Column
Collaborative public notice platform
Company mission
Column's mission is to improve the utility of public interest information and support the distribution of that information by journalists that serve their communities.
Employees
21-100
HQ Location
Wynwood Art District, Miami, FL
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Otta's take on Column
Sam Franklin
CEO of Otta
One of the lesser known ways that newspapers generate money is through public notices i.e. legally required government updates on things like municipal budgets, foreclosures, and public meetings. As advertising revenue dwindles, public notices have become critical, particularly for local papers, but the communication lines between publishers and governments have long been fraught with inefficiency.
In a bid to solve this issue, Column offers a collaborative platform for officials to draft, order, and pay for public notices, and for reporters to easily access them. Though only founded in 2020, the startup has made rapid progress, and works with hundreds of papers across the US, including The Washington Post.
Founder Jake Seaton, whose family has run Kansas-based local newspaper The Manhattan Mercury for five generations, was able to tap into his relatives’ network of news media leaders to help launch the company and grow quickly.
The fact that many of this network, including Nancy Gibbs, the faculty director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, and David Chavern, CEO of the News Media Alliance, work in an advisory capacity – and in Gibb’s case at board level – suggests that Column could grow into a company of great importance over the next few years.
Total funding - $33.3m
Last 2 fundraises
Sep 2020
$3.3m
SEED
Aug 2022
$30m
SERIES A
This company has top investors
Company benefits
- Remote-first company with team members on multiple continents
- Equity
- Unlimited PTO
- Wellness stipend, gym memberships, mental health therapy, student loan repayment, and more
- Health, Dental & Vision Insurance
- Productivity stipend to invest in an office set-up
Company values
- Be Worthy of Trust
- Do Work That Matters
- Never Stop Learning
- Intentionally Build Community
- Tell a Better Story
Articles
Founders
Jake Seaton
(CEO)Forbes 30 under 30. Former Google Software Engineer. Was on the founding team at Quorum Analytics, a public affairs software platform.
People progressing
Sarah originally joined the Column team as a remote intern in the Summer of 2020. Two years later, she's been promoted from Associate Product Manager to Product Manager.
Kadé joined as an Implementation Specialist and is now the Team Lead of Customer Implementation overseeing all new customer setups.
Diversity & Inclusion at Column
Melissa Theiss (Head of People Operations)
- We strive to take an embedded diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approach wherein a DEI lens is applied to all facets of work.
- To encourage the use of a DEI lens 🔎, we use the SMARTIE (strategic, measurable, ambitious, realistic, time-bound, inclusive, and equitable) initiative framework whenever applicable.
- For example, we break down our total rewards, engagement, and candidate satisfaction survey results by demographic to understand and address any disparate impact. We evaluate our talent marketing profiles and language to ensure we are representing diverse perspectives without tokenization.
- We will incorporate inclusivity nudges and other tools to ensure fair performance evaluations and opportunities for promotion and/or advancement across all groups
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