Alumni shares story of going global with authentic content platform
Damien Mahoney shares his story overcoming challenges, the pandemic and then taking Stackla global and through to acquisition at I2N's Startup Stories.
Engaging content can be time consuming and expensive to create. Damien and his co-founder started Stackla in an attempt to help B2C companies connect with their customers quickly and easily on their platform.
At I2N's Startup Stories on Wednesday 18 August, Damien shared his story of founding Stackla, an AI-powered enterprise platform that allows B2C companies to tap into a rich seam of authentic dynamic user-generated content to use throughout their own digital marketing channels.
Stackla was founded in 2012 and has since grown to 65 employees, 300+ customers and a global footprint with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, San Francisco, Austin, New York and London. Stackla announced their acquisition by Finnish firm Nosto only weeks ago.
Catch up on Startup Stories with Damien Mahoney
Top takeaways
- Damien describes his lucky break as landing a role with the AFL in the late nineties as the lead on their first website. This gave Damien opportunity to experience the digital transformation first hand.
- It was years later that Damien and his co-founder, Peter Cassidy, founded Stackla as a social media aggregator and quickly onboarded early adopters SBS and then NRL, AFL and Netball Australia to validate and iterate on the MVP. I2N Validator is a great opportunity to learn practical customer discovery frameworks and validate your own MVP.
- When scaling it's important to onboard many customers and quickly, but equally important is being sure you can meet your cost commitments while making new hires.
- Damien explains that when developing or hiring specialised talent into the business, the leader must understand that these people are better at this task than they are are,and the importance of giving them the reigns to let them do the work.
The University of Newcastle's I2N works with individuals and organisations from across the Hunter region and beyond to turn ideas and challenges into opportunity. As a leading driver of economic and business growth, the I2N cultivates an entrepreneurial mindset that is behind many of the region's most innovative businesses and leaders.
Keep up to date with future I2N events, programs and opportunities by subscribing to I2N's monthly newsletter or visit www.newcastle.edu.au/i2n
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