1. Launch a couple of weeks before hand. Why? Most of the press is tired at SXSW and you'll never get as good coverage as you will a couple of weeks before. But SXSW is a GREAT accelerant! So, get word out, get people to load your app on the way to Austin, then get them to tell their friends about it. Here's a list of tech journalists. A good percentage of these folks will be at SXSW:http://twitter.com/#!/Sco
2. Get as much PR right beforehand as possible.
3. Do things AT SXSW to get people to talk. In 2007, Twitter had display screens around the hall that displayed tweets. Last year the Foursquare team was playing real-life foursquare with people and handing out T-shirts and badges and stuff.
4. Build something that takes advantage of the very early-adopter audience that's there. Look at Plancast. Out of all the events on my schedule, only SXSW has more than 1,000 people already checked in on Plancast.http://plancast.com/Scobl
5. Build off of the systems that attendees are already using. Twitter. Foodspotting. Plancast. Foursquare. Facebook. Google Docs. Flickr. YouTube. Etc etc. Make it easy to onboard friends from these systems.
6. Make sure your systems rock on mobile, especially iPhones and Androids. This audience doesn't use crappy Nokia phones, but they are looking for bleeding edge mobile experiences.
7. Take advantage of bigger companies and bigger parties. Rackspace, for instance, has done big parties the past two years (we're still thinking about what we'll do this year) and I saw people working the lines handing out info on new services. Some were even smarter and made deals to be official partners (which, in some cases, was free) and got to show people how to use their services inside the party (which means they also got free drinks and food from us).
8. Make sure your staff has a staff shirt. Make it red, or some other bright color that will stand out in a crowd. Why? That way when someone asks me where I just got the cool piece of swag you handed me I'll just say "look for the folks wearing the red shirts over there."
9. Think about the swag you'll hand out. Stickers are always fun. But if you can come up with some way to get people to talk, do it.
10. Create viral loops whenever you can. Have contests for your existing users to get more friends on at SXSW, for example.
11. Yes, bring business cards. Here's some best practices:http://scobleizer.com/200
12. Influence the influencers. Make a list of 20 influencers beforehand. Folks like, well, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kevin Rose, Matt Mullenweg, Pete Cashmore, Leo Laporte, etc, and see if you can get them to use (and, more importantly, tweet and endorse you right before SXSW). Here's a list of influencers to think about:http://twitter.com/#!/Sco
Also Remember:
SXSW may be a great place to go into orbit -- as Twitter did in '07 -- but to actually try to pick up your initial 50 to 2k users at SXSW seems silly. You need a vibrant fan-base and trajectory before arriving in Austin.
You also have to determine if you are the type of startup that an event like SXSW makes sense to launch at. Selling funeral plots? Probably not.
SXSW is about parties and networking. Both Twitter and Foursquare (which really launched at SXSW2009 not 2010) are about both of those things.
Too many people try to launch at events that are not right. Its like a bikini on an elephant, it just doesnt work.
2. Get as much PR right beforehand as possible.
3. Do things AT SXSW to get people to talk. In 2007, Twitter had display screens around the hall that displayed tweets. Last year the Foursquare team was playing real-life foursquare with people and handing out T-shirts and badges and stuff.
4. Build something that takes advantage of the very early-adopter audience that's there. Look at Plancast. Out of all the events on my schedule, only SXSW has more than 1,000 people already checked in on Plancast.http://plancast.com/Scobl
5. Build off of the systems that attendees are already using. Twitter. Foodspotting. Plancast. Foursquare. Facebook. Google Docs. Flickr. YouTube. Etc etc. Make it easy to onboard friends from these systems.
6. Make sure your systems rock on mobile, especially iPhones and Androids. This audience doesn't use crappy Nokia phones, but they are looking for bleeding edge mobile experiences.
7. Take advantage of bigger companies and bigger parties. Rackspace, for instance, has done big parties the past two years (we're still thinking about what we'll do this year) and I saw people working the lines handing out info on new services. Some were even smarter and made deals to be official partners (which, in some cases, was free) and got to show people how to use their services inside the party (which means they also got free drinks and food from us).
8. Make sure your staff has a staff shirt. Make it red, or some other bright color that will stand out in a crowd. Why? That way when someone asks me where I just got the cool piece of swag you handed me I'll just say "look for the folks wearing the red shirts over there."
9. Think about the swag you'll hand out. Stickers are always fun. But if you can come up with some way to get people to talk, do it.
10. Create viral loops whenever you can. Have contests for your existing users to get more friends on at SXSW, for example.
11. Yes, bring business cards. Here's some best practices:http://scobleizer.com/200
12. Influence the influencers. Make a list of 20 influencers beforehand. Folks like, well, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kevin Rose, Matt Mullenweg, Pete Cashmore, Leo Laporte, etc, and see if you can get them to use (and, more importantly, tweet and endorse you right before SXSW). Here's a list of influencers to think about:http://twitter.com/#!/Sco
Also Remember:
SXSW may be a great place to go into orbit -- as Twitter did in '07 -- but to actually try to pick up your initial 50 to 2k users at SXSW seems silly. You need a vibrant fan-base and trajectory before arriving in Austin.
You also have to determine if you are the type of startup that an event like SXSW makes sense to launch at. Selling funeral plots? Probably not.
SXSW is about parties and networking. Both Twitter and Foursquare (which really launched at SXSW2009 not 2010) are about both of those things.
Too many people try to launch at events that are not right. Its like a bikini on an elephant, it just doesnt work.
