Suzi Dafnis (of the Australian Businesswomen’s Network) alongside Cat Matson (Chief Digital Officer, City of Brisbane) share highlights from Day 4 at SXSW Interactive. What Suzi loves about attending SXSW Interactive is the opportunity to meet amazing people from any industry or discipline. Suzi was lucky to hear Seinfeld star Julia Louise-Dreyfus present. Julia was funny, poignant, and accommodating as she was happy to answer lots of questions. When asked how Julia balances working with motherhood, she was humble and replied that she wasn’t sure if she did. Julia suggested that it’s important to let go of the fact that you’re going to be excellent at what you do, and just do the best that you can and trust that everything will be fine in the end. Cat got to hear what Silicon Valley entrepreneur Eric Ries, author of the The Lean Start Up, has learned since the release of his bestselling book. Eric shared the two fundamental ideas to have in mind as an entrepreneur: MVP (minimum viable product) and pivoting. With MVP, it’s important to not be boggled down by perfectionist tendencies and to just put out what you can in order to get feedback and then make corrections. Just getting something done and being able to fix it later is something that entrepreneurs should have in mind. Jonah Peretti, founder of Buzzfeed, presented his behind-the-scenes strategies for success. Buzzfeed is underpinned by smart technology that tries to transition content from simply being just information to communication, which explains Buzzfeed’s strong success rate in being shared. Their major focus was on getting people to share their content. Cat shared her biggest takeaway from the day by imparting that it is essential to just take action and not wait for perfection.
“Stop waiting for the perfect set of circumstances, just move, just try something, do something, take action, you can always retract or change it.”
