If you’re looking for evidence of Vermont’s entrepreneurial spirit, flip through Burlington’s Seven Days. Pamela Polston and Paula Routly — both journalists — founded the media company in 1995 because they believed the area would respond to an edgy, well-written newspaper. With $68,000 borrowed from friends, and cheap space in the basement of the Miller’s Landmark building, the two women started something. At first it was a 28-page weekly that Pamela and Paula not only wrote and edited, but drove halfway down I-89 to the printer every Tuesday night. 

Seven Days

Published by: Pamela Polston & Paula Routly

Thirteen years later, Seven Days is an award-winning multi-media info source that sends its pages, in two sections, electronically to its printer across the lake in Plattsburgh. And it’s more than a newspaper: the multi-media company includes a full-service website, the 7 Nights dining guide, online video and an email newsletter. Seven Days also serves its readers and advertisers with singles parties, homebuyer seminars, “Bite Club” parties and other events. Bucking all the doom-and-gloom predictions about the future of the newspaper industry, the weekly print product, now weighing in at 100-plus pages a week, recently expanded circulation to White River Junction and St. Johnsbury. The Seven Days staff has more than quadrupled, from eight to 34.

 

Like most of the local businesses it serves, Seven Days is a mom-and-pop. Or, to be more accurate, a mom-and-mom. It’s not a link in a chain, or a franchise publication. Nor is the company’s product scalable to a national market, like ice cream or beer. It’s made fresh every week for localvore consumption, from the cutting-edge design provided free of charge to advertisers, to the local news, views and culture the writers assemble and analyze every week.

 

Seven Days not only gets the word out about Vermont’s creative economy, but fosters it. Many of the company’s employees are involved in bands, theater, art and other cultural projects. And the paper sponsors countless events, from all the shows at the FlynnSpace to Mardi Gras.

 

In January, Seven Days organized a job fair for Vermont technology firms seeking qualified employees. The Vermont 3.0 Creative Tech Career Jam attracted more than 1800 job seekers to the Burlington Waterfront. “Our colleagues in other parts of the country look at Seven Days and conclude, ‘That looks like a really cool place to live,’” says Seven Days Publisher Paula Routly. “The best part of it is, they’re right.”

2008 Burlington Business

Award