Megan Raposa is an award-winning journalist with a passion for local news. She started her own hyperlocal news outlet, Sioux Falls Simplified, in early 2021 with the goal of making it easy to feel smart about the forces that shape her city. She’s also parent to 2-year-old Margot, wife to Royal Sonsalla and, when she’s not attending to those roles, she’s probably curled up with a book or laughing way too loudly with good wine and good friends.
Megan has always been a writer, and she discovered the journalism path in college and fell in love with it. Megan felt drawn to journalism to make a difference within her community and with where her skillset was. She started at the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, SD and worked a variety of jobs during her time there. Eventually, she left to start her own business (during a pandemic, with a four month old), and it has been a journey to get to the point where she is at.
This conversation with Megan brought up so much insight into her life and her business (and business in general). Here are some of the main things we talked about:
- What drew Megan to journalism
- Being a journalist in South Dakota
- All about Sioux Falls Simplified
- The need that Megan saw to fill
- Making news easy to digest and understand
- Juggling motherhood and entrepreneurship
- Managing deadlines while working for yourself
- Bias in reporting and being transparent
- Making and fixing mistakes in business
- Megan’s favorite part about entrepreneurship
A few highlights from this episode:
[8:09] – Really what I am trying to do is to create a different business model for local news.
[10:55] – I think the biggest thing was just people need an easier way to stay informed. And that was the niche that I was really trying to fill.
[13:02] – Here’s the elevator pitch context that you need to understand this so you don’t feel dumb. Because I think when people feel dumb then they’re not likely to take action about anything.
[31:17] – I think the more that I can just convey I am just a human being trying to live in this community, and journalism is my job but there’s not some higher conspiracy to it. It’s just me sitting at a computer. I’m going to make mistakes every now and then.
It was fun chatting with Megan to get a peek into her business and also to chat about entrepreneurship and business challenges. You can connect with Megan @sfsimplified on all social media platforms and at her website here.
When I look back on the beginning of my business, it was a sea of excel spreadsheets, paper contracts, and checks by mail. But then I found Dubsado! Dubsado helped me organize my clients in a way that made it easy for me to keep track of them, their projects, and also save me some time. Ever since I started using Dubsado, it has been my right hand software. It was my assistant before I could afford to hire an assistant.
It allows me to send and accept digital contracts, no printing or scanning, just all done online. I can send invoices and receive payments faster. It also integrates with so many other platforms that I use, like Google calendar, so I never miss an appointment.
When people ask me the one business tool I can’t live without, it’s Dubsado! If you are ready to up-level the back end of your business and make your life easier, you can use the code MADDIEPESCHONG to get 20% off your first month or year here.
Some of the best conversations happen after the show in my private Facebook group, Take It Personally Podcast. Join in here!
comments +