Start-ups: Premature Escalation (Don’t Get Too Excited)

For those of you developing a new media platform, I want you to ask yourself the following question every day: if the New York Times called today and wanted to write a story about us, would we do it?

Why should you be asking yourself this question? Because too much exposure at the wrong time and in the wrong phase can be detrimental to your long-term success.

No matter how cool you think it would be to get highlighted in the New York Times, you must think about what happens as the direct result of this kind of mass media exposure.

Premature escalation

The Escalation phase is the most exciting phase for any start-up. But are you ready for it?

If you’re familiar with our New Media Life Cycle, you’ll know that most new media channels dream about making it big. They strive for the day their platform transforms from a relatively unkown channel with a small but loyal fan base to an overnight sensation with millions of new users. On that day their dreams of becoming the ‘next big thing’ are finally realized. However, how much effort have they put into knowing when is the right time to escalate?

Attempting to escalate too early can result in a series of potentially channel-killing issues:

1. The content quality on the channel is not high enough — when the media exposure attracts an influx of new users, they don’t find enough of the stuff that encourages them to stick around.
2. The existing community members (your early adopters) are not loyal enough to stick around — when mass media exposure floods your fledgling community with visitors who ‘don’t get it,’ it can really piss off your initial user base. At least initially, the sudden influx of the uninitiated will denigrate the overall quality of the content.
3. Even if you are ready for numbers one and two above, your biggest issue might be that a huge percentage of the new users who are attracted by the media attention will hit the “what now” wall really quickly. The chance that these users will ever come back is slim to none. These are the people who will walk around telling others how lame your channel is.
4. If you’re actually hoping to make money, it’s advisable to have your monetization model ready, tested, and hopefully deployed before escalation. Why? Well, if you do find yourself shooting into escalation this is your chance to make a lot of money “overnight.” Too many start-ups hope for the huge numbers and imagine the revenue will follow. This can’t last. I’ve seen too many start-ups fall apart after they rush through escalation. Their costs sky-rocket and their channel’s quality plummets. If you want to maintain channel quality, make money, and attract only the most loyal user base, have your monetization concepts ready to deploy.

If you’re looking for long-term channel success, you need to make sure that you’re absolutely ready for the kind of exposure that can launch you into escalation. Premature escalation caused by exposure that’s too high and too early can kill your long-term success.

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Incubator Insights aim to show the ways in which valuable content pushes a new channel, medium, or platform through the Life Cycle stages.

About the author

Andrew Davis -

In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.

Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.

When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.

He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.

"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."