When Vigilante reached out to us in late 2019, they were in a difficult place. Their previous agency was four months past deadline on a promised subscription platform with no end in sight. Other agencies they approached wanted more than double their remaining budget to take it on.
They found us through a connection I had from school. We even studied abroad in the same city years earlier. He knew what we did and made the introduction.
The ask was clear. Vigilante needed a platform where readers could subscribe to their news content. They wanted to reach Curaçaoans living abroad who wanted to stay connected to home, then expand to local users on the island. They also needed a coupon system for local readers and, critically, live-streaming of events. Something no other newspaper on Curaçao was doing at the time.
We said yes.
We did not start with subscriptions. We started with the foundation.
Our proposal was simple: build an MVP first. Get the core platform right for both the journalists writing the content and the readers consuming it. No monetization yet. Just something solid to build on.
Once Vigilante saw the platform and felt confident we understood their product and their audience, we started adding everything else.
Early analytics told us something important. Their readers were primarily on mobile and skewed older and less technical. That insight shaped every decision we made.
We prioritized clarity over complexity. Reduced friction wherever we could. Built navigation that helped readers find what they were looking for without having to hunt for it. The goal was to meet users where they were, not ask them to adapt to us.
That is a small shift in thinking that makes a large difference in the product.
The live-streaming feature changed everything. Sporting events and the Miss Teenage Curaçao pageant drew far more concurrent users than we had planned for.
The server did not have enough resources. We felt it immediately.
We worked through the optimization methodically. Tuning configurations, scaling infrastructure, making sure the platform could handle not just the surge during events but the daily volume of articles, images, and video in between. It held. And every event after that, it held again.
With the foundation solid and the infrastructure proven, we built out the subscription model. Multiple tiers: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. Each with different perks. Online payments for readers abroad and a coupon system for local readers who preferred buying physical vouchers.
Over time we added what the business needed as it grew. Multi-currency support. Automated image watermarking. A soft paywall with integrated checkout to reduce drop-off. A PDF option for readers who wanted that format.
Each addition came from a real need, not a feature list.
The platform now serves over 100.000 monthly readers, with peaks approaching 150.000 during major events.
More importantly, Vigilante has a revenue stream that did not exist before. A direct relationship with their readers, independent of traditional advertising. In an industry where business models are under constant pressure, that is not a small thing.
We are still building together, most recently adding features in late 2025. The partnership works because we are solving problems together, not just shipping features.
That is the only kind of partnership worth having.
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