theparksider.com

Depending on when you read this - it may still be up ​https://theparksider.com/

High level:

• I live in Central Park, Denver
• It is a neighborhood of 40k people and rapidly growing
• We have a collection of small businesses and chains that exist here
• There are no good local marketing channels
• I tried to build a local media empire enabled by AI agents - foundationally through a weekly newsletter of events and interviews

More notes:

• We ran for 3 months
• Grew subscriber base to 300
• Very hard to grow
• Very hard to monetize
• Consumed a lot of time
• We experimented with all sorts of content
• Many neighbors relied on us for event updates
• AI agents broke

Why it didn't work:

• Took a lot of time
• Events had to be manually curated
• Neighbors would not refer other neighbors
• Not worth the time input at that time

Glimmers of hope:

• Businesses loved to be interviewed
• I built many local ties
• Several parents highlighted that it took the work out of organizing family events
• Very clear there is not a central event listing/API - potential for future