SX Startups: M.io Makes Messaging Easier
The Forrest Four-Cast: March 7, 2018
Fifty diverse startups have been selected to present their skills, creativity and innovation at the 2018 SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event on March 10 and 11. Winners in each of 10 categories will be honored at the Accelerator Award Ceremony at 7 pm Sunday, March 11, at the Hilton Austin, Salon AB. Network with all the finalists from 11 am to 1:30 pm on Monday, March 12, at SXSW Accelerator Demo Day, at the Hilton Austin, Salon C. The SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event (as well as the Demo Day) takes place within the Startup & Tech Sectors track of programming.
A finalist in the Enterprise & Smart Data Technology category, the Austin-based M.io is a universal messaging network. They are making it easy to chat with anyone in the world regardless of which messaging app they are using. Users of various popular workplace messaging apps — such as Slack, Cisco Spark, and Atlassian Stride — can use M.io to chat with external vendors, partners and clients. CEO Tom Hadfield (pictured above) answered our questions for this interview. See him pitch his startup at 12:30 pm Saturday, March 10, in the Hilton Austin, Salon AB.
What are the overall goals for M.io this year?
In 2018, our goal is to build a fully interoperable, federated messaging ecosystem. We are aiming to add all major consumer and workplace chat apps to the universal messaging network by the end of the year. We are also working hard to expand our messaging federation service for large enterprises who use multiple messaging apps for internal communication.
What is your competitive advantage ?
We’ve been working closely with Microsoft, Slack, Cisco, Atlassian and Google to help them build out their messaging API’s. Those relationships — which we’ve built over several years — give us insight into what’s coming down the pipeline in terms of new messaging features and functionality.
What inspired your team to apply for SXSW Accelerator?
We have friends here in Austin who have had a great experience being part of the SXSW Accelerator in previous years, so we knew the SXSW Accelerator would be a great way to get exposure during an otherwise busy schedule.
Has anyone on your team been to SXSW before?
We live in Austin, so most of us try to attend every year!
What are you most outstanding memories of the event?
For me, it was hosting a large get-together for the messaging industry last year — that was fun! Although Chris Traganos (the VP of Product here at M.io) says that his personal SXSW highlight was meeting Grover and Elmo at the IBM lounge!
Which session is your team most excited about attending at SXSW 2018?
“The Texas Startup Manifesto with Josh Baer and Evan Burfield.” Josh is the No 1 advocate for the Austin startup scene, and he’s always entertaining!
What kinds of people are you looking to network with at SXSW 2018?
This year at SXSW, the M.io team is looking to talk with IT managers or CIOs in organizations who use multiple messaging apps for internal team communication. We also want to connect with employees who are members of multiple Slack, Stride or Spark teams. Finally, we want to meet with community managers who use messaging apps to increase engagement
How long has the M.io team been together?
A long time! My technical co-founder James Cundle and I have started five companies together in the past 15 years. We both started working with Ian Hannaford, our VP Engineering, almost 20 years ago. More than half of our team has moved to Austin in the past 18 months to join M.io, which creates a real sense of being in this together.
What podcasts are your team listening to now and why?
I find it therapeutic to listen to The Art of The Fail with Kristian Borghesan and Chris Buttenham. I subscribe to the view that entrepreneurs should be making new mistakes, not mistakes that others have made before. Listening to entrepreneurs describe what they’ve learned from past failures is one way I try to stay true to this.
Look for interviews with other SXSW Accelerator finalists in this space between now and March. Startups already profiled as part of this series include 70MillionJobs, AfterNow, ARwall, Bluefield, Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Commutifi, DashTag, FanFood, FutureFuel.io, Goalsetter, HealthTensor, Instreamatic, Leaf, Moms Can: Code, Pawame, PolyPort, Sceenic, Switchboard, UPGRADED, USHR and Vochlea.
Or, click here to browse the full lineup of startups for SXSW Accelerator 2018.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
