by Herman Manson (@marklives) Batstone is a specialist agency that helps start-ups in tech and financial services sector tell their stories. The agency is headed by Sarah Rice and Brendan Wade.
Rice ran the IT-focused PR agency, Sentient Communications, for almost nine years, and was also head of communications at Mxit, while Wade headed studio4332, a ProximityBBDO affiliate. They had worked together at 22seven, the financial services play by Christo Davel which was later acquired by Old Mutual, where Wade was marketing director and Rice managed public relations.
You recently launched Batstone — a practice of strategists targeting tech and financial start-ups. Why do you believe start-ups require such a specialised agency?
Sarah Rice: The greatest challenge to the adoption of new technology is the market’s understanding of what it can do and why people should bother with it in the first place. It’s not like putting a new product that is part of an existing category into the market. When Ariel launched into South Africa, it did not have to explain ‘washing powder’ to the market. It’s just had to say ‘better washing powder’. Not exactly a communications challenge. However, when new (and we mean proper new not ‘me-too’ new) comes into the market, there is no existing understanding that it can hook its communications on to — they need to start right from the beginning.
Add this quite complex communications challenge to the reality that most tech people are great at building stuff and not so good at talking about the stuff they built and you have a situation where a specialist consultancy has a lot to offer. We love tech. We have tech backgrounds. We understand tech and tech people, and we really care about what new technology can do to make the world a more interesting, better or just slightly easier place to be in.
What do you do for your clients and how long do you remain engaged?
SR: In plain English, we act as the interpreter for our clients. We take why, how and what they do and turn the information into something that their market can understand and care about.
The engagement level and time is very dependent on the client and the need. Our initial engagements are three-to-six months. This is a pretty intense time where the foundation work for a long-term marketing and communications plan is developed and implemented. Then sometimes we drop into a strategic role where we meet once a month to make sure their implementation is still on track with the big objectives and other times we stay as part of the marketing strategic team and other times we move away entirely and wait for when we are next needed.
What are the key questions a start-up needs to ask itself when it comes to positioning itself and communicating that positioning to the market?
SR: Once you know what your product or service does, then ask yourself ‘who needs to know about this?’ Who in our known — and our unknown — community can potentially become a supporter of our cause? And then ‘what do they need to know to become a support and how should we tell them?’ And then, critically, don’t outsource this important job to the media. Yes, the media are important but they are not working for you and are not going to be the loudhailer for your product. That’s your job. A press release is an important tactic — but it will not alone meet your needs. Get strategic, identify and build your ecosystem, and then start a conversation with them.
Do you assist in positioning them to raise finance?
SR: We do, in that we will ensure the positioning and proposition are developed with this purpose. In addition, we can assist with targeting potential funders through our network.
You and Brendan worked together at 22seven. Did they teach you a lot about operating in a start-up environment?
SR: 22seven was an incredible experience for both of us — new tech, new idea, new point of view and a rather aggressive banking environment that wasn’t happy to see it launch. We learnt about the importance of positioning new tech within the context of its purpose, rather than its product. We also learnt about the power of having a strong ecosystem of supporters.
Had either of you been involved in start-ups previously?
SR: Depends on what you call a start-up, I guess. I have run my own PR agency, Brendan was part of 22seven’s lead team, and lead an agency before that, and now we have started Batstone together, which is our attempt to make a tangible difference to the local tech scene.
How and when did you decide to launch your own operation?
SR: I joined Batstone as a 50% partner at the end of 2013. Brendan and I had enjoyed working together at 22seven and it felt like there was still much more for us to do and learn together. Brendan had been consulting under the name Batstone since leaving 22seven and, after a few conversations in early 2013, we realised that we both wanted the same things professionally and we could probably build a fun, interesting and profitable business together.
What does your company name reference?
SR: Brendan’s grandfather was Noel Batstone. He was an entrepreneur in the early days of commercial aviation and we liked the idea that our name reflected entrepreneurship, which is really what the tech start-up landscape is all about. And it has the word bat in it — which is obviously awesome.
Many of your clients are based in Stellenbosch. What is driving the tech start-up culture in that town and how different is it from the scene in Cape Town?
SR: We have clients in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Stellenbosch. The ones in Stellenbosch are generally connected in some way to the university. Our gut is that it’s not the city so much as the university that is creating the environment that promotes start-ups. (I think Stellenbosch university has a something to do with it; there are a ton of bright kids with bright ideas, and there is a fledgling VC presence to fund their ideas there).
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