Startup’s 2nd Disruption: The Media
‘As a startup, one of the biggest hurdles you’re going to face is building an initial reputation. With zero customers, zero brand recognition and little in the way of capital you could use to bolster your image, you’ll have to rely on alternative outlets and inexpensive tactics to give you early traction…’ Entrepreneur.com
Every startup founder would love to be covered or be featured stories in global focused TechCrunch (1), Asia focused Tech-in-Asia (2), Middle-East focus Magnitt (3) or Africa focused Tech-Cabal (4).
‘Coverage in publications like Forbes or TechCrunch is often powerful for getting in front of venture capitalists and others in the tech community.’ (5)
For example, ‘‘…[T]ake Warby Parker, the billion-dollar direct-to-consumer eyeglass company, that got covered by both GQ and Vogue right before their launch. The exposure they got from being covered in two leading fashion magazines catapulted them to unicorn land…’ (6)
Startup Database: Validation & Invest-ability
For a startup founder, being asked to speak at tech events is often a validation of their disruption which an event organizer’s paying audience wants to hear about. ?There are platforms catering to teaching founders on presenting and speaking events. (7)
Being in a startup databases, like global focused CrunchBase (8), global focused CB Insights (9), Middle-east focused Magnitt (10), ?Asia focused Tech-in-Asia (11), Africa focused Briterbridges (12), etc., has, to a degree, a signaling effect of the startups invest-ability, as their job is to vet, review and provide value to their paying subscribers.
It should be noted, startup databases compete for attention of paying users and comment on their advantages (13). ???
Furthermore, there are sites for best startup databases by category (14).
Additionally, there are platforms offering valuation of startups like Startups.com (15), Pitchbook (16), Brex (17), Carta (18), Equidam (19). Each platform has its own nuances in obtaining valuation, hence, guidance and guidelines for early founders.
?Finally, there are websites that provide access to startup investing like Ask for Funding (20), Our Crowd (21), top angel investor, below (22).?
Second disruption of Startup
A startup’s first disruption, like reducing friction or filling a gap, is via their product/services against incumbents or in adjacent sectors, for those amateurishly claiming they have no competitors. For example, it may be creating an AI based social scoring for accessing funds, against incumbents, like banks, wanting history/collateral for financing for the unbanked/undocumented, and it may become their unfair comparative advantage (moat), especially in emerging markets. It should be noted, FinTech are typically the largest sectors being funded by angels and VCs (and encouraged by local government) in places like Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc., as the banks are comfortable with ‘name lending’ and those with collateral. ?
The second disruption of a startup is brand recognition. What are some of the options for founders? ?‘[Founders] can issue press release via PR Web or PR Newswire [and hope for the best]…identify and reach out to journalists in your sector [and hope for the best]…Newsjacking [commenting] on a recent event with your opinion [and hope for the best]…participate at local events as speaker [or barter agreement to promote event on your website and your firm’s logo on event website/flyer and hope for the best]…create social media content regularly [for thought leadership and building of community and hope for the best].’ (23).
The hoped-for benefits include brand visibility resulting in traffic and conversion (at low cost) of paying users (important metric), talent hires (build out team), potential partners (ride on their brand recognition), getting on radar screen of investors (chatter about your startup), etc., and hope that it has a network effect. ?
But first time founders eventually realize their most important attribute is not passion, resiliency, empathy, vision, etc., but it’s telling (stories) and selling (disruption). The focus is on making sense of the limited time (in a day) with ensuing demands while prioritizing survival, ie, singularity. ?If it’s not adding immediate and incremental value, then its taking value away. Every startup has 5 years plans, more for investors, but focus is quarter to quarter metrics.
Thus, there are stiff head winds for first time founders on getting on radar of media for their disruption.
Social media Sentiment
So, it’s about awareness (of the offering), interest (from obtainable market) and demand (conversion/sales). The convergence on AID (awareness, interest and demand) generally happens on social media for consumer capture, from call-to-action and conversion. ?What kind of role does social media play for first time startup founders, those that were not successful with their first/second/third startup, or those that have transitioned from the corporate world to pursue their dreams in the startup space?
Typically, its often the founder(s) updating their personal social media handles, say, to their LinkedIn or Twitter connections/followers. This often acts as trial balloon with snapshot metrics like views, reactions, comments and shares, and starts the journey of awareness. Thereafter, the startups creates its social media handles and fills with content with the hope the some of posts go viral.?The monitoring will about social listening, ie, understanding reach (views) and engagement (reactions) for iterations and interventions. If the funds are allocated for boosting or paid campaigns, then startups would like to see the ROI on campaigns.
Sentiment Analysis Displayed in time Series Candlestick
Leading media outlets, from mainstream like CNN to Financial Times to Bloomberg to Wall Street Journal, to startup focused, like TechCrunch to Tech-in-Asia, are in competition for trending and/or breaking stories, being the first to cover, etc. Typically, the story is built around funding, funding rounds, lead investors, valuation, technology, people, etc. Thus, interesting stories on startups and/or founders means more views, readership, syndication, and reposts on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter, etc.
Most early seed startups do not get on radar screen of mainstream or tech media, hence, the question becomes, are there alternatives to telling/selling a story beyond press releases, contacting journalists, etc.? Yes, but it requires patience to build a story on social media via posts, campaigns, commenting on posts (including competitors), etc., and then capturing the sentiment (via AI) and displaying it time series candlestick for insights, trends, patterns, and so on. And, if you are not getting reach and engagement (traction) with posts/campaigns, it’s a feedback signal from your targeted audience, hence, need to revisit the story telling/product offering.
Below screen grab is from EMStartups (24) for Guardanthealth (25), a Sequoia (26) portfolio company, showing sentiment analysis in time series candlestick during six-month duration.
Observations:
Today, most startups are a social media network play over the web, and we have captured sentiment (27) on the startups by way of artificial intelligence (AI). (28). In Guardanthealth, we see a balance on sentiment captured between social media (Twitter) and Web, unlike most startups. We have included reference to Nasdaq over the NYSE Index or S&P 500 or the DJIA, as its movements have an influence on startups funding/exit, plus its home for the technology sector and companies. The ‘red’ sentiment candlestick does not necessarily mean negative, it is generally about fewer sentiments compared to the previous day. If we look at sentiment as liquidity (trading volume) of a publicly listed company, and one observation is sentiment liquidity increases as the startup moves from seed to series, much like liquidity increases for listed companies as their market capitalization increases from small cap to large cap.
Thus, here, we show a startup like a listed company that would benefit stakeholders interested in the startup as part of due diligence and monitoring, and insights for the startups for monitoring, interventions and this becomes a more meaningful way to tell their story to journalists. For media, it provides a deeper level of understanding for the startups, including asking founders questions, between, say, funding rounds, as much can happen.
The bottom of the image are sampling attributes, in a matrix format, of the startup as part of EMS Knowledge Grid, which can be viewed as a balance score card. The below image shows the depth of the Knowledge Grid coverage for startup issues, and the heatmap color shows greater sentiment liquidity with darker color representations. ?
Below image shows under ‘Product’ icon’s?‘Feature’ of the startup captured for reach, engagement (29), influencers (30), and sentiments (positive and neutral).?
The sentiments are numerically broken down from 0 (zero) to 1 (one): 0 to .25 is negative, .25 to .75 is neutral and above .75 is positive. In showing engagement to, say, investors, it becomes more important metric than just showing followers, and if its ‘A’ list influencers commenting to their network, it may reduce customer acquisitions (CACs) and may result higher lifetime value (LTV) of user with reduced churn.
One key takeaway is to follow the conversations over time (v snapshot) after a campaign (not just clippings), by the startup, to understand the importance to those interested in ‘feature.’ Furthermore, startups want to understand the ROI of their campaign, and under ‘Evaluate My Startup,’ (31) we can provide guidance.
Thus, in providing a dashboard for a startup, EMS becomes an affordable deep social listening partner on sentiment displayed in timer series candlestick for insights, but, more importantly for more precise interventions/actions.
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Knowledge Grid & Seed Startups
For early-stage startups, understanding the matrix boxes of the Knowledge Grid gives them guidance on the issues that matter to their various audience members, hence, allowing for a variety of posts, be it on technology to customer service to sales to partners and so on. The chatter, as represented by heatmap colors, is the feedback for iterations for engagement and conversion (paying customer). This becomes an important metric to attract high caliber employees, sign partnerships with brands, invitation to speak at industry events/media interviews, attract right investors, etc.
Conclusion
For early-stage startups, there is a need to disrupt the status quo on getting on the radar screen of media, as 'hope for best' with traditional campaigns is equivalent to ‘spraying and praying.’
The patience to build early-stage reach and engagement via posts and campaigns, and understand insights, patterns/trends, via EMS AI powered sentiment analysis displayed in time series candlestick, is telling/selling your story to media, both mainstream and tech, for a compelling story or if the output is minimal traction, then feedback from the marketplace to iterate/rethink. For the media, its an opportunity to provide in depth story of the startup beyond funding, valuation, lead investors, etc., for their readers, including investors.
Footnotes:
.3 https://magnitt.com/ ?
.23 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274887 ???????
Brand Coach | Corporate Brand Strategist | Thought Leader | Game Changer |Place Brand Strategist |Business Transformer | Networker | Employer Brand Strategist |Brand Experience Creator - FOUNDER OneEssence
1 å¹´Very interesting article that I need to dive into and learn more. We hope be guided in these stormy seas of disruption...
Strategic Finance & Venture Building | C-level Executive & Entrepreneur | Driving Growth and Scaling with a Finance-Backed, Entrepreneurial Approach | The Answers Always Depend on the Questions
2 å¹´Rushdi Siddiqui - a great way to make an intangible like #sentiment into a tangible #sentimentanalysis though #artificialintelligence analysis and human validation of that analysis and the resultant display through a tool like a #candlestick chart. I can see things like "good will" being complemented in #valuations by #socialmedia #sentiment. Application across multiple languages will also open up a wave of consideration of such #sentimentmetrics in a more systematic way. Looking forward to seeing the story of EMStartups.AI develop further. Haseeb Chowdhry Asim Gondal Haneef Sajjad