Finding the market in the gap: How VIDA’s brand connection sprint helps content-powered startups grow profit from passion

“Talent borrows, genius steals…”

A famous quote and an ironic one, given that it’s been attributed to more than one person (both Oscar Wilde and T.S. Eliot for instance) but it’s also demonstrably true.

It’s the principle that many Direct to Consumer (DTC) brands are built on; take an established market or product and reinvent it. Make it better, faster, cheaper, more convenient…by going direct. And it’s obviously working. 

Last month the IAB launched their #BornOnline study of DTC brands in the UK, showcasing 50 of the most successful. Their research found that 97% of the UK population has bought a DTC brand with 10% of us being super users – buying from 5 or more. Speakers at the IAB event included Steph Douglas from thoughtful gifting disruptor Dontbuyherflowers and Kate Huang from femcare startup Callaly. Both talked about the importance of performance marketing, testing and learning from customer interactions when building a startup business from scratch, but just like the established businesses they are taking share from, there was also recognition of the value created by developing and nurturing a strong brand that the audience connects with.

The same is true of next generation media. Take the football sector alone where since launching in 2012 Copa90 has built a huge audience – over 650m people watched its 2018 world cup content, 31m of them on Snapchat - in a market where received wisdom says that audience and attention rely on access to premium content, expensive on-screen talent and live rights. Key to Copa90’s success was the understanding of the connections between fans.

These are what we call content-powered brands, built with an always-on and largely, if not exclusively, digital approach, finding the market in the gap by identifying and harnessing connections to power their growth.

Oh look, we found the GAP in the market…

VIDA is helping to build these brands in a number of ways; from access to capital and funding to accelerating diverse and recurring revenue growth, and via digital marketing creation and distribution.

But it always starts by identifying, analyzing and prioritizing the connections that our partners can build their business upon.

Our process to do this is built on a handful of established frameworks and models (genius steals, remember) and by adding something from our own experience. 

 We also know it’s good to share. So here are some of the models we’ve been inspired by for our audience connection sprint, and the additions we’ve made.

1) Market connections. Inspired by the ‘Ikigai’ model (translation: reason to exist) we look at startup ideas though the eyes of the end customer.  

 Does the world need this idea? Or rather, what does the world need it to be? This is especially useful for early-stage startup businesses, where the momentum and audience growth to date has often been driven more by the left hand side of the model – individual passion and purpose. Turning a DTC or next-gen media idea into an investable business means identifying how it can deliver what the world needs, better than those needs are currently served. We use a problem-solution method and a proven set of questions to interrogate this and to identify the market connections that the founders’ passions can exploit for commercial success. What problem does this idea solve for them? What value does it add – and is that really enough for them to pay us attention, or try us out?   

2) Community connections – Inspired by Bharat Anand’s The Content Trap, we explore the audience and product connections that give the real power to content-powered brands (because the irony is that the ubiquity of content out there means that it’s rarely down to the content alone).  

For example, what and where are the existing communities that this idea will appeal to most? Where and how will the audience experience the brand? How will they share their experience?

3 Brand connections. The third area we focus on is perhaps the most important of all. It’s what some call the ‘north star’ and others the ‘red thread’ – essentially the words that define your business and why it exists; the description that highlights what makes it distinctive, and the assets that will build mental availability (thanks Byron Sharp) or a memorable connection in the minds of the audience. This is the basis for all future content and comms from the brand on its growth journey.

Super-practical, very efficient, and dead simple, so by all means apply the genius steals principle…

But if you think you'd benefit from the experience of the team at VIDA then get in touch and let’s build it together.