Building a Funnel I was the first hire into the OAW team after the initial $250K of capital was raised and ultimately responsible for carrying out the mission – pushing companies to expand operations from the Bay Area into non-coastal cities. To do this, I tried (and failed) at a number of ways to build-out a sustainable pipeline of clients. Some methods include: • Direct Outreach: Targetting companies who recently raised capital and require a hiring spree. I narrowed these targets down to specific industries where we drove more success. • Event Sourcing: Constantly network building and spreading the message of OAW. • VC Sourcing: Connecting with investors, typically board members of companies, and telling them of the benefits of expansion. The goal is to get intros directly into portfolio companies. Each conversation brought along more insight into the market and allowed me to refine my pitch more and more until I knew more about what our prospects were looking for.
Developing Collateral As prospects became more and more interested in our offerings, I had to develop processes, collateral, and other materials to ensure we had a solid case to present. I tracked down consultants, to help me build out a series of videos, build out a data visualization tool, and create a plethora of one-pagers that helped tell the benefits of our offerings.
Creating a Movement While honing in on the sales message, I turned my attention to building our social media engine and content strategy. This strategy is based on a playbook that I’ve developed for several different companies. For OAW, we focused on: 1. Promoting smaller cities and the tech successes within those cities 2. Building city profiles for each one of the target cities we were working with 3. Quickly follow with any news related to national economic development The strategy has been working well. While our LinkedIn and Twitter follower count remains relatively low, our impressions and engagement rates are off the charts. On Twitter, we average over 200K impressions/month and LinkedIn has an engagement rate of 10% per post – all of this achieved with $0 in advertising spend. Our work has been picked up by the likes of the Wall Street Journal, Axios, Business Insider, and even local sources like the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Driving Expansions Effort aside, at the end of the day, results are what matter. Within the first year, I moved an entire company from the Bay to Pittsburgh. I aided the move of an investment firm. And I brought in a set of remote jobs into the region. My contributions accounted for roughly $3M of new economic development in the region. These results directly influenced our ability to secure $1M in funding in early 2020. Now – we’re building a bigger team and more robust operations for more success in the future. With a strong pipeline of potential opportunities I expect to see this company to drive tens of millions to deserving regions.