In this talk Brian Friedman recounts the creation and launch of Looped, the first product of his company. Beginning with a prototype built at Draper University in August 2013, the team focused on developing a novel bidirectional Bluetooth communication system that could function as an offline data network for devices like wristbands and necklaces. After a year‑and‑a‑half of hardware and firmware development, they pursued patents and IP licensing. In 2015 they chose South by Southwest (SXSW) as the launch venue, designing a covert scavenger‑hunt activation that placed Bluetooth‑enabled necklaces on attendees, guided them through hidden mats, and rewarded the first finishers with tech‑company prizes. The experiential launch generated buzz and led to the first major enterprise client, Box, whose large developer conference served as a high‑stakes proof point for security and scalability. Friedman describes the product’s smart‑business‑card functionality, the creation of an engagement metric called the Via Score, and real‑time visualizations of attendee interactions. Leveraging this success, the company signed other large enterprises—Intel, Adobe, Cisco—realizing that their product‑market fit lay with big‑event organizers rather than the initially targeted SMB market. He explains how the sales organization used email automation, Connect‑and‑Sell, and rapid outreach to convert these pilots into broader deployments, scaling from small events to hundreds of events across Fortune‑500 customers.
Chapters
So this was really our first product, and from there we were able to sign other really big customers like Intel, Adobe, Cisco. And for us, our target at first wasn't enterprise clients. However, where we found our product-market fit was these large enterprises. And what we realized was these large enterprises had hundreds of events. So essentially, if it went well with a few of their events, they could then help us scale out. So 2015, We basically launched looped at South by Southwest. So you might see the gap of time. We first started the looped here at Draper University in August 2013. So for about a year and a half period, we were really focused on making technology. We believed that if we made this unique technology, we could get patents for it. We could license out the IP to other companies. So our first few hires were firmware developers where. Bluetooth at the time was newer on iOS devices, and with Bluetooth you have a master and a slave mode where essentially it's one-way communication, and we invented a way for dual communication, so essentially bidirectionally between 2 devices. And we thought this was really cool because we could use this as an offline internet network. We were saying that we could basically exchange information if it was files, text, let's say in places like India or Africa that don't have internet. And they could use these wristbands or lanyards to connect with one another. So we created this technology, we manufactured our first product, we then submitted it to South by Southwest. They have a program run by Techstars, and we were chosen as their smart data startup for 2015. So we decided this is a great place to launch. So we head out there, uh, for about 3 months we planned our go-to-market. We wanted to make sure that we had a really big launch Rather than doing an email that blasted out to a big list or cold calling people, we wanted to make sure that they could really form a connection with us and then in person have an experience where they see how the product works. So we asked South by Southwest if we could partner with them to do a big scavenger hunt. And once again, they said, no, you can't do that. So we went behind their back. And they said, if you kind of like don't tell us, you know, basically and ask for forgiveness afterwards, that's fine. So we reached out to all the partners at South by Southwest Interactive. Which is their technology part of the conference. And we told all of them, we want to basically drive traffic to your company, but at the same exact time, we want the ability to give your product out to our winners. So we had these different mats we placed in 20 different locations that were secret throughout the Austin Convention Center. And as people came up to our booth, what we did was we actually switched away at first from the wristband to a necklace. And we'd give them a necklace, they'd log in with the mobile application and say, Check, use what to stop one. It would then give them a clue of how to get to stop two. And when they got there, using this Bluetooth necklace, when they stood on top of the mat, automatically checked them in. And we said the first thirty people to finish this challenge would get prizes from Misfit, ShipStation, a lot of the tech companies that were first launching their products out there. And from there, we closed a few of our big clients. And that was huge for us because. I've done a lot of mini launches within Loopt where we did all the right stuff. We used all the right software. We created email automation, let's say, outreach for our sales team. We'd use this Connect and Sell technology to basically get 24 hours of calling within a few minutes. And at the end of the day, it's all about the value of that in-person interaction. And it goes back to taking that physical and putting it digitally online. So we ended up partnering. Box was our very first client. This was probably not the smartest move. As a company, you want to start small, be focused, and then scale up. So Box comes to us and they say, you know what, we have our annual user conference. It's all developers. They're going to have the ability to hack your system, so it's got to be very secure. 6 months before that, Box was actually hacked. So they were really concerned that this new kind of Bluetooth technology is a new vulnerability that could be brought in. However, even though it was 2,500 people and they had Tim Ferriss and Marc Benioff as their keynote speakers, we said, okay, let's do this event. If it goes really well, from there we'll get other customers. So this is actually a picture from— well, yeah, not this event, a different one, Zero. We did something similar for Box where on this image every single person was wearing a necklace. And at first the necklace was a smart business card. So it had a button on it, and when you press the button within 3 inches of someone else's, it would exchange information. A light would turn green. On your phone, it would then say, hey, you met Brian. You met in this location. Here are interests you have in common. Here's his social media feed. You can start chatting with one another. And the idea was that you could connect at the event, and afterwards when you have downtime, you can then look through all that contextual information and figure out, here are the right people I want to talk to, and here's what I want to share with them. So on this graph for the organizer, So the little red dots, we actually created an engagement score called the Via Score for each individual. And the Via Score added up by if you had more connections, if you went to more sessions, if you stayed longer visiting different companies, it would become more red. So they could see where their engagement is. So you can see on this, for example, the attendees that are less engaged are on the right-hand side, which is the exhibit floor. Where those who are most influential and engaged, well, if they're chatting, walking over to the main stage theater, And then there's some who already got to the stage theater who were influential. We also have these dots on the right-hand side, which ties back to our initial vision, where as people messaged on our mobile app, we would know physically where that location was sent from and to. So we started creating these lines showing, hey, where people are interacting. So we could see, okay, were people texting each other or messaging in the same room? Were they telling their friends from the theater to the exhibit hall, hey, The speaker session's about to start. Come on over. So this was really our first product. And from there, we were able to sign other really big customers like Intel, Adobe, Cisco. And for us, it was one of those things where our target at first wasn't enterprise clients. Our target was actually more SMB and mid-market and smaller events. However, where we found our product-market fit was these large enterprises. And what we realized was these large enterprises had hundreds of events. So essentially, if it went well with a few of their events, they could then help us scale out. It also meant that once you did it for these big enterprises, a lot of times they wanted to test you for the flagship event. So opposite of the startup world, where you basically start small and scale up, a lot of these enterprise companies said, okay, if you can do the biggest event, like Salesforce, for example, they said, okay, if you can do Dreamforce, we'll give you all of our other events. Where I was saying, well, I'll do your 100-person event, then 500, then 1,000, then we'll do your 100,000. So it really stressed us. However, it got us to the right position.
