Encouraging Signs
May 2, 2007 by Mark Evans
Filed under Business
I attended a couple of really interesting events yesterday in Montreal – Brightspark’s AGM and a party at Austin Hill’s amazing loft. One thing that struck me is the encouraging amount of start-up activity going on. The unfortunate part is much is happen without much fanfare or self-promotion. Instead, you’ve got all these entrepreneurs quietly and diligently working away on their projects – and perhaps popping up for air by attending a BarCamp or DemoCamp. Let’s make some noise, folks, because it’s hard to attract the spotlight if you don’t step into it once in awhile!
Canadian startups are notorious for not tooting their own horn or even having a media kit/contact point. Sadly all those lamenting about the lack of Canadian content in the business pages often forget about that side of the equation. Your post makes the case for just how hard journalists have to work to get info on interesting Canadian startups.
Thank you for this blog and reporting on this countries startups. Lets hope they take your call to action to heart and let their progress be known.
Tips on how to “step into the spotlight” and “toot our own horn” are welcome here! We work on great stuff but we sometimes need a marketing crash course here and there.
It might also be, that until you actually “get” a Term Sheet — you want to stay under the radar. Competitors are always out there, watching blogs and getting news alerts on keywords that they’re interested in monitoring…so for many of us, we’ll go along quietly UNTIL we launch!
Jim
Marc it all starts with having a great product or service. Then distilling it into a concept that one can sell. Sometimes the product itself is the concept but more often than not it’s what it does for the customer. Is the company trying to position itself in the market and brand it’s services? Or is trying to drive sales, new customers and acquisitions?
Take a look over at the LULU Lemon site. I’m not a fan of it but there you will see brand building and positioning on the consumer sales side. They want prospects to come into the store where they can be immersed in the brand. Look a bit further and you see they are going for direct sales on the B2B side trying to get a foothold with yoga stores stateside and in Europe.
Hypothetically lets say you run a site that helps people find other people with similar interests, meet, plan and find a venue. You might have a brand and even positioning but what you really want are people using your resource.
Make the direct sale one on one with each visitor. What’s in it for them? Make it easy to sign up with with a clear user interface (UI) that guides them toward the desired action(s). Understand your market and the competiton. Create community. Reward participation (and that doesn’t necessarily mean contests or cash hand outs). Marks of distinction by a forum avatar, friends lists, achievements can work just as well. Gather testimonials and social proof. Heck head over to Copyblogger also part of the b5media empire for more advice on selling with what you write.
Marc my second suggestion for those looking to promote themselves is to learn the basics of publicity and public relations. The first is to get some attention from the people you serve and the press. The second to address questions that come up.
Jim I am sorry if I did not make my point clear. Please let me try again.
The gripe is not those in the pre-VC funding or even pre-launch phases. It’s funded and launched companies that hide their talents and promise. Sometimes the reach the point of going public with an IPO sighing and wondering why is the media such a tough nut to crack.
They have squandered so many points for publicity all along the way. Just imagine if they swore a staff member/writer to secrecy/NDA and got them to document the startup. Bamm you have a corporate origins story that many in the media would love.
Thanks for the tips AndrewK, we’ll get on those asap. We’ve been mostly focused on the product until now with our somewhat limited resources. We’re actually looking for great marketing minds and funding to help us go forward. If you know anyone with a passion for sports in both the marketing and investment world, send em our way!