T.A. McCann's talk to startup entrepreneurs at Techstars Seattle about how to leverage your network and tools to get early influencers and customers.

1. T.A. McCann – create something great

2. Soft Labour HelpShare Microsoft Polaris MOD Systems Jump2go Vulcan Gist Lessons learned…

3. #Fail!

4. 4 #WIN!

6. VS. Vision, Visualize, Plan, Operate

7. Our next big idea… 7

8. A valuable target customer Business professional Places high value of relationships (>8/10) Has significant % of relationships outside company Uses technology to gain information advantage Trained to pay monthly service fees Blackberry/iPhone Salesforce.com LinkedIn Pro Zoom Info/Hoovers Roles include (execs, sales, recruiter, biz dev, VC, PR, journalists, lawyers…) Influencer of others on small teams Often fits in GTD category as well Technical, early but not bleeding edge adopter 9/17/10 8 confidential

9. The facets of your customer – who are they from every angle Survey Monkey can help you think, capture and scale Spend your currency (alpha, beta, connections…) to get valuable feedback Reward the people who engage with social currency FOG (friends of Gist) – every Wednesday night for 18 months 9

10. Kevin Spidel "I am the Managing Director of an international PR firm and am very active on the social web. Gist allows me to cut through the noise and manage my contacts directly. I am able to monitor what matters... the relationship." Managing Director Patriot Strategies http://patriotstrategies.com Washington, DC, USA 5300 contacts, 1279 companies Gist user since 11/03/09 – has invited 34 users

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12. Coverage “..we expect sales personnel to flock to Gist, since the output provides a much richer portrait of contacts and companies than could be gleaned otherwise…supplying users with a ready excuse to stay in touch with customers and prospects.”” - Gartner Group, Cool Vendors in the High Performance Workplace, 2009, Matt Cain “Gist, which we’ve already dubbed the power networker’s fantasy service for syncing social media data with email connections, has just launched their free iPhone app to tackle that challenge head on.” - Mashable, Gist Launches iPhone App for Power Networking On the Go “Gist already has a strong following among sales types because its algorithms can surface important contacts and flag folks they should be in touch with.” - ZDNet Between the Lines, The business-to-business of Gist, Larry Dignan “Gist works with Outlook and other email programs to keep users updated on news about contacts through social-network sites.” - Wall Street Journal, Updating Office on the Cheap, Nick Wingfield

13. Marketing Find your connected, core user – engage early, often and deeply Listen to the influencers (reference, repost, re-use, retweet) Create your own compelling story (personal, product, plan) Surf the buzzword waves (e.g. “social CRM”) Be the brand Read Seth Godin Clay Shirky Chris Brogan 13

14. Find your influencers and connectors… 14 The social maven (Robert Scoble) The “new” analyst (Brent Leary) The passionate user (Eric Standlee)

15. Listen to the conversation

16. 9/17/10 16

17. How Gist Works…

18. Profiles – everything I need in one place

19. Profiles – everything I need in one place

20. Inside Outlook – integrated with my workflow 20 9/17/10

21. Inside Gmail… 9/17/10 21

22. Mobile – smart, relevant information, on the go 22 9/17/10

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24. Set big goals Leverage your professional network Get connected to real customers Listen and learn Fail fast and iterate on product AND customers Persist Go make something great.