We have just returned to the UK from spending the past week in Dublin at the Dublin Web Summit, now known as ‘ The Summit’. We had a display table for the Tuesday along with another few hundred start up companies. We took a lot from the two days some good, some bad but some incredible things!
Jayne & Saskia getting ready to board the Express!
We started our journey off by boarding the Start Up Express train organized by Trustev, PCH and Voxpro. This was by far one of the most well organized events I have ever attended and also my first time attending an event that was constantly on the move. It made us very proud to be a Start Up company from Cork as the quality of start up’s and attendees from Cork was utterly amazing. We take our hats off to Trustev for a really amazing job.
We had the opportunity to talk to some media and we had a very interesting interview with Silicon Republic around the topic of being a female entrepreneur. This topic is always highlighted as we are a team of three females, which isn’t usually the ‘norm’. This is something we are very proud of but we also never expect to stand out as much as we actually do. It is great to be a team of female entrepreneurs as the support is brilliant and it only seems to be getting better.
Jayne (Head Honcho) had the opportunity to pitch in front of TechStars on the train. This was a tough pitch as it was 30 seconds and every team was warned to expect some hard criticism but we seemed to come out smiling at the end. The feedback we got from TechStars was really excellent and they highlighted some points that every start up company should know immediately:
– How are you going to make money?
– How big is your market?
– TELL A STORY
– And how important your hand shake really is!
Over all we really enjoyed the experience of Web Summit especially getting to see some of our super star companies including EverNote, DropBox, Stripe and of course Elon Musk.
The only criticism that we would have over the few days was with the registered workshops. We had registered for an education workshop to meet investors in that certain field but when we arrived at the event there was over 20 start up companies and only 2 investors. As a result we didn’t have the opportunity to speak to any investors as there would be at least five start up companies talking to one investor at the one time!
Some of the things we learned were:
– BE PREPARED: Having your elevator pitch prepared helped us a lot. People don’t have time to listen to your entire story you need to captivate them within the first few seconds. This worked really well for us as we could explain who we are, what the problem is and how we are going to solve it in under 30 seconds.
– Always be friendly when you have a booth. If you look disinterested and distracted than people are more than likely not going to come up and say hi. It is super important that you look happy and excited because than it is likely that other people will feel that way as well.
– Don’t be afraid to just go and say a quick hello to anyone. One thing we notice time and time again is that people are more than likely always willing to help or at least say hello, you’d be surprised what could happen!
– Find a wing man/woman: Get to know someone who knows the web summit better than you do! We had a fantastic wing man this year who told us the best places to go at night time and the best workshops and speakers that would be good for KonnectAgain.
We met some amazing investors during the two days and one of the investors we met has now established a very good relationship with us. Everyone that we met in the Summit has already exchanged emails with the KonnectAgain team and we have made some great friends and contacts as a result!
But all in all it was a great few days we learned a lot, gained a lot and ate a lot!
KonnectAgain 
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