BIF10: Branding, Market Awareness Key To Startup Success

Walt Mossberg
Walt Mossberg

Developing a personal brand and not being afraid to borrow others' ideas are the keys to a successful startup, according to Walt Mossberg.

Mossberg discussed his experience launching online technology website Re/code earlier this year during the Business Innovation Factory's BIF10 conference Thursday in Providence, R.I.

First and foremost, Mossberg said deciding what you stand for, promoting it, and delivering on it are integral to attracting users and funding.

For Mossberg, a longtime technology columnist with The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of AllThingsD.com, that means writing for the average consumer of technology rather than tech enthusiasts, hobbyists or geeks.

"You wouldn't be surprised for me to say that the web is full of crap," Mossberg said. "There are a lot of people who should retract a lot of stories."

Mossberg told the audience that social media presence – for better and for worse – will greatly affect your brand.

For more than three decades, Mossberg worked at the Journal as a reporter, editor and columnist.

But when he proposed a personal technology column in 1991, supervisors initially fought his proposal and said they didn't want "voices" in the newspaper even though political and sports columnists were pervasive at papers nationwide.

Mossberg, though, eventually prevailed, and in 2007, started the All Things Digital conference and online publication with the blessing of his bosses.

At the end of 2013, Mossberg and partner in crime Kara Swisher decided to strike out on their own, aiming to create a publication that fused together the editorial standards of legacy publications with the fast-moving and informal style of web journalism.

"There is a limit to being entrepreneurial inside a big media company," Mossberg said. "It's very hard to be willing to fail."

Given their reputation, Mossberg said he and Swisher attracted unsolicited donations are were able to quickly develop a following for Re/code.

"If you do it right, you can really pull together the business side and content side," Mossberg said.

Finally, Mossberg urged attendees to pay attention to their competitors' ideas since the person or company who invents an idea is often different than the one who popularizes it.

He cited as examples both the automobile – which had been around for years before Henry Ford found a way to mass produce it -- as well as the lightweight laptop – which was likely invented by Sony but taken mainstream by Apple.

"Henry Ford didn't invent the car," Mossberg said. "He just innovated in figuring out a way to get it out to as many people as possible at an affordable price."