Meet The Startup You Haven’t Heard About But Should Pay Attention To
Update 2017–11–23: Blab shut down a while back ago. Seems that I was incorrect in where I thought it would go.
If you’re familiar with the tech, startup and or marketing scene you have probably been hearing a lot about live streaming. It seems like everyone is talking about Periscope, Meerkat, Mirrativ, Facebook Live.
Who is going to dominate the live streaming space?
My position on who will ‘win’ changed when Roberto Blake mentioned a startup called, Blab.
What is Blab?
Blab is a live public conversation between 2–4 people. Blab users tend to describe it as a sort of online dinner party. My tech friends have described it as a blend of Periscope and Google Hangout.
Personally I think the best description would be that it feels almost as if the team behind Slack created a live streaming platform for the world.
Why Should You Care About Blab?
Valuable even without a following
The streaming platform I’ve used in the past only seem valuable at broadcasting what I want to say to my existing followers. What happens if you don’t have a following? Well, then you’re not going to get much value out of those.
Blab though allows you the ability to interact with individuals who already have an established audience. A ‘nobody’ all sudden gets to ride on an already established user’s audience.
Removal of more gatekeepers
I’m the CEO of EsportsClips, and there are always individuals who I wish I had more in my network. Individuals that can help move my startup forward like venture capitals, angel investors, CMOs, CEOs, etc.
The beauty & power of Blab is that it removes an additional layer of gatekeepers. While I was on Blab, there was a VC managing partner who was using Blab for office hours. With a single click, I was in a conversation pitching what I was doing to a managing partner of a fund.
Why It Will Win
Audience Engagement
Anyone on the site can request to join into the conversation. Individuals join, express their opinions or remarks on the matter and then have the option of dropping out of the conversation at will.
Ridiculously Simple UI
My first time on Blab I joined a Blab conversation within 5 minutes of being brand new on the site. I’m probably bias to the above opinion being a software developer, but I have also noticed a lot of not as technical savvy users using Blab as well.
Addicting + Time Suck
On Blab when I find a conversation of interest it feels exactly like what happens with Netflix. With Netflix it is, “One more episode” or in Blab’s case, “I’ll just spend 30 minutes talking”. Then it turns into 6 hours. All sudden you notice sunlight coming into your room and realize how much time you just spent.
Wrap Up
I believe that Blab is going to reshape networking and social discovery. It takes just a couple of minutes of testing it to make up your mind about it.
The time sacrifice is worth it to find out.
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