This document outlines Courtney Boyd Myers' presentation on "Crossing the Pond: Finding Your American Audience". The agenda includes discussing the startup landscape in the US, picking a city, logistics, funding, branding, community building, marketing, PR, and tips for CEOs. Key topics covered are the major US startup hubs of New York City and San Francisco, factors to consider when choosing a city, strategies for hiring locally, content marketing, and leveraging press and social media for visibility.

1. AGENDA
CROSSING THE POND:
FINDING YOUR
AMERICAN AUDIENCE
Courtney Boyd Myers
Founder, audience.io & 3460 Miles

2. INTRODUCTION
‣ Working with Fueled, Geckoboard, Makeshift, SHADOW,
Transferwise, SecretEscapes, Percolate and Startup Institute
‣ Director of Audience Development at General Assembly London
‣ Writer at Wired UK, The Daily Beast & The Next Web
‣ Adviser at Second Home and Breadcrumbs
‣ Mentor at BBC WorldWideLabs, Seedcamp, Ignite100
‣ Community Member of Sandbox, Summit Series & ICE
COURTNEY BOYD MYERS @CBM
FOUNDER, AUDIENCE.IO & 3460 MILES, HUSTLE & KALE

3. AGENDA
‣ Startup Landscape
‣ Picking Your City
‣ Logistics: The Nitty Gritty
‣ Funding
‣ Brand + Messaging
‣ Community
‣ Marketing
‣ PR + Media
‣ 10 Takeaway Tips for CEOs
‣ Q & A

4. CROSSING THE POND
‣ Mobile Ubiquity
‣ Changing Workforce (Messaging +
Productivity)
‣ Data, Data, Data (+Analytics)
‣ P2P Economy
‣ Gen Y
‣ Hardware
‣ The Intertwingularity
STARTUP LANDSCAPE
Image: Shutterstock

5. CROSSING THE POND
TO BUILD SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTS FOR TOMORROW,
YOU MUST LIVE IN THE FUTURE TODAY.
!

6. CROSSING THE POND
BEING THE BEST, BEING AUDACIOUS & BEING COURAGEOUS
IS A STATE OF MIND.
!
FIND YOUR NICHE &
SET YOUR SIGHTS ON BEING A WORLD LEADER.

7. 7
BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC
CROSSING THE POND
What makes the U.S. a great
target market?
!
•316+ million people
•Digital ad spend of $110 billion
in 2013
•Greater amounts of venture
capital
•Bigger exits
!
Not bad Europe, but still a ways to go.

8. 8
WHICH U.S. CITY IS RIGHT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
CROSSING THE POND
!
!
Size of startup ecosystem, type of industries represented,
access to talent, investors and media are just some of the
factors to consider when deciding which city is right for
you.
!
(Also weather, restaurants, nightlife, babes and beach
destinations, right?)

9. CROSSING THE POND
NEW YORK CITY
•“Silicon Alley”
!
•Hyphen-Tech: Finance,
Advertising, Fashion, Music and
Media (sounds like London, ya?)
!
•About that Media...
Image: Shutterstock

10. CROSSING THE POND
AppNexus
Artsy
BarkBox
Bitly
Birchbox
Etsy
Fab
Fueled
NEW YORK CITY STARTUPS
General Assembly
Gilt
GroupMe
Foursquare
Kickstarter
MakerBot
NewsCred
OKCupid
!
!* More extensive list can be found at: http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc
Quirky
SailThru
SecondMarket
Thrillist
Tumblr
Warby Parker
Yipit
ZocDoc

11. CROSSING THE POND
GET INVOLVED: NEW YORK CITY
‣ New York Tech Meetup — nytm.org
‣ We Are NY Tech — wearenytech.com
‣ Hack NY — hackny.org
‣ Internet Week — internetweekny.com
‣ Social Media Week — socialmediaweek.org
‣ 3460 Miles — 3460miles.com
‣ Raised By Us — raisedby.us
‣ NYC Digital — nyc.gov/digital
‣ Made In NY — wearemadeinny.com

12. CROSSING THE POND
SAN FRANCISCO
!
• Epi-center, Mecca
• Mono-Culture
• “The future is made here”
• Tech-Tech
• About that Money...
!
• According to CrunchBase data, the
amount of funding raised by start-
ups in California in July 2013 was
$1.4 billion Image: Shutterstock

13. CROSSING THE POND
SAN FRANCISCO STARTUPS
‣ Airbnb
‣ AdRoll
‣ Asana
‣ Band Page
‣ Dropbox
‣ GitHub
‣ Good Eggs
‣ Gumroad
!
!
‣ Lyft
‣ Mixpanel
‣ NewHive
‣ New Relic
‣ Optimizely
‣ One King’s Lane
‣ Path
‣ Pinterest
‣ Quantcast
‣ Strongloop
‣ Square
‣ Stella & Dot
‣ TaskRabbit
‣ Tripit
‣ ZenDesk
‣ ZenPayroll

14. CROSSING THE POND
GET INVOLVED: SAN FRANCISCO
MEETUPS
HACK WEEKENDS

15. 15
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED?
CROSSING THE POND
!
•Los Angeles
•Austin
•Boston
•Boulder
•Las Vegas
•Seattle
•Washington, D.C.
Image: PandoDaily

16. 16
ACCELERATORS + INCUBATORS
CROSSING THE POND

17. CROSSING THE POND
Lyst
Conversocial
Huddle
Trigger.io
Songkick
One Fine Stay
Summly
Moo
EUROPEAN STARTUPS IN THE U.S.A.
Decoded
SoundCloud
Unruly Media
YPlan
MixCloud
Hailo
Qriously
Skype
Spotify
SkimLinks
3Beards
Mimecast
Blippar
Campalyst
Neverbland
Prezi

18. CROSSING THE POND
LOGISTICS: THE NITTY GRITTY
!
‣ Taxes
‣ Legal: Contracts, LLC, S Corp,
C Corp
‣ Hiring
‣ Banking, Payroll, Insurance
‣ Healthcare!
‣ Procurement Companies
‣ MoveGuides
‣ Visas...
!

19. CROSSING THE POND
VISAS
1. H1B (for large, established
companies)
2. L1 (intra-company transfers)
3. E2 (closest to a startup visa)
4. O1 (alien of extraordinary ability)

20. CROSSING THE POND
FUNDING
• Growing internationally is expensive
• You only get one shot at launching in a
new city
• Tip: Raise money from connected angels
or VCs in the city you want to launch in
• Get on AngelList
• Or have really thick bootstraps, thick skin
and a rich uncle...

21. CROSSING THE POND
TOP VC FIRMS + U.S. ANGEL INVESTORS

22. CROSSING THE POND
MESSAGING
!
• Moms vs. Mums + a
Jumble Sale?
• Jelly vs. Jam: Humor
doesn’t always
translate!
• Does your startup’s
name even translate?

23. CROSSING THE POND
SEEKING COMMUNITY
‣ L
Identify stakeholders:
• Target Demographics
(Customers)
• Potential Partners (Marketing,
Business, Talent, and Investors)
• Then seek those groups of
people at local events,
coworking spaces, online
(Stalking, YES!) and in the
media (read! Do your HW.)

24. CROSSING THE POND
BUILDING COMMUNITY
!
• Send someone senior across the pond
• Hire locally
• Choose reputable local partners
• Seek government support
• Seek big brand support
• Establish ambassador programs and
systems that support evangelists

25. CROSSING THE POND
HIRE LOCALLY
Hiring a local expert with industry street cred will help you:
• Tap into local insights, contacts and deal opportunities
• Avoid market pitfalls + “no-nos”
• Get your business plugged in faster
• Know the local competition
To hire locally:
• Tap your networks and get personal recommendations
• Use startup built recruiting services like hired.com

26. CROSSING THE POND
DIGITAL MARKETING
• Create a localized website or localize your product
page in the App Store / Google Play
• Paid Advertising: Media, Social + Google AdWords
+ Retargeting Campaigns (AdRoll)
• Build Virality (also Vitality + Virility!) into your
Product (a la Launchrock)
• Social Media Marketing: Facebook, Twitter,
Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, Foursquare,
Instagram, etc.

27. CROSSING THE POND
MARKETING TRENDS
•Crowdfunding as a marketing tool
!
•Content Marketing
!
•Product Marketing
!
•Promotions
!
•Company Culture as a marketing tool
!
•Social Good as a marketing tool
!
•Sidenote Marketing

28. CROSSING THE POND 28
CONTENT MARKETING
• Content marketing is a cost
effective, smart and scalable
way to acquire customers
!
• Content should include
educational, analytical
industry-related blog posts
mixed with fun, viral content like
infographics
!
• Content marketing should be
authentic and show your
company’s culture (culture
marketing)

29. CROSSING THE POND
CONTENT MARKETING
• Write brilliant blog posts
showcasing your expertise
!
• Content marketing can be easily
enhanced with social media
marketing and content
syndication
!
• Your content marketing should
support your company’s SEO
efforts

30. CROSSING THE POND
PRODUCT AS MARKETING!
• Hotmail’s growth was almost entirely due to a “Get your free email at Hotmail”
sentence at the bottom of every email.
!
• Airbnb reverse-engineered Craigslist to let users post listings automatically
despite no public Craigslist API.
!
• Allowing users to embed videos was key to the success of YouTube and Vimeo
!
• Slideshare included a plain-text link in their embed code, driving traffic back to
their site to get an SEO boost to boot.
!
• Dropbox incentivized referrals by giving free extra storage space – a strategy they
claim accounted for 60% of their growth.
Source

31. CROSSING THE POND
PROMOTIONS
!
• Choose Partners with
aligned demographics and big
audiences
!
• Choose Promotion
Channels and promote
content on a steady drumbeat
!
• Collect email addresses
and social information at every
turn

32. CROSSING THE POND
USING SOCIAL GOOD AS PR
Your
actions
speak
louder than
words.

33. CROSSING THE POND
SIDENOTE MARKETING

34. 34
SOCIAL MEDIA: TOOLS OF THE TRADE
!
CROSSING THE POND
•Facebook
•Twitter
•Pinterest
•Tumblr
•LinkedIn
•Foursquare
•YouTube
•Instagram
!
•SocialRank
•Edgar
•Mention
•Hootsuite
•Buffer

35. CROSSING THE POND
NOTHING BEATS NETWORKING
“The single most effective way to get an
article on any publication is to know
someone at the publication.”
- @DavidSpinks

36. 36
EVENTS + CONFERENCES
CROSSING THE POND
!
•SXSW
•CES
•TED
•TechCrunch Disrupt
•The Next Web NYC
•AllThingsD
•Fortune’s Brainstorm
•Big Omaha
!
•Summit Series
•Foo Camp
•Startup Weekend
•Catalyst Week
•YxYY
•WeWork Summer Camp
•Burning Man

37. CROSSING THE POND
GET SOME PRESS! WAIT, WHY DO YOU NEED PRESS?
1. Users
2. SEO
3. Building Credibility + Trust
4. Raising Money
5. Testing Out a New Idea
6. Recruitment
Source

38. CROSSING THE POND
I NEED USERS!
‣ Common but often misguided
‣ Entrepreneurs tend to set expectations too
high
‣ Viral and WOM marketing are usually more
powerful channels for startups, but press is
a great way to get the loop going.
‣ Target: Whatever your perspective
customers or users read. A tool for small
business might pitch Inc., while a sports
app could target ESPN.
Source

39. CROSSING THE POND
SEO
‣ Getting wide press coverage across a variety of press outlets w/ PR 5+ scores is a great way
to boost your SEO
Source‣ Target: Low-hanging fruit; smaller blogs, sometimes the ones no one has heard of! And PR newswires.

40. CROSSING THE POND
BUILDING CREDIBILITY
Source
‣ Target: Go for big names!

41. CROSSING THE POND
RAISING MONEY
‣ This is repeatedly the number
one benefit of getting press that
startups mention to me
‣ To aim your story at investors
mention impressive usage
metrics or key hires
Source
‣ Target: TechCrunch, The Next Web, GigaOm and the Wall Street Journal.

42. CROSSING THE POND
TESTING OUT A NEW IDEA
‣ Without more than 100 users, how can
you know if your MVP is right for the
market?
!
‣ It’s very tempting to use press to test
an MVP but if it’s a total flop it will be
burned permanently on the Internet
Source

43. CROSSING THE POND
WAKEFIELD’S PAPER NAPKIN PITCH
‣ The Paper Napkin Pitch started
because TechCrunch said they’d
write about one of Wakefield’s
events but needed a new angle
other than just an event cover.
‣ So the Founders came up with the
idea of having attendees write
ideas on napkins and win prizes:
“The Paper Napkin Pitch”.
‣ While they scrambled to set it up,
it’s now their most desirable
sponsorship package.

44. CROSSING THE POND
SLIDEBEAN
‣ Scored blog posts on TechCrunch and The Next Web
‣ Took 3 months to plan in advance
‣ Took time to develop relationships
‣ Followed + interacted w/ journalists on social
networks
‣ Took photos personalized for journalist in their
travels around the world
‣ Kept pitch email short + sweet
‣ Submitted through Tips to TechCrunch
Source

45. CROSSING THE POND
AMPLIFY YOUR PR WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
•Improve your inbound
!
•Make more original content
!
•ENGAGE!- Like, Share, RT; Answer questions,
tweets, comments, etc.
!
•Be opinionated
!
•Throw a Party (Get to know people IRL first)
!
•Make your details public + up to date
!

46. CROSSING THE POND
EXECUTING PR + MEDIA
• Hire a PR Firm to reach influencers
and journalists
• To help you plan + execute your
“launch story”
• For on-going press / mentions in the
media
• For events + conferences
!
• Or take PR on yourself (not
suggested for introverts + those with
anti-social behavior!)
• Host events / Go on a roadshow
• Teach!

47. CROSSING THE POND
PR AGENCY COSTS
‣ $3K - $30K per month
‣ Try negotiating a "success-based" PR
package that gives you the security of
knowing that you will only pay for PR if
certain pre-determined goals for coverage
are met.
‣ If those goals are not met, you wont have to
pay. If the goals are reached, you will be
happy to pay, because you’re paying for
actual results.

48. CROSSING THE POND
WHAT’S THE STORY?
•“We’ve launched”
•Funding
•Trend Stories
•We’ve hit X # of users
•New features
•Acquiring
•Major, new hire
•Hint at future plans
......But first... Can you name at least 3 tech journalists in the U.S.?
!

49. 49
ç
CROSSING THE POND
AMERICAN MEDIA LANDSCAPE
Follow:
!
@Eldon
@Alexia
@ChrissyFarr
@JennyDeluxe
@Hamburger
@ADRJeffries
@ErinGriffith
@HarrisonWeber
@LanceUlanoff
@GilbertJasonO
@KaraSwisher

50. CROSSING THE POND
ALSO READ...
Blogs
‣Fred Wilson (A VC) — http://avc.com
‣Chris Dixon — http://cdixon.org
‣Paul Graham’s Essays — http://paulgraham.com
‣Hacker News — http://news.ycombinator.com
‣http://www.wework.com/magazine
!
!Newsletters
‣The Fetch http://thefetch.com
‣3460 Miles http://3460miles.com
‣Startup Digest http://startupdigest.com

51. STARTUP BRANDS TO WATCH
CROSSING THE POND

52. 52
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What,
Why and a little bit of How.

53. 53
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or
similar companies that
have failed and succeeded
before

54. 54
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before
in your target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing
business fast

55. 55
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before
in your target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast
4. Read. For the love of
god, read.

56. 56
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1.Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before
in your target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3.Get used to doing business fast
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally

57. 57
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before in your
target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast ‘
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally
6. Pack Yourself! You need to meet
with local partners, customers and
make time for meetings with local
media.

58. 58
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before
in your target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast ‘
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally
6. Pack Yourself! You need to meet with local partners, customers and make time
for meetings with local media.
7. Ask for help, guidance and
introductions

59. 59
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before
in your target market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast ‘
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally
6. Pack Yourself! You need to meet with local partners, customers and make time
for meetings with local media.
7. Ask for help, guidance and introductions
8. Be open-minded to new
approaches and new ideas

60. 60
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, Why and a little bit of how.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before in your target
market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast ‘
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally
6. Pack Yourself! You need to meet with local partners, customers and make time for meetings
with local media.
7. Ask for help, guidance and introductions
8. Be open-minded to new approaches and new ideas
9. Make Friends with Founders, Investors,
Journalists, Wannapreneurs, Coworking Space
Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and everyone in between!

61. 61
10 TIPS FOR CEOS
CROSSING THE POND
1. Ask yourself: The What, When and Why.
2. Identify competitive or similar companies that have failed and succeeded before in your target
market and make sure you have a deep understanding of WHY.
3. Get used to doing business fast ‘
4. Read. For the love of god, read.
5. Hire locally
6. Pack Yourself! You need to meet with local partners, customers and make time for meetings with
local media.
7. Ask for help, guidance and introductions
8. Be open-minded to new approaches and new ideas
9.Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the
Cleaning Ladies and everyone in between
10. Start now

62. CROSSING THE POND
Thank you!
!
Q&A
!
cbm@audience.io
!
@CBM