3 startup pitches straight from the Matter media accelerator
If you've got the next great idea in media, Corey Ford wants to hear about it.
Ford is the managing partner of media startup incubator Matter, which is currently fostering its sixth class of startups -- including its first group in New York City.
He joined the Biz Please podcast to talk about the incubator's work, and brought along a few entrepreneurs to pitch their companies.
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A former journalist for PBS Frontline, Ford now works to find and foster new media companies. Like most incubators, Matter offers entrepreneurs a $50,000 investment in return for a piece of the company they are building.
Ford promotes what he calls "the drunken walk of the entrepreneur," which encourages founders to work quickly, make mistakes and learn from those errors.
"We really, really, truly believe that creating a safe space for entrepreneurs to fail, get feedback and iterate ... that's truly the environment we strive to create at Matter," Ford said.
Ford doesn't claim to have all the answers. He's more interested in creating the right conditions for success.
"The way I like to think about it is, our job is to create what I call intentional serendipity," he said. "We're not sure exactly what will come out of it, but we can provide the culture, the structure, the people and the connections in order for more and more good things to happen and increase the likelihood of success."
Entrepreneurs from three startups joined to pitch their companies:
Treepress: Managing director Laura Fisher joins to talk about why Treepress thinks there's an opportunity to serve the multi-billion dollar theatre market.
Ballstar: Nigel Caldon co-founded Ballstar to provide a place for basketball players from around the world to find and organize games.
Scout: Scout's goal is to predict the future by combining science fiction and journalism. Founders Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath speak to how the website is looking to provide a place for some of the brightest minds in technology to come together.
You can listen to the podcast below. If you enjoy it, please subscribe! You can find us here on iTunes, also here on Stitcher and even here on Google. And you can always find us @Biz_Please on Twitter.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
