How I messed up at Web Summit and still got featured in TechCrunch
The WhatsApp arrived:
“Dude I just landed, where are you?”
Luke (my co-founder) and I had just landed in Dublin ready to kick*ss at Web Summit. Two young entrepreneurs with no startup swag, no business cards, and no strategy for the conference.
We literally only had a 3D printed wristband, some sensors, a badly designed app that did a few cool things.
Wow that was hard, yet we were able to get traction. We piloted with a one of the most remote populations on earth, going through Unicef Innovation accelerator, and getting large firms signed up to pay for our product in just a few months from ideation.
To say the least we had extreme jet lag and were exhausted.
I tried to ease our nerves, as we were already getting annoyed with each other. So we bought the first ticket we could directly to Cliffs of Moher.
As soon as we sat down on the bus, I immediately felt stressed. Hundreds of questions ran through my mind, how dumb was it to do this? We should be spending all night writing lines of code, making swag shirts, cards, beer cozies all with our name on it.
After landing in Galway, we were greeted by the beautiful Irish countryside, lots of Guinness, and friendly people. It was the first time in a long time we started to have fun again.
A day later we were back on the bus to Dublin ready to dominate Web Summit. That is until we saw the 40,000 participants.
Everyone was fighting for attention.
We started to walk over to our booth passing future sounding products with trendy names. Every “CEO” dressed in a blazer with their startup shirt (we should have made those shirts).
Everyone was the same. We became the only weird tech guys who built a tech product in Africa. Or at least that’s how we felt
It was the opposite why we created our solution. We were confined to small cubicles, many people who had the exact same products, wearing exact same clothes, with the exact same pitch.
To top it all off the booth next to ours was a robotic prosthesis startup. Wow.
Then as we were setting up we people had cards. The words came out of my mouth: we already ran out of business cards, can I get yours? Instantly his interest was peaked.
Let’s just have fun!
Before we knew we had hundreds of cards, been interviewed by a few tech journalists and news stations. Web Summit named us one of the top 40 health tech ventures at the Summit. It was a day well hustled, and we were ready to enjoy the night.
On the pub-crawl a tweet came in:
@telescrypts you were named on“ Top 21 most interesting startups” — TechCrunch
We felt epic.
Today
Web Summit 2016 is kicking off in Lisbon today. There are 53,000 attendees, 15,000 companies, and over 166 countries.
It’s exactly a year later, and all the stress is gone. I am sitting in a beautiful flat in Lisbon, Portugal, while enjoying my coffee just a few days after spending 6 months in Africa exiting our venture. Now you might be thinking “Stop bragging”.
But I am not selling a dream, or that I have the key to launching at Web Summit.
However, there are five things I wish I had known before heading to Web Summit as an entreprenuer. The five things I believe every entrepreneur should do at Web Summit:
1. Forget about swag
As you walk out of the conference on the first day you will see thousands of free swag sitting in boxes and trash cans. Save your money there are so many ways to exchange information after chatting.
If people don’t have the time to exchange information then they probably won’t have the time to talk to you after the conference.
It allowed us to create higher quality leads who we wanted to talk further with.
If you don’t have business cards figure how you can give something more personal to get in contact with you. Be an entrepreneur!
Don’t worry about how much you need a t-shirt to fit in, otherwise you will waste your time trying to prove how “successful” you are instead of focusing on your startup.
2. Simplify your message
This is key in the world of tech journalism. With journalists getting hundreds of emails and tweets from startups begging them to do a story, you need to put your story on a silver platter.
We made it very clear that we were creating the first durable wearable in Africa. Even though we had an intelligent platform and other features, we focused on this because it made us different than everyone else.
First make sure that you clearly identify your problem, solution and vision. Then find journalists that have previously published on similar startups as yours, and shoot them over your pitch.
3. Investors, Journalist, and Speakers are exhausted
When pitching your venture to a person at your stand, while walking or in a pub you need to know they are just as tired as you. They have just heard hundreds of pitches, running on less sleep than you, and approached in creepy ways.
Therefore authenticity and clear points about your milestones can go a long way. Remember you don’t want a one hit wonder, you want to build a solid relationship.
We provided a clear story of how I was on the ground in Rwanda and Uganda working on wearable research, when I saw the value we can bring to remote villages who lack electricity and connectivity.
Give them something that makes them excited and worth their time. If they're not interested move on quickly, you will waste time selling your vision to someone who doesn’t care.
4. Attention can be overrated
Most startups are so focused on getting attention they don’t focus on what matters. Do your customers read TechCrunch, or other tech magazines? Obsessing about getting press, or named 30 under 30 may not matter at all to your customers.
Now that said others may find it valuable. We found it to help us get in the door with larger tech and media companies to create potential partnerships and leverage other opportunities.
After consulting for other startups on how to use press to build partnerships we found it produce amazing results. Majority of the startups that made press their main need to think how it can help their business in other ways.
Therefore look at how it can help your venture holistically, and not just your ego.
5. Have fun!
Everyone is going to be hustling hard, partying, couchsurfing, and networking!
Enjoy the opportunity and do things that suit your startup’s culture to meet VCs, Entrepreneurs and Journalists otherwise it won’t be natural.
Remember Bob Marley’s wise words:
“Though the road’s been rocky it sure feels good to me.”
Don’t forget successful entrepreneurs are not always those who raise millions in investment, or featured in the media. There are thousands of dreamers have bootstrapped their startups and live an amazing life.
Web Summit is just another conference that will last 3 days. No matter how much feel you messed up your preparation or how challenging it feels enjoy the ride and follow your passion!
