Styli will join us in Berlin on 14 May for Revenue Europe, the summit dedicated to monetisation strategies for media at the intersection of product, data and technology. Places are limited, so sign up here to secure a ticket. He will speak in a panel conversation titled Data, advertising and DTC: Building a diversified revenue model.

Ahead of Revenue Europe in Berlin, we asked Styli five quick-fire questions to introduce himself, Daily Maverick, and his views on monetisation strategies to our prospective audience.

Imagine our audience will meet you for the first time. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your company?

I am the co-founder and CEO of Daily Maverick, a South African independent news publisher focused on public interest journalism. We’re best known for investigations that have helped shape the political landscape and a unique business model. I’m a reformed accountant turned media leader passionate about leadership, innovation, and growing people and revenue.

Regarding monetisation, the only way for media to survive commercially in the modern media landscape is through building diversified revenue models. Please briefly explain to what extent you agree/disagree with that statement and why.

We’ve seen several studies that confirm this; around four revenue streams are ideal for mid-large publishers. We’ve also experienced that first-hand with three revenue categories and two types of streams in each category, which was critical to navigating the pandemic. So, we agree 100% with the statement that diversity is crucial but should also align with the vision, mission, and skill sets the organisation has at its disposal.

Can you share more about your core revenue streams and the challenges you had to overcome to implement them successfully?

Reader revenue comes from voluntary memberships, commercial advertising and sponsorships (including events), and philanthropy, including grants and donations.  It takes a clear vision and plan to grow each of these from scratch and pivot to new revenue streams as we found out a single one wasn’t enough. We also had to upskill or recruit new skills to gain traction and keep adding resources as they grew successfully.
Membership also has its challenges within reader revenue space as it’s relatively rare to see the successful implementation of membership at scale, so we often found ourselves having to be pioneers in the space, especially in Africa, which lags reader revenue practices we see in the US and Europe.

Looking at the future, how do you see Revenue Technologies shaping revenue growth and profitability in the media sector?

Data and tech are critical to sustained growth in reader revenue. The more we can personalise messages/offers and improve targeting, the better the chance of growth. It requires buy-in from leadership to continue investing in these areas and for managers to continuously look to improve and keep up to date with developments. AI will be baked into so many tools, if not already, which opens up previously available tech to much larger organizations. We have a lot of hope that we can continue our already impressive growth rate as we improve our offering with the aid of data and technology.

You will speak at Revenue Europe in Berlin. Off-stage, what are some of the conversations you’d be keen to have with fellow attendees?

While some news publishers excel nationally and internationally, we only see a few winners while local news crumbles. Overall, the market for journalism is failing, and economics no longer works, but valuable journalism is still being created. We need policy and regulatory reform to address the market failure – something not enough is being discussed and campaigned for.

Meet Styli and your peers tasked with monetizing media at our Revenue Europe summit in Berlin on 1 October. Find more information and sign up here.