4 Lessons Learned at SXSWi 2016 That Every Startup Needs To Embrace

I had the privilege of returning to Austin for SXSW Interactive and wanted to share some of the valuable insights I gleaned from the conference. At a basic level, the world is getting smaller and opportunities for digital publishers are growing. While the people I met and panels I heard ranged from trends in publishing to connected fitness, everyone who attended was deeply passionate about their work. As Marc Nathan put it, everyone at SXSW simply “gets it.” If you haven’t yet attended, you really should. Here are four lessons that we think every startup needs to embrace:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” -Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour. Game-changing products come from a culture of innovation. Organizations like BuzzFeed, Vox, Washington Post and Under Armour were united in their commitment to rapid fire product iteration. Plank noted that “brands must be protected and curated.” To that point, leaders who embrace a culture of innovation breed companies and products that thrive in the rapidly changing marketplace.
Creating ads that don’t suck is all about credibility and authenticity. Digital audiences are now fully receptive to sponsored content, provided that content fits seamlessly into their favorite stories. The goal is add value to your audience. Take a page out of Vox Media’s playbook. Vox views its product in its totality and ads are a part of that, meaning team members from editorial to engineering are responsible for producing outstanding content. Vox pays as much attention to reducing load times as they do in creating killer editorial content. At the end of the day, it’s all about audience trust, because without that trust, Vox doesn’t have a business. And make no mistake, Vox’s creative services arm — that is, native advertising — is the company’s economic driver. Which brings us to our next lesson…
“The importance of profitability is undervalued — winning is a cultural habit” -Kevin Plank. Another soundbite here from KP but it’s a quality lesson in today’s current bubble of hyper-inflated valuations. You can’t get into the habit of losing money. Period.
Distribution is key. Again, look at Vox: they’re industry leaders because they truly believe that quality content is a viable business model. Credibility and authenticity drives content monetization. The loyalty consumers have for your brand travels to advertisers. Vox nails this: their brand is built on a strong identity and story. Vox’s business is driven by data, but their identity is built on a human voice. Vox extends their voice across multiple tech platforms through programmatic advertising. They’re creating and distributing editorial and advertising content at mass scale. While distributed content is nothing new, media companies must be smarter and more creative than ever about how they deliver their brand and identity across multiple channels. Consumers are expressing a desire for more choice and more control over their content experiences. Digital publishers than must be omnipresent on social channels allowing the audience to choose the content, channels, and brands most relevant to them.

Have any comments or lessons you’d like to share? Email me at [email protected]