'He wheeled and dealed': An interview with Mainebiz founder Jon Whitney
Photo / Jan holder
Jon Whitney, founder of Mainebiz, says the production in the early days involved repeated runs to Kinko's. He sold BIZ, as it was orginally known, in 1998.
On any December day in 1994, a lone figure could be seen urging a hand truck stacked with Maine's first dedicated business publication, then called BIZ, over the cobbled streets of downtown Portland, handing his fledgling newspaper to potential advertisers and readers. It was old-fashioned shoe leather selling, and Jon Whitney, founder of what is now Mainebiz, is remembered fondly. “He's the real thing,” current Mainebiz Publisher Donna Brassard says. “He wheeled and dealed.”
Whitney started the publication from his living room with $1,500 of his own money. He grew it to $400,000 in billing and modest profitability before selling it to what is now New England Business Media in 1998.
“I was looking for an exit. I was just paying my personal bills, and put all the money into the company,” says Whitney. “But I traded a lot so I ate really well and always went to the theater.”
Mainebiz sat down with Whitney at a café in Bridgton, near his hometown of Harrison, where he sells real estate and keeps his toes in publishing with local business and real estate brochures. An edited transcript follows.
Mainebiz: How did you get started in publishing?
Jon Whitney: I was a journalism major at the University of Maine in Orono. But I ended up on the sales side. I knew I liked doing advertising and sales, and I liked print newspapering. So I hooked up with a guy who was just starting desktop publishing. He had a Mac and was publishing a couple little shopper-like papers. So I did a little shopper in the Old Port for Christmas in 1989 and made money from the ads.
MB: How did you get the idea for what later became Mainebiz?
JW: By 1994 I was looking for something else to publish. I thought the Portland area and southern Maine could use some kind of a business publication. The job the Portland Press Herald was doing, well, I won't characterize it, but I thought there was room for improvement with a publication devoted to business news and information.
MB: What was the business environment like?
JW: When I started this magazine, I was not well-connected in Portland. But when I would talk with people I knew, like commercial real estate people or a banker, I got encouraging comments that they might support it if I started it. I started with $1,500 to put a prototype together and literally knocked on doors.
Our first issue was in December 1994. I sold something like $6,000 in [advertising] and made a little money on it. And then I did it again. I always felt I was successful because I was willing to eat oatmeal for a couple years. I always paid myself last. As long as I kept my bills and help paid, that's all I really cared about.
MB: Describe the early days of BIZ.
JW: When I put that first issue together and subsequent ones, I did it on my living room floor. I had a waxer and ran to Kinko's all the time because I'd mess something up and had to reprint it, then cut it, wax it and paste it on a board. Then I'd put all the boards in a box and run down to Manchester, N.H., to have the thing printed. It was like the Stone Age compared to now.
MB: How has the news business changed over the past 20 years?
JW: We were right on the cusp of using the Web and email. I can remember we had dial-up service that made 'bree-bur-urk-shhh' noises before you'd get connected and download an image, and not even a moving image. Now almost everything is done by electronic file. The way we put the magazine together was probably closer to how Gutenberg printed the Bible.
MB: How do you feel about Mainebiz now?
JW: While the technological tools have changed, I'm not sure the news business has. You want to know how people make and do things, how much they cost, where the profit is, and who is coming up with new ideas. The need for Mainebiz today is the same as when I first started.
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