Challenge
dot.LA launched in 2020 to cover LA's startup ecosystem, but like any new outlet, it faced an early bootstrapping problem: our reporters were still building sourcing and expertise, and weren't yet positioned to consistently break industry news. We needed a way to bring readers back to the site regularly that didn't depend on being first to a story.
What we did have was access. Our co-founder was an active LA venture capitalist, and many of our earliest readers were VCs themselves — people with a direct stake in seeing a credible local tech news outlet succeed, even when our coverage was critical of their portfolio companies. Those same VCs sat on information we couldn't get any other way: which companies were raising, which were quietly struggling, and what they were seeing in pitch decks months before the rest of the market.
The challenge was turning that access into something repeatable, without asking VCs for more than they'd be willing to give.
My Role
I led the product side of this initiative:
- Designed the survey format — kept questions multiple-choice and the survey itself short, to respect VCs' time and avoid asking for more disclosure than they'd want to give
- Assigned and directed the data visualization (managed a freelance designer who turned the collected data into graphics)
- Worked with our Managing editor and CEO to assign the story writing
- Set the confidentiality terms: participant names would be published, but individual answers would never be attributed without separate permission
Distribution itself ran through a Google survey sent by our CEO and business reporter directly to their VC contacts — a deliberate choice, since outreach from a fellow investor or the reporter who'd built the relationship landed better than outreach from an editor.
Approach
1. Find the Information Asymmetry
Rather than compete with better-resourced outlets on breaking news, we identified information our specific audience already controlled — VC sentiment, deal flow, and informal market read — and built a system to collect and publish it on a regular cycle.
2. Design for Low Friction, High Trust
VCs are time-constrained and wary of being misquoted on sensitive deal information. We addressed both:
- Time: Multiple-choice questions, short survey length
- Trust: Published participant names for credibility, but never attributed specific answers without asking first — and followed up individually when an answer was strong enough to warrant a direct quote
3. Run It on a Predictable Cadence
We surveyed the same group of 15–25 LA-based VCs every quarter for two years (December 2020 – January 2023), asking largely the same core questions each time. That consistency did two things: it built a habit for both the VCs (who came to expect and engage with each cycle) and for readers (who came to expect a recurring feature), and it created a longitudinal dataset on investor sentiment that no single survey could have produced.
4. Let the Format Earn Its Expansion
Once the core sentiment survey was established as a reliable performer, we expanded the questionnaire to ask VCs directly about the fastest-rising local startups and most-respected fellow investors. Those responses became their own stand-alone stories and listicles — “LA's Top Startups” and “LA's Top Venture Capitalists” — surveying 30+ investors by 2022, and becoming a recurring section of dot.LA's coverage in their own right.
Results
- Ran every quarter for 2 years (Dec 2020 – Jan 2023) with a stable core group of 15–25 LA VCs
- Consistently ranked in the top 3 performing stories each month it published
- Expanded participation to 30+ investors for the spin-off “Top Startups” and “Top VCs” features by 2022
- Became a recurring, named section of dot.LA's site and coverage (VC Sentiment Surveys)
- Created a venture-reporter touchpoint — the quarterly cycle gave our business reporter a built-in reason to reconnect with the local VC community every three months, strengthening sourcing well beyond the survey itself