Kristin Myers: Welcome back to Startup to Stock Exchange. Now, a few weeks back, we sat down with Joe Benarroch, head of media partnerships, content and distribution for the New York Stock Exchange. But a lot has happened, so he is back. Joe, good to see you again. Thank you so much for coming back.
Joe Benarroch: Wonderful. Thank you.
Kristin Myers: We always love having you. So last time we chatted, you promised founders essentially a masterclass on making their stories land. Before we talk about that, I’m curious to know what has been keeping the stock exchange busy.
Joe Benarroch: Well, thank you. And I actually am excited to kind of give some points of view, or at least some helpful tips, on ways in which we can work with the startup community. But it’s been an incredibly active week, you know, on the listed side, with incredible companies coming to the stock exchange, and the exchange itself. So the community is growing.
But more so from a media standpoint, which has been really wonderful, and we talked a little bit about this last time, we talked about the fact that our partnerships run so deep and so wide, intentionally so, so organizations both on the listed side, but also those tens of thousands of private companies, have as many options as possible. As part of that, in addition to giving them platforms like this, you know, Startup to Stock Exchange and our partnership with you, we’re also on the road.
And so, for example, right now, you know, there’s a team out at TechCrunch, out in San Francisco, because TechCrunch Disrupt brings together large organizations, smaller organizations, founders just thinking about starting a company, and the investor community. And the New York Stock Exchange, in particular, was one of their key partners. And while we’re on the ground, we create an opportunity for them to tell their story in a different way, either, you know, as they’re talking on stage, or off stage.
We’re getting ready to go to Bloomberg Invest in Texas. And, you know, we’re just days away from Money20/20, which we also do, in large part, in partnership with FINTECH.TV. So what you’re seeing is that in addition to being here at 11 Wall and making sure that there are a lot of opportunities, we take 11 Wall and we move it into the marketplace.
Kristin Myers: So I’m glad you mentioned partnerships, because I want to ask you to talk a little bit more about the partnership in particular. You hinted at it just now: Money20/20, New York Stock Exchange, and FINTECH.TV. What’s really at the core of that partnership?
Joe Benarroch: So if you go back, you know, say two years ago, when Vince, myself, Pete, Ashe on our team, Troy, we all sat down and we started talking about the evolving landscape. And we started talking about FINTECH.TV and its evolving platforms and the partnerships that it’s operating with, and NYSE and all the platforms that it operates on. You know, our social platforms have nearly 4 million followers across a variety of different platforms. And FINTECH.TV’s platforms are growing. You’re internationalizing.
We started thinking about what it would look like to engage other organizations, and specifically Money20/20, because they’re a core partner. And if you look at Money20/20 just as a property in and of itself, it brings together the fintech community. And I don’t have to, you know, explain that to you. But those are both, you know, large listed organizations that are a part of NYSE, very established companies. Those are also the founders and the companies that are building the foundation of the financial infrastructure, essentially how everything is going to operate next. And so that’s, you know, a place where the fintech community and capital markets really converge.
And what we set out to do was figure out, well, what would it look like to create a partnership between NYSE, FINTECH.TV, Money20/20, a broadcast distribution partner like Cheddar, even a platform partner like Stocktwits, and establish ourselves all together to essentially create an entirely new content series called Taking Stock. Now, Taking Stock has a history with the New York Stock Exchange. But at Money20/20 in Europe in 2025 is when we launched it. And between NYSE and FINTECH.TV, we’re the core partners on that programming, thinking through all the different assets. And then now with Startup to Stock Exchange, it’s becoming this whole integrated model.
And so for us, when we show up, we show up as a different partner that, you know, allows Money20/20 to take all of its core announcements that need to reach the startup community, right? And we give it amplification. The whole idea is to amplify the narratives that need to be told into the marketplace. So when we show up together, what we’re doing is putting a megaphone on the companies that are showing up there. For example, we brought Visa together with a private company called Zilch, a payments platform, and we put them on stage, and then we amplified, you know, the conversation around there. So for us, building those bridges, we’re trying to fill in a gap and make sure that there are enough options. So when those companies are there on the ground, they know they can turn to us.
Kristin Myers: In particular, say a little bit more about why startups. And you kind of talked about this just a little bit the last time that you and I chatted. But everyone knows the stock exchange is the place for capital markets and companies that are public, right? So why startups? Why is talking to these folks, who might be years away from even [unclear: “reading”], years and years away, actually an okay thing?
Joe Benarroch: I think that, you know, the path to a capital raise looks very different, just like the media ecosystem looks very different. And so for the startup community, you know, while we have 2,500 companies that are listed at the New York Stock Exchange, with over $70 trillion market cap in aggregate, there are tens of thousands of private companies. And a lot of them are also in very mature stages. And equally, there are some that are just starting.
But the one thing that you consistently know to be true is that they hit different milestones that the publicly traded companies will also want to know about, because some of these companies are also disrupting their marketplaces and disrupting those industries, right? They’re creating new industries, so partnerships could be formed. Those companies just need a platform, because that’s the modern economy completely in motion.
And so when you ask about why NYSE, typically what we know to be true is that when things are happening, what typically happens next happens on this floor. I mean, every company, or every innovation that has passed through, I would say, the zeitgeist, the fabric of our country, has placed itself at the New York Stock Exchange in some capacity. We’ve ridden every wave of technological innovation. So with the startup community, you have to stay very close to it.
The other side of what you had said was, yes, it could be a different path. It could be five, six, seven, eight years. And that was the most incredible thing that I personally learned, just how committed our capital markets team was to working with those companies at every single stage. And one of those stages is specifically around telling their narrative, right? And so therefore, for us, when that team taps into our group in particular, we want to be able to hand them another opportunity to tell their story. It’s important for the economy to understand that.
Kristin Myers: I want to dive into that a little bit, because you’re almost the expert on what a founder needs to really be able to tell their story. So let’s first start with what a founder really actually has to have, or what they actually have to bring, to get on this sort of platform to tell their story.
Joe Benarroch: It’s a great question, and I appreciate the kind words on “expert.” I’ve just had the ability, personally, from a professional standpoint, to work with incredible individuals who have given me wonderful perspective on narrative building. And I say that, you know, having been part of NBCUniversal and X and Facebook in its early days. It’s been an incredible opportunity to see how those narratives get built into the marketplace.
And so you asked very specifically what a founder might want to consider. The first thing is that they have to start early. I have sat in rooms with many founders and entrepreneurs, and I think there’s this hesitancy to get started. And I always just say, you know, you kind of just gotta start by starting. And you don’t have to have a fully baked communication plan or a fully baked media plan to get started. What you have to do is you have to know your story, and you have to figure out a couple of places to tell that story. And at this point in time, every single platform is available to every founder. And equally now, between our partnerships, there are increasingly other opportunities for them to tell that story. So that’s number one. I would say start early.
I think the second thing is, a lot of founders that I speak to think that they have to repurpose the story or [unclear: “mean set”] a different way. They have to consistently tell a different story every time they’re talking to someone. And I would say the other side of that conversation is: know your story and polish that stone. Keep repeating it. Keep telling it. What you’ll do is you’ll inevitably add on to it, and you’ll understand it more. But I think the consistency is key. So start early, consistency, keep telling that story.
The third thing, I would say, is that for a founder, your milestones matter. And your milestones are the chapters that you’re building for your particular company, your vision in the marketplace, the things that you’re trying to do to start your company, build your company. And it could be any milestone. Funding is one thing that I think entrepreneurs or startups typically gear towards as an opportunity to make news. They think that that’s kind of the anchor. But what I would say is, look at your product developments. Think about the ways in which you’re partnering. Talk about your culture. Talk about how you’re building. If you’re, you know, a tech-based organization, talk about the ways in which your engineers are building. Talk about the internal structure of your company. Talk about the operational backbone and how you’re building that as you’re growing your organization.
Talk about the ways in which you’re working with other groups within your particular ecosystem, or just have a very specific point of view on how you’re either creating a new industry or disrupting one. So if you plot all of that out, you notice, I mean, I probably went through eight or nine different narratives. Those all can be different points of opportunity for you to reengage. So if you start early, you have consistency, and you start breaking down your narratives, well, then you’re coming back to an individual like you, Kristin. And all of a sudden, what you’re doing is carrying them through that journey.
Now, every single thing that they put in front of an expert journalist like yourself might not necessarily be newsworthy. And this is what I always say as well: it doesn’t always have to be newsworthy. Keeping the media ecosystem apprised of your progress is equally as important as it is to go on air, or to get in a publication, or to have a story. Connecting the dots is a very critical thing, because what you don’t want to do as a founder is tell a story on one day, and then have a reengagement a year later, and then disappear, right? No, keep the engagement. You know, be as enterprising as any journalist, and keep explaining things. Let them understand it.
And I think there’s always that misconception. I would always work with leaders in different ways, and I would say, we’ll put out a whole bunch of different news. Doesn’t necessarily mean that a story is going to develop from there, right? The awareness is sometimes the biggest key. So starting early, consistency, milestones, and then just keep in connection. Build the relationships. The relationships are probably the most critical part of it.
Kristin Myers: I want to keep the masterclass going, because I’m loving it. So we have all of those different points. I think a founder could probably follow them, but there are still some stories that are going to land better than others.
Joe Benarroch: Yeah.
Kristin Myers: What do you think makes a story stick compared to a different story?
Joe Benarroch: Well, the ones that typically always feel extraordinarily relevant, that people typically tend to lean into, are, number one, the personal growth stories. They tend to lean into that personal aha moment. If you look at organizations like Hinge Health, who, you know, told that story from a very personal perspective, on how they started and why they wanted to start the company. Even if you look back at, you know, founders like Mark Zuckerberg, as he tells the founding story of Facebook. The founder story is always going to be really critical.
And sometimes it just starts with a very interesting aha moment. Why did you conceive of this notion? Where was the void in the marketplace? What did you see as being that guide? And how did you, you know, basically put hands to keyboards and start coding it? So that founder story is always going to be attractive.
The other big, really great narrative is the industry disruption. When you’re coming into a marketplace and you’re saying, okay, here’s a very particular way that some part of an ecosystem, whether it’s transportation or education or health care or fintech... If you’re going to disrupt some of those industries and you’re going to say, not this, but that, okay, people are going to take a listen to it, because they want to understand it, specifically if you have a growing audience, if you see that trend. And I think, you know, that’s a massive part of it.
So first, founder stories are always going to do really well. The second one, disruption, or the recreation. I would say, first off, the disruption is really fascinating. If you’re creating an entirely new industry, for me, that’s... you believe in your core. That’s really, really interesting. That’s really fascinating. Sometimes that’s really challenging, because sometimes it takes some time to wrap people’s heads around an entirely new industry. So I would say, you know, definitely you’ve got to be persistent on that part.
The other way, I think, personally, is the ways in which engineers are, you know, the different path to the build. I think that tells a really incredible story, because of all the different things that are happening in the marketplace, and the fact that some individuals can build a company in 24 hours one day and have it scale to millions of people, right? I think the build-out and the scale component make for an incredible story, especially if you can show the receipts.
So I think those four narratives... There are others, right? You know, because then you have the human interest side of it. If you have people that are leveraging your platforms in different ways, and you have really great case studies, you know, those are always going to do really well. But starting there is, I think, the first layer.
Kristin Myers: I think that goes back to something that you were saying, which is figure out your narrative.
Joe Benarroch: Sure.
Kristin Myers: Essentially, tell it, because once you can figure out what your story is, then you can figure out why other people want to care about it and why it might stick. I want to ask you what mistakes you see a lot of folks making, a lot of founders.
Joe Benarroch: I don’t necessarily know if they’re mistakes as much as there’s a dual path. Or I would say it’s almost like three roads at once. When you have your founder story, your founder story is very personal. And as you’re building your company, you tend to think that you’re the only one that can tell it. And so what I think any founder might want to do, especially if they have a group of individuals, they can have a five-person company, a 20-person company, a 1,000-person company, and so on and so forth, I think you want to make sure that from the start, as a startup, everybody within your company can tell the story of that company: why it was founded, the specific vision, the culture of that company, the partners of that company. They understand the details. They’re not just a subject matter expert in one component. The founder, yes, but then everybody can tell that story.
And I find that to happen a lot, because then what happens is that a founder becomes the face. And then there’s always that point where they’re like, oh, I’m now the only one who’s telling this story. I’m the only one who’s out there. And so therefore you want to make sure that you have a bench, a bench of storytellers. You want to make sure that you really have a lot of people that can do that.
I think the other side of it is: bring your partners along for the ride. Advocacy. When you’re building a company, you’re not doing it alone. Most oftentimes, you have an ecosystem around you, and those advocates can tell your story better than you. Bring them along for the ride. Encourage them to be part of opportunities to tell the story alongside of you. Bring them to different moments. Equally, give them a stage, because then what happens is that you have this ecosystem of advocates out there, basically telling your story, sometimes better than you can. And what happens is you get a lot of third-party endorsements.
And then I think the third part is: don’t forget to talk about the way in which you’re building. I know I said it earlier. I’m telling you, people want to know. We all loved seeing the videos of how the crayons get made, right? People like to see the behind the scenes. Give it to them. Show them. Give them, you know, your engineering prowess. You’re not giving away... A lot of times there’s this pride in, like, I’m going to show my playbook too much, right? Open up your playbook, right?
Kristin Myers: Right. Do it like Elon Musk. Let it be open-sourced. Everyone worries they’re going to be giving away company secrets.
Joe Benarroch: You won’t. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, look at Elon Musk. He put everything open-sourced, and I think that invites a very healthy ecosystem. I think that actually helps with other entrepreneurs wanting to build onto those platforms. And so therefore, now, show people. Be transparent. The transparency can permeate not only into your culture as a company, but it can become part of your entire partnership mentality as you’re exploring different ways in which you’re operating with people. So open it up.
Kristin Myers: I absolutely love that. I want to know, just to wrap this up, what can viewers expect next? What’s going to be coming down the pike from the New York Stock Exchange, and from [unclear: “center”] for your partners?
Joe Benarroch: That’s wonderful. Thank you, and thank you again. So, you know, we’re moving really fast in Q4. As I had mentioned, we’re wrapping up TechCrunch Disrupt. We’re at Bloomberg Invest out in Texas. We have Money20/20 coming up. And then the entire organization itself, you know, in addition to the things that we have at 11 Wall, with, you know, our tree lighting and those incredible moments, the menorah lighting, we also have Partnership Day coming up in February.
And Partnership Day for us is really critical. It’s our third Partnership Day. And what that means is we’re essentially going to outline all the new ways that you can work with the exchange. And the audience that comes to Partnership Day is the media, media tech, the ad tech ecosystem, agencies, content creators. We actually just had our Creator Summit last week, put on by two new individuals within the NYSE, Adele and Taylor. We always convene organizations. Partnership Day on February 10th is a very big moment, because what it does is it establishes our roadmap for the year ahead, and it tells every single media partner how they can work with us. And so, you know, we’ll definitely be showcasing Startup to Stock Exchange.
Kristin Myers: And I’ve gone to Partnership Day before. It was fun, and I loved seeing all the folks that were there in one room. So I’m definitely going to be looking forward to it. Like I said, [unclear: “the floor”] is too far away.
Joe Benarroch: I know. I’m excited for it. I say the person sitting next to you, right or left, or even in front or back, could be an individual that you should walk away working with. Because for us, partnership is a multiplier. And so while you’re working with the New York Stock Exchange, yes, we want you to partner with us. But you should be partnering with the individuals in that room, because then it exponentially helps impact your company or impact something in the market. So that’s a good thing. So for us, we do it not only to make sure that we’re building different avenues and different options, but we’re saying, no, you now can all work together, and hopefully you’re meeting somebody there that can be, you know, a new developer with you.
Kristin Myers: All right. Joe Benarroch of the New York Stock Exchange, thank you so much for coming back and joining us. We always love having you.
Joe Benarroch: Thank you. Look forward to chatting with you again. Have a great day.
