Media Spot Me, a Kitchener, Ont.-based, startup that helps link journalists and experts, is considering a move to Halifax if it can make the economics of such a move work out.

The company was started two years ago by former television journalist Stavros Rougas and his technical co-founder Ebrahim Ashrafizadeh to help solve the problem journalists face in finding experts to comment on topical events. Rougas is a former TV producer, and understands the difficulty in quickly finding experts — usually academics — to speak on any given issue.

Having launched the service a month ago, Media Spot Me now has a data bank of more than 7,000 experts from across North America and in other countries, and has begun to sign up journalists. “We’ve got about 100 journalists and we’re in talks with large organizations to bring people on board,” said Rougas in an interview. He added most of the sales efforts for now are in Toronto because the national media is concentrated in the city, and it plans to expand by selling in the U.S. market.

The company in the early stages will draw revenue by selling a premium product to media companies. But in time, assuming it gains a critical mass of journalist subscribers, it could collect and analyze data on such things as what searches journalists are conducting. There could be a market for such data among, for example, public relations and opinion companies.

Working in the massive tech hot spot of Kitchener-Waterloo, Rougas and Ashrafizadeh have got to know Milan Vrekic and Tony Abou-Assaleh, co-founders of TitTiianFile, which is based in Halifax and Waterloo. Rougas said Vrekic has been telling him about the startup environment in Halifax, and he is impressed enough that he has been in contact with such organizations as Innovacorp to make enquiries.

He said he is attracted to the city because rents and salaries tend to be cheaper than in southern Ontario, and that there are strong universities turning out the type of talent the company needs. Conversely, he is concerned about some other costs. The company executives will need to be in New York and other U.S. cities in the next few years, and the cost of air travel is a concern.

Rougas said he hoped to investigate whether there are assistance programs that could help with the move, such as wage subsidies if the company hires people in Halifax. As well as programmers, Rougas is interested in hiring people with training in journalism to work with company clients.

“Because we’re young and pretty lean, us making a move could be done in a pretty timely manner,” he said.