What No One Tells You About Starting a Media Company: Actionable Legal and Business Advice from a Startup Lawyer

From fundraising to IP ownership, Travis Rundlet breaks down what media founders need to get right from day one.

These takeaways come from a recent workshop hosted by URL Media, a client of Rundlet Advisory, featuring a dynamic panel of media entrepreneurs: S. Mitra Kalita (URL Media), Mazin Sidahmed (Documented), Janelle Zagala (URL Media), and Travis Rundlet (Rundlet Advisory). The conversation offered hard-earned lessons and real-life advice for anyone building a media business from scratch. Special thanks to Sonali Kohli of URL Media.

Each panelist brought a critical piece of the puzzle:

• Mitra Kalita reminded founders that your business often begins by solving a real need, not by writing a business plan. Her earliest success came from sharing local COVID resources via email, which later evolved into Epicenter NYC.

• Mazin Sidahmed emphasized the value of listening before launching. Through information needs assessments, his team was able to build Documented’s most impactful offerings, like WhatsApp-based news for immigrant communities.

• Janelle Zagala urged new founders to avoid overhiring too early. “Prove your concept, grow slowly, and handle compliance properly,” she advised, offering tips on employment classifications and PEO services.

Together, the panel painted a clear picture: building a media company requires creativity, commitment, and business fluency.

Travis Rundlet, a media-producer-turned-lawyer, brought clarity to the legal and structural side of the equation. With a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, he now counsels early-stage founders on how to structure, protect, and fund their companies the right way—so they can grow with confidence and retain control. Here’s the legal and business guidance Travis offers to early-stage media entrepreneurs:

1. Start by Defining the Business You’re Actually Building

Before raising money or filing paperwork, you need to clearly define what you're selling and how you’ll earn revenue. Many founders lead with their mission, but Travis Rundlet emphasized that you should begin with your business model: Are you monetizing content, selling ads, offering services, or hosting events?

According to Travis, revenue strategy determines everything from your legal structure to staffing choices. A strong mission matters, but it won’t carry the business unless the numbers work.

Travis encouraged founders to ask:

• What are my revenue streams?

• What are my costs to create and distribute content?

• How will I measure success—financial returns, reach, or impact?

2. Know What Kind of Funding You’re Seeking

Travis broke down the 3 main types of capital, each with distinct implications:

1. Grants provide capital without repayment, but often come with restrictions.

2. Debt must be repaid, but allows you to retain full ownership and control.

3. Equity means selling a share of your company, giving investors a long-term claim on profits and often a voice in decision-making.

Travis urged founders to choose funding types based on their actual business model and long-term goals—not just what’s commonly pursued.

"You don’t need to give away your company just to launch it," he advised. Carefully consider your investor’s expectations. Are they looking for financial returns, social impact, or both? That answer should shape who you approach and how you structure your ask.

3. Structure Your Business Thoughtfully From the Start

Your legal structure affects tax obligations, investor access, and long-term flexibility. Travis recommended that founders weigh the two most common structures:

1. LLC: Offers flexibility and simplicity, especially for small teams or contractors.

2. Delaware C-Corp: Often preferred by institutional investors because of its standardization and governance model.

Travis warned that fixing a poor structure later can be costly and disruptive. He compared it to launching a rocket: small miscalculations early on can send you way off-course down the line. When asked by an attendee about when to bring in legal help, Travis advised involving a lawyer as early as possible, especially if you're taking in capital, creating intellectual property, or issuing equity.

4. Secure Ownership of All Your Content and IP

Travis made it clear: if you’re launching a media company, your intellectual property is the core of your business—and you must own it, fully and clearly.

He advised founders to:

• Use signed contracts with contractors and freelancers that assign all IP rights to the company.

• Transfer any pre-existing IP from the founder(s) into the business.

• Keep clean documentation of all ownership arrangements from the start.

In response to an attendee question about freelance contributors, Travis stressed that IP ownership must always be in writing. Without it, investors may see your business as too risky or undefined to back.

5. Be Selective About Who You Take Money From

Not all funding is created equal. Travis cautioned against assuming that venture capital is the gold standard—especially for community-oriented or mission-driven media.

He advised seeking out:

• Mission-aligned funders

• Strategic partners

• High-net-worth individuals who care about your outcomes, not just your returns

Fundraising should be a two-way conversation. You're choosing your partners just as much as they’re choosing to back you. In response to an audience question about how to raise funding without giving up equity, Travis shared this advice: “Ask for advice, and you might get support. Ask for money, and you’ll get advice.”

6. Embrace Your Role as Founder, Not Just Journalist

Many media entrepreneurs come from storytelling backgrounds, but running a company requires learning new skills. Travis acknowledged that the shift from editor to CEO can be uncomfortable, but also empowering.

He encouraged founders to:

• Build teams with complementary skill sets

• Be willing to make mistakes and learn

• Develop a clear plan and seek out trusted advisors

In response to a question about staying mission-aligned without burning out, Travis emphasized the value of clarity: clear contracts, clear ownership, and clear values all support a founder’s ability to lead effectively.

Final Thought

Building a media company takes more than a great story — it takes structure, clarity, and the right legal foundation. From funding to ownership to day-one decisions that shape long-term outcomes, the most successful founders treat their business like a business from the start. At Rundlet Advisory, we partner with mission-driven entrepreneurs to help them launch with confidence, grow with control, and protect what they’re building.

Ready to take the next step? Reach out to us here.

Can Founders Raise Capital Without Sacrificing Control?

Rundlet Advisory founder Travis Rundlet draws on legal and business experience to explain how poorly structured early raises can affect not just cap tables, but a founder’s ability to lead and grow the company on their terms.

At Rundlet Advisory, we counsel entrepreneurs building companies they intend to scale and lead with intention. In a recent article, we explored how LLC structures can offer a flexible alternative to traditional equity financing. This piece shifts focus to a related challenge: how early fundraising decisions, particularly those made without long-term planning, can quietly cost founders control of the companies they’ve built.

It’s a challenge we’ve helped founders navigate time and again. Our team brings experience not only in corporate law but in entrepreneurship, media, public policy, and finance—giving us a practical understanding of how strategy, structure, and governance intersect. With over 60 years of combined legal practice and more than $30 billion in closed deal value, we approach capital structuring as both legal advisors and business partners.

These aren’t just legal questions. They are strategic capital structure decisions. And they carry long-term implications for governance, financing, and control.

When founders lose control

The scenario is familiar: a founder raises early-stage capital without a forward-looking cap table strategy. When it comes time to raise again, perhaps from institutional investors, they realize that additional dilution will tip voting control to outside stakeholders.

In a corporation, shareholders elect the board. The board sets the direction of the company. If a founder no longer holds the majority of voting stock, they may lose the ability to shape strategy, manage leadership, or control future financings. We’ve worked with founders in this position. In some cases, they’ve had to negotiate buybacks or voting proxies. In others, the solution required a full recapitalization or reorganization of the company. These fixes are possible—but rarely efficient, and almost never ideal.

What experienced founders still overlook

Even second-time founders and seasoned operators can underestimate the compounding effects of governance terms. Many assume that majority equity automatically equates to long-term control. But in practice, board rights, preferred stock terms, and protective provisions often erode that control over time—especially when layered across multiple rounds. Others postpone structural decisions, thinking they can course correct later. But the deeper the cap table, the harder it becomes to make required changes.

Conversely, we’ve seen founders retain influence and flexibility with less than 50% ownership—because they retained certain voting rights and were economical in granting other control terms (like consent rights, board seats, board observer rights, etc.) rights from the outset. The difference isn’t always how much capital was raised. It’s often how the offerings were structured.

Control begins with financial planning

In our experience, many of these issues stem from a lack of forecasting. Too often, founders raise capital without modeling their financial needs beyond a rough estimate of burn rate.

We advise clients to build a detailed 12- to 18-month cash flow forecast. This model should include revenue assumptions, hiring plans, infrastructure costs, and product investment. From there, we assess not only how much capital is needed, but when it will be needed—and what forms of capital are appropriate at each stage.

That clarity informs the timing, size, and structure of the raise - and gives founders more leverage at the table. And, importantly, it helps founders ask and confidently answer one of the most important questions they can expect to get from prospective investors: how much capital do you need and why do you need it?

Capital always carries conditions

While economic dilution (the founder’s share in value) is typically the headline concern, control dilution (the founder’s ability to control the company) tends to be the more enduring constraint.

Even early-stage investors will often request board representation, approval rights, and other “protective provisions.” These terms rarely sunset, and they compound across rounds. Founders who overlook these details often find themselves outvoted or constrained at precisely the moment they need flexibility. We regularly help clients understand how these governance mechanics function in real-world transactions—and how to structure investor rights in ways that preserve the founder’s role as operator and decision-maker.

Can the damage be reversed?

Sometimes. We’ve advised clients through restructurings that include buybacks, investor exits, holding company rollups, or clean-slate mergers. When early investors are aligned and cooperative, these options can restore governance clarity and create space for future capital. But in many cases, the ability to restructure depends on negotiating leverage, financial runway, and investor trust. All are harder to secure once problems are already entrenched.

If you're navigating capital decisions, whether planning a raise or reassessing your structure, this is the right moment to think carefully about control, governance, and long-term flexibility.

We work with founders who want to structure early decisions with the future in mind. If this resonates, we’re always open to a conversation.