“Welcome to a brand new Pando!” read the announcement last week by Pando Daily’s editor-in-chief Sarah Lacy and editorial director Paul Carr. What’s new about Pando Daily? The two-year-old web publication focused on technology, start-up and Silicon Valley news has made major changes, including moving to a membership model, redesigning the site with an in-house CMS, and going to a daily publishing schedule.

              For $10 a month or $100 a year (if paid in full) members get unlimited access to the site’s articles, video archives and monthly events, both live and live streamed. Members can “unlock” stories for their friends by sharing links on social media and via email. Those “unlocked” links are available for 48 hours. In addition, Pando’s Twitter feed will also include links to unlocked articles.In the announcement, Lacy and Carr said they recognize that having a paywall makes it more difficult for readers to discover their work, but it is also risky to be overly reliant on advertising and on event revenue.”Advertising and events both have their place, of course, but if they make up 100% of your business, you can quickly find your editorial goals diametrically opposed to your commercial success,” the announcement said. “We appreciate our advertisers, and we love hosting events, but for Pando to stay both fiercely independent and healthily solvent, we knew we needed to add a third leg – subscription revenue – to the stool.”According to the post, Pando doubled its revenue last year compared to the prior year, and is up 40% following the first quarter of 2015. The company is optimistic about its future under the new reader-supported model.”With more readers paying for our journalism directly, we’re even less dependent on pageviews than we were before…it’s a simple proposition: You give us $10 a month, and we’ll give you an even greater commitment to in-person, on-the-ground, deeply analytical, investigative journalism you can’t find elsewhere.”Insider Take:Pando is not the first, nor will it be the last, media outlet to figure out that sometimes venture capital and advertising and event revenue are not always enough to sustain a company. This is particularly true for media companies who want to remain unbiased and independent.It has taken two years for Pando to move to a membership model, but within that two years, Pando has gotten the opportunity to know its audience and what it wants and needs, and they’ve undoubtedly done the math to identify their tipping point. We’ll be curious to see what type of rollout Pando does to spread the news and acquire subscribers and to see how receptive its readers are to the new model. We’ll keep you posted!