Founded by journalist and entrepreneur Byron Perry in September 2011, Coconuts Media, a local review and news media company, started with the domain name CoconutsBangkok.com. Today, Perry’s site uses the sweet sounding domain name Coconuts.co. Coupled with the new URL, Coconuts Media also presents a newly baked responsive web design.
Perry also shared that Coconuts Media has recently received funding from angel investors in Silicon Valley but declined to disclose the funding amount or names. From my understanding, a significant chunk of the investment was invested on the Coconuts.co domain name and also on its new design. “We wanted to combine the sites under one URL because it’s much more scalable,” says Perry.
With a team of ten, split between seven in Bangkok and three in Manila, Coconuts Media currently covers stories in Bangkok and Manila. Its Singapore site is scheduled to launch within the next two months. On Coconuts.co, you will find stories ranging from local news, commentaries, tech, to food reviews. He told me, “We want to launch in several other cities in Southeast Asia before the end of the year.”
Inspired by Buzzfeed and Vice, Coconuts Media plans to monetize solely from advertising but focusing more on advertorial/sponsored content rather than banner ads. To date, Coconuts Media has a total of 79,000 unique visitors generating 206,000 pageviews each month. In the near future, Coconuts Media is exploring more ways to inspire its users to produce more user-generated content to keep the site as locally centric as possible.
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