[ibimage==31870==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
When Chris Rickstrew and Jeff Hudson, the men behind Denver-based social media marketing company Shareable Social, finished their three months at startup accelerator Techstars, they found themselves in a position other graduates didn't: they had clients.
Unlike their peers — many of whom had been accepted into the program based on ideas —Shareable Social already was generating $16,000 in monthly revenue, with over 160 clients, giving them a significant head start on their associates.
"At that point, we just focused on how we were going to build the team, and how we were going to scale it," said Rickstrew.
Shareable Social was born in July of 2013, and represented Rickstrew and Hudson’s second foray into the social media marketing field, following the sale of The Social Route, now a digital branding agency, to a minority partner and an investor.
The company was accepted into Techstars a year later, thanks in large part to the supportive nature of the Denver startup scene.
"When we were applying to Techstars, we called 15 different CEO's of companies in Colorado to ask them to meet with us to give us some tips and advice, and they all said yes," said Rickstrew. “A lot of them gave us recommendations [for Techstars]."
Rickstrew and Hudson first met while working for Denver-based mobile marketing company Wisper, and it only took six or so weeks before they decided to strike out on their own.
"We had to make $4,000 our first month in business otherwise both of us would be moving back in with our parents," said Rickstrew. "Fortunately for us, we knew just enough more than the people that we were selling about social, so we would sell them on things that we didn't even know if we could do. Then we'd have to go home and figure it out and do research, so it was a pretty steep learning curve."
Less than six months since graduating from Techstars, and now with a team and office in place, Shareable Social aims to aid small businesses with their social media marketing strategy via a simple, scaleable business strategy that allows interesting content to be shared, with minimal effort. Ninety percent of the company’s clientele consists of real estate professionals, something that Rickstrew believes works to Shareable Social’s advantage.
“The reason why we focus on that is because we want to master this vertical and the product, and focus on how to market and sell it properly before we start to jump into other verticals,” said Rickstrew. “Instead of creating content that's client-specific, we create content that's vertical specific. Whether we have four real estate agents of four thousand, we still only have to write a couple of social media posts every day."
Rickstrew tentatively predicts that Shareable Social to be involved in 20 different verticals, and cannot speak highly enough about the Colorado startup scene.
“Even though there’s obviously competition, there's a lot of support for young guys like us who didn't know exactly what we were doing and trying to make it work, but we were able to have this network of people who had gone through it helping us,” said Rickstrew.
“There's kind of a mantra of give first.’”
Have a tip for us or want to share news about your company? Email us via [email protected]
