Well, things could be changing for me. My oldest Chinese friend, Zhang Kai, went with me to a party over the weekend. There, with a bunch of his friends, we ate at the local foreigners bbq house. We started to talk about Clickboards and how the CEO of mGuanxi liked it and then about what I do. I told them I was the Chief Editor of the local foreigners magazine and they started to take interest. I found a copy at the front of the restaurant and let them take a look.
I told them that this magazine probably makes about RMB1,000,000 a year. That got their attention and they asked if I could do it on my own. I started telling them about printing, which is probably RMB2 per copy, the staff needed, and fact that the magazine should probably be an emag.
They are still interested in we are in the midst of thinking this over. My idea would be to make about a forty page editorial and journalistic magazine. We would launch it at the same time as our new website. The website would have all the listings and maps and relevant info on it. And I will discuss the Clickboards option with them.
What I want is to have all the information on the website able to be sent to your phone. So if you are looking at a listing or a coupon, you can send it to your mobile. So in a sense we would be launching three things at once: a website, a magazine, and a mobile application.
The mobile application would be created by Alvin from mGuanxi, this group I am now in contact with would create the website, and I would create the magazine.
I would also be responsible for bringing all the advertising clients from Jin and Tianjinexpats to the new magazine lineup. I want to call the magazine and website ‘The Grind’, but I’m sure I will think of something better. Selling advertising in the beginning is going to be hard and cheap. But I think I could get people to sign contracts that they would start at a base pay and then month after month the price would go up 5% until the retail price has been met. However, with the whole operation based on advertising sales based on a very infantile start-up, things are shaky.
So let’s see. I want to do this, thing is I will probably have to support myself till there is actual revenue. Hopefully the others feel the same way. Maybe my old professor Shafa could help out because he keeps telling me I should buy Jin Magazine, where I currently work.
