SA New Tech @ AIM Health R&D Summit

Challenge:
The annual AIM event featured four startups from around the world in the BexarBio Pitch Competition. BexarBio is a major cash prize pitch competition in South Texas, awarding over $100,000 to promising local startups. The competition was hosted by the Alamo Angels and sponsored by Bexar County Economic & Community Development. Additionally, the AIM conference showcased over 100 startups in Startup Alley, presenting their capabilities and innovations to more than 900 attendees. These startups, having crossed or being in the process of crossing the "valley of death," were gaining significant traction and entering the mainstream market (early majority, late majority). Last year’s AIM conference attracted over 300 attendees, but this year’s promoters aimed to generate even more visibility and buzz for the event. They sought unconventional PR partners to create additional public attention through guerrilla marketing strategies. They also needed to enhance visibility for the startups in Startup Alley to facilitate their transition into the broader San Antonio business and technology community.

Solution:
The AIM Health R&D Summit brings together academia, industry, and the military to advance life-saving battlefield technologies through three key events: Military Medical Industry Day, the BexarBio Pitch Competition, and the San Antonio Military Health and Universities Research Forum. Coffee Consulting Group was engaged to promote the exclusive relaunch of San Antonio New Tech at the Summit, aiming to raise its profile among industry attendees, a historically underrepresented segment.

To address this, we employed innovative, low-cost methods across multiple social media channels and designed a unique public conference through SA New Tech. This approach provided startups with enhanced visibility within the San Antonio business and technology community, enabling them to develop potential customers and test their market entry plans. The event offered a valuable platform for startups to showcase their capabilities to a broader marketplace, bridging the gap between early-stage development and mainstream commercial success by connecting them with industry leaders and potential investors.

Result:
The AIM Health R&D Summit successfully attracted a diverse audience, including startups, SMBs, industry leaders, and technology enthusiasts. Over the course of 60 days leading up to the conference, we revitalized the SA New Tech business model and established a 4-member Leadership Council, which included roles such as Event Organizer, Pre-Emcee/Conference Moderator, Co-Organizer/Event Emcee, and Sign-In/Vendor Crawl Table Host.

We recruited five startups and scale-ups, featuring a range of innovative solutions: an AI platform for claims denial to revenue automation, a cybersecurity and penetration testing service, a crowdsourced employer rating platform for nurses, and a platform using video analytics, AI/ML, and computer vision to enhance gym member retention.

We also successfully secured approval from the AIM organizers for the event business case. Utilizing guerrilla marketing strategies, we created buzz and public interest through viral content shared across multiple social media platforms. 

The promotional efforts from our team contributed to the AIM organizers achieving a remarkable 300% year-over-year growth, highlighting the success of the SA New Tech relaunch and its positive impact on the AIM Health R&D Summit.

Our unique public interaction event at AIM, which featured five innovative startups, exceeded expectations with nearly 70 RSVPs. The event provided these startups with additional social media exposure and facilitated valuable connections in Startup Alley with investors and commercial partners.

Over the course of roughly a two-week sprint, the LinkedIn content for our campaign achieved an above average engagement rate and a significant impression per follower rate of 20.93%, which is 243% higher than the industry average of 8.63%. With 11,512 total impressions.  

This success solidified SA New Tech’s position as a forum for fostering innovation and collaboration within San Antonio's tech ecosystem.