Teams of two startups that gained serious momentum at last year’s South by Southwest Interactive, Foodspotting and foursquare, pose for a picture in front of the Austin Convention Center, the main venue of the event. Photo from Seth and Alexa Andrzejewski via Flickr.
South by Southwest Interactive isn’t a conference. It isn’t a summit. It isn’t a networking event. And it certainly isn’t a party. Nope, it’s all of those things, and because of that, it makes it one of the best places for a startup to launch or market its product, whether that’s in a large, public way or one-to-one.
Last year’s event brought in over 14,000 attendees to Austin, Texas from around the globe. There were marketing directors from Spain, salespeople from Alabama, investors from New York, developers from Oklahoma, founders from California, and the list goes on. The variety of attendees’ backgrounds and roles is uniquely diverse for an event focused on emerging technology. And the most important part of it all: these attendees are early adapters.
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With the above in mind – an event ripe with opportunity – here are five startups from the Silicon Prairie that I think could break out at SXSW Interactive.
1. Uppward – Des Moines, Iowa
Can Uppward make “wings” cool again? The ones that flight attendants used to kindly hand out to any kid that asked for one? A good portion of attendees will be flying in for SXSW and upon arrival a “check-in” with Uppward will earn you a set of digital wings. If attendees begin to share this medallion like they do foursquare badges, look for Uppward to gain some momentum at SXSW. Uppward team members in attendance include Nathan Wright and Ben Sinclair. Now when do we get those free playing cards? (Check out the shirt the team just released today: twitter.com/nathantwright.)
2. Dwolla – Des Moines, Iowa
Unlike Uppward, this won’t be a “Hey, let me try that right now” type of experience, but with the presence of co-founder Ben Milne at SXSW, I expect people will be hearing about it. The reason for the former is because it takes a few days to connect Dwolla to your bank account and there aren’t any locations in Austin that accept Dwolla. The passion of Milne, however, will trump those barriers. I see Milne pulling a Dennis Crowley (foursquare co-founder) at SXSW, which, according to a January 2011 Quora post by Crowley requires “hustle” and “telling friends and stranger to try out your app.” When foursquare launched in 2009, Crowley said they spent $0 on marketing. I’m anticipating that post-SXSW Dwolla will be seeing more than $0 moving through their system from SXSW attendees as a result of Milne’s hustle.
3. Hollrback – Omaha, Neb.
This thing was built for SXSW, seriously. “[N]ow is the time to see how people will actually use it during an event that it’s really created for,” wrote co-founder Gabe Kangas on his blog yesterday. “A large conference where people are meeting other people for the first time.” Factor in marketing efforts through sponsoring the StartupBus and our Silicon Prairie Party Presented by Hollrback party, I think Hollrback will hit the ground running. Co-founders Kangas and Timothy Kephart will be there for one-on-one marketing, as well. Kephart, in fact, has already started before landing: “Anyone interested in contacting me at #sxsw just use @hollrback app and scan this: http://yfrog.com/hstoxp,” he tweeted today.
4. Zaarly – Kansas City, Kan.*
While Hollrback was designed for an event like SXSW, Zaarly was literally built over three weeks for a launch at SXSW. This product has yet to show a prototype to the public, but with a talented team, a fresh $1 million seed round, and an on-the-ground promotion team of nearly 20 people at SXSW, Zaarly is set to make some noise in Austin. The three co-founders – Bo Fishback, Eric Koester, and Ian Hunter – will be simultaneously attending SXSW while completing development, fixing bugs and adding enhancements to Zaarly. (*Co-founder Bo Fishback is based in Kansas City.)
5. RockDex – Omaha, Neb.
In our post last week, RockDex co-founder Jimmy Winter called the soon-to-be released next version of RockDex “mind-blowing” as it will provide “more than the numbers” to the bands and music labels that subscribe to the service. With SXSW featuring both an interactive and music festival, SXSW is the perfect spot for RockDex co-founders Winter and Shannon Schlappi to be spending their time and dollars. And with iPhones in hand, they’ll be showing off their updated version to individuals who may spend dollars on their app that tracks and analyzes online buzz and discussion of bands. The startup also has an opportunity to impress when Schlappi takes the stage to moderate a panel in the music portion of SXSW.
Whatever happens with the startups above, it’s encouraging to see an increased presence from the Silicon Prairie region at SXSW this year. I’m still a bit of newbie to the event myself, it’ll be my third year, but I understand the impact it can have on a startup’s first few years. SXSW has and will continue to play an important role in the world’s tech startup scene, giving passionate entrepreneurs a place to connect with potential users, investors, and team members.
For those of you launching or marketing a startup at SXSW, I strongly encourage you to read this TechCrunch post by MG Siegler from which I first read the advice from Crowley: “Twitter And Foursquare Explain Their SXSW Explosions: Hustle, Buzz, And Maybe $11K.”
Follow the Silicon Prairie region at SXSW on our “SPN at SXSW” page: siliconprairienews.com/sxsw.
