Experiment a failure?
Just eight weeks after its launch, the crowdsourcing magazine Mag20 is suspending operations indefinitely. The reason is uncertain funding.
A misunderstanding between him and his investor Georges Bindschedler proved to be the young entrepreneur's undoing. Bucheli assumed that the Bernese lawyer would support Mag20 in the longer term after presenting him with a business plan for the period up to the end of 2013. However, Bindschedler only wanted to help the project get off the ground with a loan. "I personally never intended to provide long-term or temporary financing," Bindschedler told Werbewoche when asked. He also said that he was prepared to present the project to the Board of Directors of Medien Vielfalt Holding, in which Bindschedler is the second largest investor after Tito Tettamanti, "and, if approved, to have it partially financed". It is questionable whether the application already submitted to the holding company, which also finances the Basler Zeitung BaZ, will be dealt with at all.
But how could there have been a misunderstanding on such a fundamental point? "We talked past each other," Bucheli explains to Werbewoche. In his euphoria, the qualified auditor did not insist on a written agreement, which would presumably have clarified the misunderstanding. "I take the blame for that. The fact that I didn't clarify the financing better is my fault." He does not want to accuse Bindschedler of anything. "It's not a matter of course that someone would give such start-up support in the first place."
Barely started, already finished?
What happens next is still up in the air. The crowd-sourcing project has few financial obligations. There was no long-term agreement with the print shop. The contracts with the distributors, which Bucheli had initially hired with a three-month notice period, were terminated soon after the launch and new ones were drawn up via the distribution company Promokant.
Mag20 is currently at a standstill. Bucheli is not (yet) looking for new investors. He wants to use the shutdown to go over the books. Nevertheless, Bucheli has not lost his optimism: "I can well imagine that we will relaunch. However, until we have a clean solution, it makes no sense to restart." Bucheli sees particular potential for improvement in the rating system on the website. The fact that users could only express their sympathy for an article by recommending it on social media platforms led to a low level of participation. Apparently, not everyone wanted to let their friends on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ know that they had read a Mag20 article. (imp)
