Digital Content of the Scientific Kind

by Startacus Admin

A few weeks back Startacus was delighted to welcome the team from SciencePod to our Tech Startup Pitch Battle, upSTART.  

SciencePOD is a specialist content creation agency focused on technology, science, medicine and innovation. They offer a platform to create clear and compelling content integrated with a smart magazine publishing tool.

They put up a fab fight at upSTART, but sadly didn’t make it to the top spot.  That was taken by innovative fashion discovery engine Modlist.

We are interested to learn more about the rapidly expanding industry of digital content creation, and so caught up with founder Sabine Louët to hear about her experience at upSTART and the exciting plans she has for SciencePod moving forward.

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For now on to our chat with Sabine...

Hi Sabine, First off what’s SciencePOD all about and what makes it a better prospect for clients than other similar content services on the market?

SciencePOD is a content creation agency specialising in science, medicine, technology and innovation. It’s a highly talented network of science writers and editors that can deliver high-quality articles, podcasts, and videos. They combine a technical expertise with an extensive experience as science communicators to deliver clear concise and compelling content.

The team gave a great pitch at upSTART Belfast hosted by Startacus, what did you take away from the experience, and how would you rate the value of taking part in pitch events such as this?

Taking part in a pitching competition such as upSTART is a very good way to get direct feedback on the concept underlying my business. Not only is feedback from the judges important, but it also helps to listen to other companies pitching. This all helps to position the business and refine it, so that it becomes ready for further rounds of development.

What would you say are the biggest challenges you have faced in creating SciencePOD, and what might you do differently were you to have your time over again?

The biggest challenge was learning about all the aspects of start-up creation within a very short timeframe. There is no ideal recipe for that, but taking part in an accelerator programme is probably the quickest way to do it. If I had to do it again, I would have started with the accelerator programme, first. I would also have sought advice from seasoned professionals sooner.

Can you tell us a little about your online magazine creation services?  Why is this a more effective alternative to publishing the work through existing channels?

We typically offer quality content creation services. This means that we focus on the creative side of putting together on-demand magazines. We leave it up to our clients to distribute the content through their preferred channels. The pain point we address for our clients is the difficulty of finding high-quality journalists and writers to cover topics that are inherently complicated. We have created a network of tried and tested content creators that can cover this.

What would you say is the biggest difficulty that organisations have in translating their research into ‘useable’ content?

Organisations tend to rely too much on technical language. It does not serve them well as audiences often have trouble understanding the big picture. What we do is place their activity into a wider context using simple words and drawing parallels to better explain the nature of their work. In this way an organisations' target audience can better understand why these topics matter to them.

It is predicted that the digital content market is going to continue its rapid expansion over the coming years - why do you think this is?

Content marketing is forecast to reach 277 billion euros by 2019. This is a direct consequence of the ability that organisations have to directly communicate  with their chosen audiences on the internet. Now that audiences have become more sophisticated in that they don't believe everything they read online and they tend to be less responsive to direct marketing or PR messages.  It is also a consequence of the recent changes to search engine algorithms that favour quality content over low-quality content used mainly as click bait. 

What are the next major steps that you would like SciencePOD to take in the near future, and what is the long-term plan for the business?

The next few steps are to develop the sales and marketing function to scale up the company. Long-term plans involved diversifying the customer base from Europe to the USA, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. This is a global business with the potential to change the way science and technology are communicated around the world.

Thanks for the chat Sabine and best of luck with SciencePod as it continues to grow.

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• #sciencepod
• #digital content
• #sabine
• #upstart

Published on: 22nd June 2016