BoiseDev

About BoiseDev

BoiseDev is an independent, reader-supported digital news site covering growth, business, and development news in the greater Boise, Idaho area. Founded in 2016 by journalist Don Day, it began as a collection of short items on development news and grew into what measurement firms have ranked as the most-read business news source in Idaho. The site is locally owned, carries no paywall, and is funded by reader memberships, advertising, and sponsorships. Its signature products include the BoiseDev Project Tracker, an extensive database of development projects, and a daily newsletter and podcast. Day runs the outlet with his wife and co-founder Kara Jackson as a deliberately reader-first alternative to clickbait-driven local news.

Founding by Don Day

BoiseDev is the brainchild of Don Day, a native of Idaho's capital who started in journalism in 1999. Day spent nearly 18 years with the KTVB News Group, where he grew KTVB.com from fewer than one million views per month to more than 25 million, before shifting into digital sales. He began tweeting about things happening around Boise, hashtagging his posts #BoiseDev, as a way of keeping tabs on his community. The hashtag became a brand, and the brand became a business. Day saw a gap in on-the-ground local coverage: the slew of new development projects transforming Boise was not getting the sustained, knowledgeable attention it deserved, and he set out to fill it.

The Knight Fellowship and the Startup Plan

In 2016, Day met Kara Jackson, a marketing director for a large local company and herself a Boise native; on their first date, they talked about the work they dreamed of doing, and starting a news business was part of the conversation. Over the next year, Day undertook a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University — one of journalism's most prestigious fellowships — while he and Jackson strategized on how to build a sustainable model for local news. Their priorities, as Day later described them, were to do it in a way that was authentic to Boise, without a paywall, and as free as possible from clickbait. The fellowship year gave Day the space to research business models and plan the outlet's launch.

Full-Time Launch in 2018

After his Knight fellowship, Day cranked up his output and began publishing BoiseDev full time in the summer of 2018. Jackson, initially a silent co-founder, helped with planning and strategy on evenings and weekends. Within a few months, BoiseDev began offering membership options, experimenting with a Facebook group, a private Slack channel, and events such as member happy hours as the couple honed methods for connecting with readers. The now-married Day and Jackson work full time on the site — he as publisher, she as managing partner — along with a small staff. The deliberate, reader-funded ramp-up reflected the lessons of the fellowship year: build the audience relationship first, and let revenue follow.

Coverage: Growth, Business, and Development

BoiseDev's coverage focuses on the story of a changing Idaho: business filings, new buildings, restaurants, commercial real estate, construction, housing, zoning, urban planning, and economic development across the greater Boise area and the Treasure Valley. The site mixes quick-hit items on development news with long-form stories, and it tries to link out to compelling content from other outlets rather than duplicating stories. In a region experiencing rapid growth — and the growing pains that come with it — BoiseDev has positioned itself as the authoritative source on what is being built, by whom, and what it means for the community. Its reporting is granular and document-driven, aimed at readers who want to understand their changing city.

The Project Tracker

The BoiseDev Project Tracker is one of the site's signature products: an extensive, continually updated database of development projects across the Boise area. The tracker lets readers follow individual projects from proposal through construction, giving the community a level of transparency into the development process that did not previously exist in one place. It exemplifies BoiseDev's service-journalism ethos — journalism as a utility for engaged citizens — and it has become a reference tool for developers, officials, and residents alike. The tracker's depth is a competitive moat: it represents years of accumulated reporting that cannot be replicated overnight.

Reader-First Business Model

BoiseDev's operating philosophy is summed up in a simple line Day repeats: "We put readers first." The site has no paywall; instead, it offers paid memberships that come with benefits including early access to some news before it publishes to the general public, additional daily emails, invitations to member-only events, and reduced ads online. Membership pricing ranges from $10.95 per month to $595 per year. The model is designed to align the business with the audience: rather than maximizing page views for advertisers, BoiseDev maximizes value for the readers who fund it. Day is transparent and vocal about the outlet's background and approach, arguing that owning its story helps define the brand and cement why BoiseDev is different.

Local Ownership

Of the 14 commercial news outlets serving the Boise area, BoiseDev is the only one that is locally owned — a fact the outlet treats as central to its identity. In an era of hedge-fund and chain ownership of local newspapers, local ownership means editorial decisions are made in Boise by people who live there. Day has argued that independence lets the outlet focus on the community's needs rather than distant corporate targets. The local-ownership story resonates with readers who have watched the Idaho Statesman and other legacy outlets cut staff under corporate ownership, and it underpins the trust BoiseDev has built with its audience.

Newsletters and the BoiseDev FIRST Podcast

BoiseDev reaches readers through daily email newsletters and the BoiseDev FIRST podcast, a monthly conversation with a leader who has an impact on growth — or a thought leader in the state — from the governor to developers. The podcast extends the site's franchise into audio and gives Day a platform for the long-form conversations that do not fit the daily news format. The newsletters, including member-exclusive editions, are a core part of the reader relationship: they deliver BoiseDev's reporting directly to inboxes and drive the habitual readership that sustains the membership model. Together, the site, newsletters, and podcast form an integrated local news product.

The site has been profiled by the Northwestern Local News Initiative as a bright spot in American local news — an example of how a small, focused, reader-funded outlet can thrive where larger models have failed. Day has distilled his approach into advice he shares at industry events: find the gaps in coverage, focus intensely on customers and their experience, and tell the outlet's own story with transparency. BoiseDev's origin as a hashtag — #BoiseDev, Day's way of keeping tabs on his community on social media — has become part of its legend: a reminder that the outlet grew organically out of one journalist's curiosity about his hometown before it ever became a business plan.

Growth and Recognition

Since 2018, BoiseDev.com has been the most-read business news source in Idaho, according to Similarweb measurements — a striking achievement for an independent startup competing against legacy outlets. The site has been profiled by the Northwestern Local News Initiative as a bright spot in local news, held up as an example of how a small, focused, reader-funded outlet can thrive. Day has become a national voice on local news sustainability, speaking at industry events about finding gaps in coverage, focusing intensely on customers, and telling the outlet's own story. BoiseDev's success offers a replicable template: pick a beat the community cares about, cover it better than anyone, and ask readers to pay for the value.