Six months, 150 stories, 30,000 readers, and the push for independent journalism

TALLINN - "Tarmo, press the button!"

Six months ago at the Startup Awards, those words marked our official launch.

Triin was on stage, brilliantly unveiling the venture; Annika was shouting instructions from the crowd; and our tech infrastructure had quietly collapsed.

Our original publishing platform had completely failed to resolve our new, cool .observer domain just hours before we went live.

I was staring at a digital wall with absolutely nothing to push.

Welcome to startup life. You can script the perfect narrative and secure the perfect stage, but you cannot always control the plumbing.

Let's be honest, entrepreneurship is mostly about how you handle that broken plumbing. By April, we migrated our entire infrastructure, took back control of our platform, and kept building.

Building an independent media outlet is a reminder that the best stories often start with a disaster. Today, half a year and more than 150 stories later, that silent, button-less launch has evolved into a steadily expanding and highly engaged community.

Driving public discourse and elevating builders

Filling the role of independent media as the fourth supportive pillar of the startup ecosystem, Fomo.Observer's mission is to honestly cover the success stories and lessons of the region's new economy.

Here are a few highlights from our first half-year of build.

Our most-read story of H1 was Liina Laas's commentary on a situation she described as "pathetic and embarrassing." It was a story we hoped would be unnecessary. However, it was prompted by the government halting the adoption of the EU's equal pay directive, claiming that ensuring equal pay for women could present too much of a burden for businesses.

LIINA LAAS: Pathetic and Embarrassing: Estonia’s war against pay transparency is a digital pioneer’s great betrayal

Estonia is calling pay transparency a bureaucratic burden. For a digital country, that is pathetic. There are policy disagreements, and then there are moments when a government makes itself look embarrassingly small.

Fomo.Observer

Following closely behind in readership were:

KAREN K BURNS: Estonia Deserves Better Than This AI Advisory Committee

Last week, the Estonian Prime Minister announced the formation of an AI advisory committee to guide government policy on artificial intelligence.

Fomo.Observer

JANA BUDKOVSKAJA: Estonian angels have grown up. Now the government needs to catch up.

Jana asks the Estonian government: “Please put five million on the table” for an angel co-investment vehicle. She promises extremely positive development in 3 years.

Fomo.Observer

LIIS NARUSK: We need to talk about harassment

It’s a spring Tuesday morning in Tallinn. I’m sitting in the office of an Estonian VC firm, listening to their vision for Estonia and for Europe. The room is full of the essence of the Estonian startup ecosystem: ambitious, optimistic, driven, intellectually curious people building the next generation

Fomo.Observer

Building the foundation

We create content in both Estonian and English according to the natural language of the content, avoiding 100% one-to-one translations to develop our own unique style. Over the second quarter, Estonian-language content clearly fell to the background, but this week, Triin revived it for her interview with Enel.

Asutajate kogukonna pikaaegne hing lubab peagi naasta klubisse

Mõni kuu pärast seda kui mind valiti Asutajate Seltsi presidendiks kohtusin ilusal suvepäeval Enel Teinemaaga, kes oli kolm aastat Eesti Asutajate Seltsi tegevjuht ning viis organisatsiooni tegevused täiesti uuele tasemele. Tänaseks on ta edasi liikunud, kuid naudib praegu suvepuhkust. Eneli panus on olnud väga suur ning kogukonnas on ta tõeline

Fomo.ObserverTriin Hertmann

Meanwhile, Fomo.Academy, driven and packaged by Fiona, has become an integral part of the publication. When we eventually get to creating our own pitch deck, we will at least know exactly where to find expert advice.

Fomo Academy - Fomo.Observer

Fomo Academy is where founders come to learn new skills. We create informative articles on all aspects of a founder’s journey so you can spend more time building and less time trying to work out how to perfect things like pitching, funding, marketing, getting media attention, and much more.

Fomo.ObserverKarmen Jürisoo

We also launched Fomo.Podcast at Latitude59 interviewing Alar Karis, the outgoing president of Estonia. His term will end in October.

Growth, engagement, and sustainability

We have taken a builder's approach: no fuss, focusing on what we know, telling stories directly from the community, and spending zero capital on advertising.

This strategy has organically reached approximately 30,000 readers so far. Our goal is to offer founders, operators, and investors the unvarnished truth about startup life, free from hype and gloss, yet supportive and fair.

We are even more proud of our nearly 1,000 newsletter subscribers. We send the most important stories of the week to our newsletter subscribers evry Sunday morning. Impressively, most of you open every single newsletter we send, a highly engaged cohort that includes several leaders of our local unicorn companies.

In the spring, we celebrated our first revenue as readers began supporting us through the contribution link at the bottom of our newsletter.

We want to always offer content to the end consumer for free. During the first year, we are financing activities from our own funds. However, next year, we aim to reach a funding model that will enable independent, sustainable operations in the future. Passion for the sector will only get you so far.

If you value independent journalism and can spare the resources to support the cause, please use the link below.

If Fomo.Observer provides value or helps you navigate the startup ecosystem. Please consider supporting the independent pillar of the region’s new economy.

Support FOMO and our independent journalism here.

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