Zype at SXSW Interactive 2015: Journey through the Accelerator
A big congratulations to the Zype team for all their hard work in winning this years SXSW Accelerator for Entertainment and Content technologies.
There was an amazing field of participants this year, and we'd like to thank InMobly and SIX in particular in our category for being such friendly and amazing competitors.
The journey started with our customers. We would especially like to thank our customers for choosing Zype to build amazing streaming destinations and our investors, and advisors for believing in us. A startup competition is a nice thing to win, but what matters to us most is doing the best for you. And of course we thank our families and friends who stand by us as entrepreneurs and allow us to dream big.
We'll keep working hard to keep building that dream so that content owners and creators and connect directly to viewers.
Read more for our video diary and our winning presentation deck.
Zype at SXSW Interactive 2015: Journey through the Accelerator
We are happy to share our winning presentation, and the videos from our journey at SXSW 2015! These videos were taken on Bill's iPhone - apologies for the potato quality - these are raw and unedited. We have heard there may be professional video of the event published soon.
Day 1: 2 Minute Pitch and Q&A
This was fun. We had three amazing judges from a variety of VC backgrounds, including KPCB, GGV, and SoftTech. The questions were insightful, and allowed us to showcase our business model. Chris is off to the side running the slides. Ed is on stage, admittedly a bit nervous this first round.
Day 1: Who will make it to the next round? Final Round Announcement
This was probably our favorite moment of the entire journey. The 2 minute pitch was tough, and the competition was amazing. We were the last to present, and the last to be announced to stay alive one more day. The amazing Ralph Simon also coins our new catch phrase.
Day 2: 5 Minute Pitch and Q&A
In the final round, the 3 remaining companies had to pitch for 5 minutes, plus a Q&A session. Chris is off to the side running the slides. Ed is on stage, a little more confident on Day 2, as we had some good stage practice by this point.
Q&A
Really enjoyed meeting these judges, including Kay Koplovitz (founder of USA Networks), Hamet Watt from Upfront Ventures, and Richard Garriott - a personal hero of mine. I spent many hours of my youth playing Ultima, Richard's famous PC role playing game.
Day 3: Winners Announcement
This was the big moment when they announced the winners. Lots of fun. Crowd was great.
Our Winning Pitch (5 Minute Version)
This is the Prezi of our winning 5 minute pitch deck. One person we'd like to call out in particular is Ron Yerkes, who was our SXSW coach. He helped us craft a clear presentation that carried us through.