Kyle
Over the last decade the 24 hour news cycle has quickly sped up to less than 15 minutes. Heck in the age of blogging, and specifically tech blogging, 15 minutes can be a luxury. That makes it extremely hard, or time consuming, to go out and vet expert sources. Most journalists, myself included, have a stable of 10-20 sources we can call on, on a regular basis, to vet out stories, but when a topic goes beyond our inner circle of sources journalists need experts.
This is a major problem in the online news and blogsphere. It’s the problem that Calgary startup TypeWhale aims to fix.
TypeWhale is a community where academic experts from top universities and journalists can collaborate on media queries. In the beta phase, TypeWhale is focusing on the education sector, as a “natural pool” of credible expert sources. Universities are identifying their expert sources and connecting them directly to the media via TypeWhale.
“TypeWhale is not about who has paid a PR rep to pitch their story, it’s about who is the most qualified to answer the media queries,” explains co-founder, Kylie Lakevold. “TypeWhale came from a passion for getting expert voices heard. This is what encouraged us to build a community where journalists and experts can collaborate live on the web.”
TypeWhale aims to take the media manipulators out of the equation. Lakevold came up with the idea when she came across a service that many journalists use where they can put a question out there and any “expert” can comment for a piece. The problem is that popular system has no way of vetting the “expert source”. You could get a response from someone who has no idea what they’re talking about. Or even worse, a PR hack on a mission to drive just one client.
We got a chance to interview the TypeWhale expert, Lakevold, directly. Check out the interview below.
What is TypeWhale?
TypeWhale is an online community that connects expert sources from the academic community with respected journalists.
In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)
Journalists post a public or private media query and our experts respond using text, audio or video responses. We built a community of people who have expertise in certain subjects and areas. Our “experts” come from the academic world and comprise of professors with advanced knowledge in various fields. Reporters, media outlets, and the journalism community as a whole need quick and timely access to reliable, expert analysis on the countless stories they are writing or covering.
We make it easy for these two worlds to connect and collaborate.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Kylie Lakevold is co-founder and CEO and has been working with startups for about 10 years. Kylie is the founder of her design/marketing firm, Foxied, and this is the second startup that she has co-founded.
Joseph “JP” Pineda, co-founder and CSO, is a 2-time entrepreneur who loves building companies that focus on community-building
Where are you based?
Calgary, AB Canada
What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?
It’s incredibly exciting to be a part of the Calgary startup ecosphere. We are humbled by the massive support we have received. If you have a great idea and you truly believe in it, the Calgary startup community is extremely supportive. The resources are here and the networking possibilities are endless.
How did you come up with the idea for TypeWhale?
I was talking to JP who has a strong background in PR about different strategies for getting one of my clients some media coverage and he told me about this other service. Journalists submit a media query about a specific topic and then you answer the question and if they like your response they will publish it. All of this is handled through email.
Sounded like an interesting service but then I started wondering. If anyone can register for this service so how do they know who the real experts are? If I answer a media query, how do they know that the information is correct? In a deadline driven industry, are journalists doing background checks on their sources?
Seemed like there were a lot of problems with this existing service so we began building the TypeWhale community.
How did you come up with the name?
The name TypeWhale is something we came up with to describe the users in the community we are building. The word TYPE represents the journalists and writers in our community and Whale represents the large pool of experts.
What problem does TypeWhale solve?
Journalists work in a deadline driven industry and sometimes fact checking and doing background checks on sources takes a backseat to meeting these deadlines. We don’t believe that journalists want to be inaccurate or use low quality sources; they just don’t have the right tools to get accurate information quickly from qualified experts.
We saw university professors as a natural pool of credible sources and partnered with Universities to identify who their top experts are. Media coverage and PR for universities helps to increase enrolment rates, raises the profile of university research, improves the school’s reputation and benefits the school’s fundraising efforts. It’s a win-win for both of our user types.
What’s your secret sauce?
Our secret sauce is a relentless passion for getting expert voices heard in the media. One of my favorite quotes is by Ellen Goodman, “ In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.” TypeWhale is easing that tension by making it easy for journalists to report it first and get it right by giving them a community where academic expert sources answer journalists media queries.
Are you bootstrapped or funded?
We are happily bootstrapping, Both of us run successful design and marketing firms and we use that revenue stream to fund TypeWhale.
What is your goto market strategy?
We’d prefer not to go into too much detail on our strategy—though we can say that we truly believe in our professors and experts and that building a robust community of respected sources will be what sets us a part. We are working hard to identify and engage these partners and we are very focused on growing our user base. As we continue to build this community we are simultaneously allowing early users in. Based on their feedback we are refining the platform and constantly making improvements to it.
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
One? Everyday we are overcoming new challenges and in these challenges we are always discovering new opportunities.
Who are some of your mentors and business role models?
We have a large network of startup veterans who have been generous with networking opportunities and feedback. We love the ideas of Eric Ries and the Lean Startup philosophy. We believe in being agile and constantly reiterating. We oftentimes see friends and colleagues waste valuable time and resources building out assumptions and waiting till their product is “perfect” before shipping.
What’s next for TypeWhale?
We are working on ways to identify other types of experts. We are also looking at integrating audio/video chat as we plan to expand into television and radio journalism.
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