Sebastian Esser

Sebastian Esser is a journalist in Berlin, Germany, and the founder of both Krautreporter (KR), a memberfunded digital magazine, and Steady, a membership platform for independent publishers across Europe. KR was crowdfunded in 2014 by more than 17.000 people. It publishes one story a day on politics and society and specializes in ad-free, independent, collaborative journalism. Krautreporter has more than 10.000 members today. The company is owned by a cooperative. Steady, founded in 2017, helps build people-powered media around privileges, passion and participaction and is growing strongly. It has turned more than 250 publications into membership businesses and powers the membership revolution in European media with tools and services for independent newsrooms, journalists, bloggers, podcasters and newsletter publishers. Sebastian has been reporting on national politics for Vanity Fair Germany and on the German media industry for V.i.S.d.P. magazine. He has founded multiple successful news startups.