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2020 Has Been Fucking Amazing! – Selected

Well here we are friends. The closing moments of 2020. It’s been … ummm … Zoomtastic(?)

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Before we head out (in?) for the year, I wanted to share with ya’ll some numbers, our top performers, and One Last Thought. Enjoy!

Events

While we weren’t able to travel and attend some of our favorite industry events this year, they didn’t disappear. By far.

Running the numbers on our Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship calendars (tracked from our launch on the 1st of October):

  • Total Number of Venture Capital Events: 101
  • Total Number of Entrepreneurship Events: 129

Weekly Averages:

  • 5 Venture Capital events / week
  • 7 Entrepreneurship events / week

Monthly averages:

  • 29 Venture Capital events / month
  • 37 Entrepreneurship events / month

Busiest Day:

  • 16 November – 19 Concurrent Events

Average Ticket Price (including free events):

  • 300€

With all things considered, not bad at all. And let’s be honest, how many of them did you know about?

With an average of 66 events/month that’s simply impossible to keep track of. Unless of course you’re Selected.

The Selected by Sesamers Top 5 Greatest Hits

Two recurring themes: Positivity and Solidarity.

5. It’s ALL about the community.

Ben broke it down. From what a community isn’t, to why event organizers understood they need(ed) to become communities, to why investors are clamoring for communities and startups that built a following that goes beyond business.

Why Building an Event Community is Important in 2020 – Ben Costantini
Why are events launching communities in 2020? Are they even communities? And what does it mean for your business?
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4. Live events are much more than just content!

Contributor Yvan Boudillet checks in from his intersection of technology and live music. He emphasizes that the experience must be paramount to the actual product; be it a rock band or a VC, it’s more than just content.

Virtual Conferences and Concerts
I used to be a globe-trotter; travelling from tech conferences to showcase festivals. As the CEO of a strategic advisory company specialized in Music & Technology, I used those events as a platform. First of all to meet people but also to learn, test, be inspired and stay ahead of the curve.
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3. Paul converts his home office into his home studio?!?

Keynote speaker and MC, Paul Papadimitriou walked us through his process of converting his home office in his home TV studio. Timely advice and instructions in a Zoom filled world. Sidenote: The Selected Podcast Episode 004.

Creating a Home Studio by Paul Papadimitriou – Selected
When COVID hit, I knew immediately everything had changed. My life had been relying on air travel for more than 12 years, living in different cities around the world, from Tokyo to London, making 80 trips a year, mostly long haul, tons of miles, tons of trees planted, tons of memories created.
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2. Well we caused a bit of a stir with this one, didn’t we?

What started out as a LinkedIn musing from Ben, developed into a positioning of The Human Element of Business. … And Anna explained why online events are like masturbation.

Remote Events: Dope or Nope – Selected
Online/remote/virtual events. Are they even events? Some say yes! Others say yes? I say nope. Let me explain how having events online is exactly like having sex online.
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1. Your resource for 2021 – Events & Conferences

No surprise here: you asked for it, you got it! Not only our most viewed article to date, but also the one we’ve received the most requests for. We’re happy to be your go-to source when it comes to the best of the best listings for 2021.

Note: This list serves as a living document, and will be updated regularly.

Top 60 startup events & conferences in 2021 – Selected
Well we all learned how to use Zoom in 2020, didn’t we? So much so that Zoomitis has become a word. Here’s looking forward to 2021.
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One Last Thought

This was sent to me by a friend at JUST the right moment. Hold on to this:

You’ve been incarnated at one of the most intense times of human history. During this time, you’re navigating your foreign status, freelance work & the implications of being an adult during a global pandemic, whilst inhabiting a 3 dimensional body with a nervous system that is wired to be triggered & overwhelmed by the environment it occupies & the people in it (did I mention inherited ancestral trauma). But still, you’re showing up to this challenge, showing up for friends with grace and humility. That my friend, deserves self-appreciation and celebration. So please take a moment to honor the person doing the miraculous job of surviving the shit-fit being thrown at you.

Be well friends. 2021 might not be much better, but we’re all moving forward.

Together.


Lead Image provided via EFF Photos under the CC-BY License.

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Events 4 hours 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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