Where are you from originally?
Upstate New York, Hudson Falls specifically
What university did you go to?
SUNY Potsdam
What brought you to Austin?
Opportunities in the video game industry
What is your group’s mission?
Celebrate creativity, convergence, education and
entrepreneurism in games, film and music.
What need does it fulfill?
Captivate provides a place for a variety of groups who do
not have venues to showcase their work.
By providing a low-cost entry point pre-seed companies can gain market
validation, students can compete for prestigious nation-wide prizes allowing
the colleges validation of their programs.
Professors and teachers will have professional development and can
interact with professionals, finding the support they need. Conference material will have heavy focus on
career development, hands-on professional development, entrepreneurial skills
and much more.
What exactly does it bring to startups?
In two words: Market Validation. Captivate has a unique system that will
provide each exhibitor with real data that can be used to validate a
product. Nowhere else can you get the
opinion of thousands of people who have experienced your product for such a low
price.
What type of startup would benefit from your group?
Any start up that utilizes digital media of any
kind. Whether traditionally tagged as
games, social, web, film, animation, education or music all of these start-ups
have more in common than is often thought.
What was the most challenging aspect of starting up the
initiative?
Getting everyone on the same page about what the
conference will shape up to be and ensuring Captivate does not cross lines with
SXSW and RTX. Our goal is to enhance the
culture of the creative industries, not detract from any other operating
group. Captivate’s offerings are
distinctly different from other conferences.
One of our goals is to feed start-ups into SXSW’s exhibition floor.
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?
Make networking one of your Rocks. That is, figure out what types of people you
don’t know and then go make them your friends.
A strong network will connect you to resources, provide feedback and
often help you out in ways you haven’t considered. I mentioned Rocks – you need to focus on the
big stuff and keep it 2-3 at most. Any
more and you’ll lose focus on what is important and miss opportunities.
What Austin-based resource have you found to be the most
helpful and why?
The City of Austin, Chamber of Commerce, Texas Film
Commission, Music Commission and Texas Entrepreneur Networks have all been
extremely helpful in getting Captivate off the ground! Each organization has offered support and
advice in some excellent ways. I
recommend all of these groups to anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment