Startup Spotlight: Hublished
Hublished: Content Curating Visionaries
If you haven’t heard about Hublished yet, chances are you’ll be hearing a lot of buzz about this NY/NJ based startup in the coming months. Their online service aims to connect individuals with useful content produced by industry leaders in the form of webinars, e-books, and podcasts, and with over $150k in startup funding, these guys are now gearing up for the beta launch of their site.
The Hublished base of operations is about thirty yards from my desk here at JuiceTank, so I took the opportunity to meet with Nis Frome, Kyle Byrne, and Chris Dilks, and ask them a few questions about how they’ve gotten to this phase of their business and what the next step is for Hublished.
So without any further ado, here’s our Startup Spotlight on:
What’s the Hublished story? How did the idea get started and what was the motivation behind getting Hublished off the ground?
Hublished, originally and unfortunately named “Hubinars,” was invented in March 2011. Nis Frome and Yair Aviner had a web design and digital marketing company, and their clients would often host webinars. Essentially, the webinars were incredibly effective at converting viewers into customers, but it was really difficult to generate viewers in the first place.
To make a long story short, Nis suggested to his clients a site where brands could upload and share webinars and other business content with industry professionals and consumers. Their clients loved the idea, and Hublished was born.
What was the biggest obstacle for Hublished in getting the company up and running?
Pretty much everything was an obstacle. Initially we had essentially no resources, one front-end developer, no partnerships, no mentors, absolutely nothing.
Ryan Kahul mentioned in an earlier interview that an idea is only worth something if it can respond to an acute pinpoint within an industry. What’s the pinpoint or problem that Hublished aims to solve for consumers and businesses?
Right now, professionals can only discover content from brands they’re already connected to. There’s no single space to find, register for, curate, and share webinars and other content from any industry. That’s what we’re doing: we’re streamlining and simplifying the content marketing process.
Webinar seems to be a focus word for you guys. What can webinars do for businesses, and why should they be making this kind of content available?
Numerous sources have suggested that webinars are the most effective marketing technique at generating ROI for B2B organization. I repeat, most effective. Webinars enable brands to engage many potential customers on an intimate level at the same time. It’s really a revolutionary technology.
So then how do you see Hublished working from an individual consumer’s point of view?
Brands will love that they can distinguish themselves with expertise instead of useless and expensive advertising. Consumers will appreciate getting emails for multitudes of webinars out of their inboxes and onto a single, simple website.
It sounds like the service is almost ready for market, so what is the number one goal for the upcoming beta launch?
Generate leads for worthy businesses. Get brands to quit advertising and start creating engaging, value-added content.
And after that, what’s the next milestone before Hublished is ready for mainstream release?
Making sure the website doesn’t break too badly 🙂
Always a good milestone. Now that you’ve started to see some success, what’s the best piece of advice you could give to other startups/entrepreneurs who are trying to turn their ideas into profitable businesses?
Network. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Who would you say is the wildcard of the Hublished team?
Our shareholders. They’ve been super active and supportive from day one, and we could not have done any of this without them.
And finally, in 5 words or less, what makes Hublished awesome?
Curated content.
There you have it – with a focus on value-added content, Hublished looks poised to help businesses make the shift away from direct marketing and into the realm of content creation. If your business is trying to make the shift towards smarter marketing too, the Hublished team probably has a lot of good advice for you.
Would you use a service like Hublished – either as a business or as a consumer? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
