My students at IE looked at how 4 startups (Jugo, MySugr, NeverEmpty and Bits Box) communicate with their audiences and how they could improve.

1. #COMM4
ENTREPRENEURS
Cathy Hackl, IE School of Communication
@CathyHackl
www.linkedin.com/in/cathyhackl
#Comm4Entrepreneurs
Group Projects:
EMCC 14
IE School of
Communications

2. To do...
● What does this startup do?
● How are they communicating with
their audiences?
● Which audiences should they focus
on at this stage in their growth?
● What challenges do they face?
● Recommendations on how they can
better their communications
strategy.

3. Marcela Jaramillo, Mercedes Campmany, Virginia Guerrero
and María Kaltschmitt

4. What does this startup do?
● Website: www.neveremptyapp.com
● Its an App that lets users (sports fans) can bid for last
minute tickets to their favorite sports matches.
● The idea of the start-up and where the name comes
from is that to sell every seat in order of not to have
empty seat in every match.
● The parent company´s name is: People Sports

5. How are they communicating
with their audiences?
● Webpage: There is a lack of strategic substance for investors and possible
partners
● App: Downloads (many negative comments)
● Facebook: 4,466 Fans
● Twitter: 902 Followers
● LinkedIn: 272 Followers
● PR: Press conferences with their partners and newswires
● Blog: Chronicle and comments around the matches
● YouTube Channel: Features advertising videos and PR videos that are

6. Which audiences should they focus on
at this stage in their growth?
● Sport Fans: Every person who values the experience
to go and pay to attend live a sport match. Particularly,
people who are not able to pay high price tickets. (For
example: University Students)
● Media: All sport related media that can help them
diffuse their business model
● Partners: Sports Clubs and brands

7. What challenges do they face?
● Increase their awareness
● Increase their customer base
● To differentiate from established competition (Biduzz,
subastas de ocio, mobivel, ebay and sport clubs)
● Limited advertising and PR budget
● Strengthen its unique selling proposition
● Strengthen their partner network

8. Recommendations on how they can better
their communications strategy
● Have a more professional design and creativity in the
different communication content
● Invest in advertising (paid online) to complement their
PR strategy (Banners, like, post and click to web ads in
Facebook, Google keywords, SEO, Radio, and banners
in sport clubs)
● Make more strategic partnerships to offer more
matches
● Improve the App (users are experiencing a lot of

9. MySugr
Makes Diabetes Suck Less
Hahat, Ana, Isabel & Félix

10. What does MySugr do?
• It is a diabetes service company. It has offers apps, a web service and a
Diabetes Academy which mutually compatible solutions to ease the daily
therapy routine.
• MySugr helps diabetics by making therapy data collection appealing and
data analysis useful. Life with type 1 diabetes is bothersome, as is diabetes
therapy. The first can’t be helped, the latter is what mySugr strives to
make better.
• 44 countries, 8 languages

12. Fundings

13. How are they communicating?
• They are using an educational approach to communicate their service offering and
tools to manage daily diabetes routines.
• They use a simple, fun and close language. They use a lot of gamification
techniques.
• They have a website, a blog, Twitter account, a newsletter
• They focus a two-fold approach:
– Direct users
– Prescribers in the medical profession
• They use medical expert endorsement as a way to give credibility to their
communications.
• Facebook – 20 Likes

14. Which audiences should they focus on
at this stage in their growth?
• Patient associations
• Health-related NGOs
• Universities
• Schools

15. What challenges do they face?
• There are a lot of competing diabetes applications. There are no barriers
to entry, so how are they going to stand out against competitors?

16. Recommendations about how they better their
communications strategy?
• Celebrity endorsement, maybe a young sportsperson or a show bussiness
celebrity
• They should become more active on Facebook
• Identify key influencers and bloggers

17. Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar

18. What does the Startup do?
Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar
They are a crew of game designers, software
developers and productivity fanatics who believe in
Play as a powerful tool for engagement and
achievement.
They develop products and solutions for
organizations and corporate to better their
productivity and provide them with creative tools
in gaming forms.

19. How are they communicating with their
audience?
Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar
• Website: Nicely designed, but limited rich information (no demos, no videos, no information on
the products and solutions, no news and updates)
• Chief Designer: Blog on Gamification (Gaming For Breakfast) but not linked to the website
• Social Media: Very weak (630 followers on Twitter, 164 on FB) , not positioned well not linked
to the website, and mostly is in Spanish
• Teams bios: Presence on Linkedin but without the Logo of the Company with no unified name
• Logo: Poorly designed and difficult to read
• Slogan: Play.Grow.Share , it is not communicated in the website
• Clients: Just mention their names without saying what they are doing for them

20. Which audience should they focus on?
Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar
• B2B should be their main focus
• Spanish speaking market (LATAM)
• Team-oriented organizations
• Consultants

21. What Challenges do they face?
Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar
Internally:
• No clear identity
• No authority/voice of the brand
• No clear value proposition
• Weak communication (visuals, content, key points,..etc)
• Products and solutions dependent on actual delivery (ready vs. customized)
Externally:
• Poor engagement and interaction with clients
• Low reach to potential market
• No clear audience definition
• No customer centered message
• Funding challenges

22. Recommendations to better
communication strategy
Bryan , Javier, Mario , Omar
• Develop and communicate a customer solution visión
• Develop a full fledged communication plan including content, visuals, and Brand identity auditing.
• Focus on LATAM market
• Outsource the communication function to a consultant to setup a proper communication plan
• Communicating their progress and funding goals
• Develop a showreel on their products and services
• Categorize their target clients per segement according to size, decisión making, and industry of
the company
• Content in social media to be bilingual
• Integrating social media with the website
• Broadcast testimonials from clients
• Develop products and solutions that could be bought online vs. Actual delivery only

23. What does Bitsbox do?
Based in Colorado, Bitsbox is a new startup which
sell apps through a monthly subscription to teach
kids how to code. Kids learn in a fun way by copying
code into a Little text editor next to their Tablet,
which in turn runs their new apps.
Scott Lininger.
cofounder of Bitsbox

24. Webpage
Video
Free try
Social Media (lack of identity)
Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Linkedin, Google+, Pinterest
Private Tech events: explaining the benefits and fun of the new apps to the
education specialists
Communicating with the audience

25. Which audiences should they focus
Push & Pull Communication Strategy
Push
- For parents, who buy the product for their kids
Pull for:
- kids
- Influencers
- Partners (Education organization, Clubs (Montesouri))
- Investors

26. Communication Challenges
The brand name is not unique. There are a lot of companies with the same
name for different industries
To make a communication strategy, both for kids and parents
To communicate the clear benefits for the kids future and evolution of
learning code language. Develop a value proposition to communicate the
benefits of learning coding in an early stage to have the skills to become
the future “leaders”.

27. Any questions?
Let’s connect
Cathy Hackl
@CathyHackl
www.linkedin.com/in/cathyhackl
chackl@faculty.ie.edu
© Marek