What already figured to be a whirlwind week at South By Southwest Interactive got a little bit busier for AgLocal just days before SXSW, when the Overland Park, Kan.-based startup was invited to participate in A Celebration of American Startups,
Not that the team from AgLocal, a marketplace that connects independent farmers and producers to local businesses and consumers, was complaining about its packed schedule.
“We went bananas,” AgLocal CEO Naithan Jones said in a phone interview Wednesday of his team’s response to the invitation. “We went berserk.” (Left: Naithan Jones (right) and co-founder Jacob McDaniel work at the NewME Accelerator.)
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AgLocal was one of four startups invited to give a one-minute pitch (see video below) at the Friday evening event. The experience should serve as a good warmup for this afternoon, when AgLocal will compete in the innovative web technologies category in the SXSW Accelerator.
On Friday, Jones shared the stage of the Austin City Limits Moody Theatre with the likes of Reid Hoffman, Steve Case and Steve Blank.
“That’s huge,” Jones said of the opportunity. “If you ever want to get your message out about your startup to be a finalist in accelerator and to be opening up Interactive with Steve Blank and Reid Hoffman … I mean, come on. That’s fantastic.”
It’s not the only high-profile company AgLocal has been keeping lately. As we reported last month, AgLocal is participating in NewME, a San Francisco-based residential technology startup accelerator and incubator for businesses that are led by minorities under-represented in the technology industry. While building its product, the AgLocal team has enjoyed the chance to tap NewME’s network of mentors and advisors — chewing the fat with Ben Horowitz, picking Sean Percival’s brain.
“I think with AgLocal we’ve got a clear vision of where we want to be and where we want to go, but we’ve had to hone down on what should be executed now, what should be built right now,” Jones said. “And I think our first customers — who will be our first customers in the next couple of weeks — have really given us that guidance on what they need and we’ve been able to focus our product roadmap around that.”
For more on AgLocal, see Jones’ pitch from Friday’s event below.
Credits: Photo of Jones and McDaniel courtesy of McDaniel. Video from AgLocal on YouTube.
