Where would i be without its readers?

When it first began, the industry and even some of the staff couldn't believe what the paper planned to do

Can it really be five years? Receiving that cryptic phone call in the summer of 2010, my first thought was that the new opportunity was with the London Evening Standard. But as I met with proprietor Evgeny Lebedev and The Independent’s ebullient then-Editor-in-chief Simon Kelner, it became clear that the Indy was about to zig while everyone was zagging and launch a new daily paper.

It was not an obvious winner. The media world in 2010 was obsessed with how to deal with the essential conundrum of the digital age: for existing titles, how increasing audiences online did not compensate for diminishing revenues on the back of shrinking print circulations.

Nevertheless, then-group managing director Andrew Mullins was convinced that there was a gap in that print market. Readers’ biggest challenge in the always‑on digital age was time. Most could afford a pound for a paper, but no-one should have “buyer’s remorse” over a product that would be perhaps one-third read. You wouldn’t throw away half of your daily cup of coffee.

The industry and (to be honest) some of the staff could not believe we were going to create two daily newspapers using – mostly – the same journalists. i could never have succeeded without the extraordinary hard work and dedication of talents like Rhodri Jones, Louis Jebb, Victoria Summerley, Nick Donaldson, Charlotte Braunagel, Carl Reader, Julian Hills and so many others in those early days.

However, as optimistic autumn became a severe winter, few readers trudged into the snow to buy a product that hardly anyone had heard of, given our limited marketing and distribution resources. It was a worrisome first Christmas.

What saved i was you. Your unwavering enthusiasm, via social media and email, gave us genuine confidence. This transformed into booming sales when we ran our first television ad in January 2011.

Serious, complex news events like the Arab Spring, the summer riots and every Budget actually put on sales. You were clear: be concise, be serious, do not stray into lazy puns and stupid celebrities. Just enough sport, unbiased news, and the best journalism: from Kim Sengupta and Simon Calder to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Hamish McRae.

You have stayed loyal and evangelical. Thank you all for what was a real career highlight. And, under Oly Duff’s expert guidance, I couldn’t be prouder of what i is today.

Stefano Hatfield is editor in chief of High50.com