Startups vie for a chance to be part of the SXSW Accelerator competition for the opportunity it brings — 41% of the companies that have participated in the first two competitions received funding after the event. Only 40 companies are selected, but that doesn’t mean your startup can’t make a splash in Austin. Just being at SXSWi and exposing a solid product to the conference’s 14,000 attendees and a 1,500-person-strong media swarm can ignite a business.
But it can’t be engineered with snazzy swag and marketing dollars — you have to have great credibility and a great product.
“As a marketer, I’m happy to call out oth er marketers who think that SXSW launch success can be engineered or bought — it has to instead be earned with so much elbow grease and good will,” explains Josh Jones-Dilworth, who has worked on SXSW’s PR and serves on the SXSW Accelerator advisory board. “If anything, SXSW-goers are marketing-averse, super-savvy and able to triage credibility (or lack thereof) with a sniff.”
Without further ado, here are five companies (and an author) that have effectively leveraged the multi-industry conference into a launchpad for their success.
1. Twitter
Although Twitter is probably the most-cited company when it comes to SXSW launches, it’s not exactly true. “Contrary to common belief, we didn’t actually launch Twitter at SXSW — SXSW just chose to blow it up,” wrote Twitter co-founder Evan Williams in a Quora response to the question, “What is the process involved in launchi ng a startup at...
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