This year has been challenging and rewarding for Denver’s Soona, as the company brought on a crucial round of funding in February, navigated Covid-19 related closures and expanded into a new city.
The content creation startup, led by Liz Giorgi and Hayley Anderson, closed an oversubscribed $3.5 million seed 2 funding round to kick off the year, as it eyed an Austin expansion.
Then Covid-19 hit, and the company was forced to shut down its in-person experience, putting increased importance on the company’s digital content solutions. Despite the challenges caused by the global pandemic, soona persevered and recently opened its Austin location.
Giorgi recently chatted with Colorado Inno to talk Soona, winner of Inno on Fire's Early Stage category.
This Q&A was edited for style, clarity and brevity.
Soona entered the year with funding at its back and expansion on the horizon, then Covid-19 hit. How were you able to quickly pivot to move the business forward? The soona leadership team wasted no time re-envisioning our business plan for 2020 when our stores were closed due to government order in March. We really asked ourselves a key question: What is the core of our business model? And we determined that transparency and access to content was the beating heart of what we were pioneering as a business. We simply needed to refocus on "how" to provide that access to our customers. Within four weeks, we had reshifted our entire product team, tech team and marketing team to be able to deliver our on-demand virtual shoot model we are using to service our customers today.
What’s the No. 1 lesson you’ve learned during Covid-19? Businesses are ultimately groups of smart people working together to solve problems for other people. It's one of the things I love most about running a business. Covid has been the Olympics of leadership for our team, and I think you really find out the strength of your leadership relationships in moments like this.
What's the top advice you have for startups or growth companies trying to find their footing today? The most important thing a startup can do in a tough moment is really step back and ask: What is the No. 1 most important value we provide to our customer? Hone in on that value and consider all the ways you can deliver it which you may not have considered before. You may be surprised just how malleable your true value is once you look at it through a new lens.
Tell us about a bright spot during the pandemic. It's been a wildly satisfying experience to lead our team through a moment of reinvention. Because of their hard work, we have been able to support all the ecommerce businesses which have started during this pandemic. Each of them has been in a better position to succeed and create economic possibility for themselves because of the professional content they created remotely with soona.
What does the future hold for soona? Our vision is clear: stick to supporting brands around the world with on-demand virtual shoots that can support their creative needs. We will continue to invest in our tech and our team for the coming months to expand on this new reality.
Soona
Location: Denver
Top execs: Liz Giorgi, co-founder and CEO; Hayley Anderson, co-founder and chief creative officer
Category: Early Stage
