyton: All right, so let's then jump to another thing. And I think that this is something that you've obviously shown that you're extremely good at. And I think people that write, whether they write copy or whether they write articles, journalistic articles or whatever, probably need to have some of this skill. And so I want to see if I can pull this out of you. And I'll start with a quote, your quote. The quote is, I create immersive stories that challenge and inform readers in order to push us to action. And as a creator myself, I've always been fascinated by the things that influence people to take action. So can you tell us how you build that action ability into your work?

Sivani Babu: Sure, for me, it stemmed, well, it stemmed from a long history of service-oriented work. That's where I came from. That's also where my business partner came from. She was a Peace Corps volunteer and then worked for the Peace Corps. I was a Teach for America Corps member and was a federal public defender. So there's always been this element of service and wanting people to understand what's happening in the world so that they can make decisions about what action they wanna take. And I firmly believe that people don't care about things for which they have no context. And so what I tried to do initially when I decided to launch into a full-time freelance career was to focus on that context. And for me, a big part of that was traveling to places that most people are never going to go. But can I get them to care about it? And the way you get people to care about things is through storytelling. I teach storytelling, I teach... both storytelling for writers, but also storytellings for lawyers and law students who are going the public interest route. Because the science of storytelling is really fascinating and what's happening in the brain when you consume a story versus when you just consume facts. And when you consume a story, you have the opportunity, or when you tell a story, you have the opportunity to move the needle in a way that you don't when you just give people numbers.

Ethan Peyton: All right, I wish we had so much more time to dig into that, but I am gonna cheat a little bit. We normally ask the question, what's your number one piece of advice for early stage entrepreneurs? But let's color that in. Let's say what's your number one piece of advice regarding storytelling for early stage entrepreneurs?

Sivani Babu: to know the story you want to tell. And I know that seems a little circular, but a story is about leading people through a set of facts and getting them to where you want them to be. Storytelling is transformation at the end of the day. And if you don't know where you want them to end up, you can't tell the story. And it's about being very intentional and very clear about where you want people to end up. and treating it like it is both a science and an art. Right? It's not just about what you want to say. It's about what they need to hear. And the only way you're ever going to know if it works is to actually talk to the people that you're telling the story to. And so those are the pieces of it that I would emphasize.

Ethan Peyton: So if I, I mean, I guess if I don't know the story that I want to tell, maybe I have bits and pieces, but I'm not 100% for sure how to put that into, you know, the context of storytelling. Are there any kind of questions that I can ask myself or steps that I can walk through to kind of flesh this out for myself?

Sivani Babu: I think the first step is an information dump, right? What are all of the things that you could say that lead people to where you want them to go? And that's, you know, what are the facts? What are the feelings? What are the other senses that might come into play? What do people want? What do you want? At the end of the day, you get to the universal through the specific. And so literally sitting down and writing just a list of, these are all the things that I could communicate. And seeing what themes emerge out of that is a really useful exercise. But the other one is to not make it a solo project. And that doesn't mean, I'm not saying, you know, go out and find a co-founder or anything like that, but who do you trust to start talking to and having that feedback with and iterating with, and who can provide that sounding board? Because the conversation that happens is going to spark ideas. And from there, if you were doing those things and you are paying attention to what is emerging from that process, you'll start to see the pieces of a story emerge. But often the first way to get there is to just do it, sit down and put in the time and just do it, and then revise it. It's not going to be what you want it to be right off the bat. It's not going to accomplish what you want it to accomplish off the bat. And so bring in that team that can help you get it where you need it to be.

Ethan Peyton: Awesome. Thank you for that super duper tactical advice. What is next for Hidden Compass?

Sivani Babu: There are a lot of things on the horizon. There always are. Right now, we are wrapping up our first Pathfinder prize. The expedition is completed. They're currently working on the final product. We'll be premiering their short documentary at the end of the year. We're currently accepting proposals for the next Pathfinder prize. And so that's a process. July 20th is when the proposals close, but then we'll be selecting the winner throughout the year. There'll be stages of that. And so that is something we're really excited about. We're excited down the road to start publishing more stories, not in the quantity over quality way, but we're looking to expand and do some pieces of content, pieces of content stories that are still feature length, but maybe a little bit shorter than the ones that we're currently doing and to start generating. more opportunities for our allies to participate. So we're growing, we are seeing the traffic come in on the website, which we're really excited about. And now it's about, you know, what comes next.

Ethan Peyton: All right, so no other entrepreneur on this show has gotten this question, but I feel like you deserve it over everybody else. But what about you? What's your next adventure? I mean, we talked about, like in the intro, you were hanging out of helicopters and heading to Antarctica. What's next for you? What are we seeing you do?

Sivani Babu: So I came back from another trip to Antarctica earlier this year, and I get to go back in December on a very different trip. I think at this point for me, it's not about the experiences I wanna have, but who I can share them with, and what I can do with them beyond just getting to tell a story about it, which is still incredibly important. So I'm excited about a trip to Antarctica at the end of this year, where I get to take my nephew and my sister with me, and…

Ethan Peyton: Sweet.

Sivani Babu: …introduce them to this place that has been incredibly important in my life. But really I'm focused on Hidden Compass. I'm excited about where we're going. And at some point I will get back to some of my crazier adventures. But I'm really looking forward to seeing how I can share those things with other people and introduce places and things to people who might not have thought of themselves as someone who could go there or who could experience that. And that's what I'm most excited about at this point in my career.

Ethan Peyton: I knew this was gonna be a fun conversation. Thank you so much. You did not disappoint. One last question. Where can people connect with you online and how can our listeners support Hidden Compass?

Sivani Babu: So hidden compass is at hidden compass.net. You can sign up for our newsletter there. You can also follow us on all the socials. We're generally hidden compass media. I think on Facebook or Twitter, we're just hidden underscore compass, but hidden compass media. And you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I am also on Instagram, and you can see some of my photography there. I'm wayfaring Civ on Instagram. And my website is savonibabu.com. But. Go to Hidden Compass, sign up for the newsletter, check out these incredible stories. We work with incredible writers and contributors who tell the most fascinating stories and unexpected stories about places. So I would love for people to share those stories, to read them and find something that inspires them.

Ethan Peyton: I'll echo that. If you're listening to this, go out and read some of those stories and you can find all of the links that Savani just mentioned and everything else we talked about today in the show notes over at startupsavant.com slash podcast. Savani, like I said, this has been a ton of fun and I wanna give you the last word.

Sivani Babu: Thank you so much for having me. And if Hidden Compass does anything, I hope it's that we inspire people to think more about how what they're putting in their brains affects their bodies. And so look for things that nourish us. And that's what I hope people do.

Ethan Peyton: Thanks for coming on the show.

Sivani Babu: Thank you for having me.

Ethan Peyton: Alright that’s going to be it for this week’s episode of the Startup Savant podcast. Thanks for listening in!

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