Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Ben’s List 18

However, since I’m working remotely this week from Spain, this will also be one of my shortest reading lists ever; please bear with me.

As always, feel free to reach out if you’d like to suggest your (or any other) articles to Ben’s List.

Strategy

The 7 Powers Known to Tesla, Pixar, Netflix, Apple & Twilio

“The universe of fundraising and vanity metrics may fool you into believing that your current performance is indicative of future success. But therein lies a logical fallacy: Performance is a trailing indicator. Power is a leading one.”

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You are hyped. What’s next?

Made me think of Clubhouse that’s launching its Android app now in May 2021… Is it already 6 months too late?

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Diversity

VC Pitch Deck Bias Is Costing Diverse Startups Funding Dollars

“DocSend’s findings suggest bias is manifesting in unconscious ways…Investors spent more time scrutinizing the fundraising slides and slides that gave product information for White male firms than for all-female companies, which is likely to increase the odds of getting an investment, Heddleston said. For women, they spent more time on the business model and market tractions slides, which showed more uncertainty about the pitch, he said.”

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SaaS

Mind the Pipeline: Using Cohort Analysis To Forecast Bookings and Identify Gaps

“Cohort analysis can be used for a host of different populations — everything from people to pipeline opportunities — and can be cut across myriad time dimensions (weeks, months, quarters, etc.).”

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Productivity

The new wave of productivity

“One big area where we see still potential is help in prioritizing work and private events and time allocation. Especially in settings where “the office” and the home are the same place, and where work and leisure happen at the same time, the struggle of prioritizing tasks becomes omnipresent and is no longer tied to geographical locations or temporal boundaries.”

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Privacy

The Instagram ads Facebook won’t show you

“The way most of the internet works today would be considered intolerable if translated into comprehensible real world analogs, but it endures because it is invisible.”

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Content

Who Will Amplify This? And Why?

“…this post is all about. Resonance. Understanding why people share, rather than just consume, and how networks and systems amplify.”

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Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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New Materials 3 days ago

Lios Group, the Irish startup behind SoundBounce, was a winner of JEC Composites Startup Booster 2018, and has been making significant strides since taking home the award.

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New Materials 1 week ago

Tree Composites aims to accelerate the energy transition with innovative composite joints.

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