Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Ben’s List 40

And to warm you up we’ve selected already 5 articles to help you understand better how communities work and why Web3 is eating the community world.

We also cover other topics with an impressive report on DeepTech trends by The Engine.

There’s also an eyeopening story about a record label that lived for only 30 months and shaped the next 30 years of leadership in the music industry #powermovers

But let’s start with some down to earth business strategy for startup founders and marketers. How do you run successful partnerships?

Entrepreneurship

Hey Startups: It’s Not all About Direct Sales—Your Guide to Partnerships and Channels

“It’s tempting for startups to approach integration and solutions partners with only their own perspective in mind: “We offer an incredible new SaaS solution that disrupts X or enhances Y. Why not use it?” The reality from a partner’s point-of-view is very different.  Channel partners have ingrained processes and solutions. Operating in markets that necessitate growth and retention of business, they repeat known solutions and have trained hundreds or thousands of people on how to sell, integrate, or sell the vision of specific solutions. They’re not going to disrupt a working sales process lightly.”

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Community

DAOs: Absorbing the Internet

DAOs represent a new framework for large-scale human coordination and at the heart of human coordination – decentralized or not – is organizational culture. No different than company culture at an early stage startup or community culture in an undiscovered music scene, culture can be defined as the behaviors, patterns, and values that emerge between groups of individuals…  While every DAO finds its own ways to engender culture with visual, linguistic, and behavioral norms, two traits seem to be particularly commonplace across the DAO landscape: the tendency for constituents to act like owners, and the expectation of radical transparency.”

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How to get paid by DAOs

“DAOs are in need of labor. They need people to work for them in order to achieve their core mission. Whether it’s for a protocol DAO like Yearn and Sushi looking to create a new paradigm in financial technology or Social DAOs like Friends with Benefits and Bankless DAO looking to propagate culture, there’s plenty of ways to contribute and add value. As mentioned, the cool part is you don’t have to work full time. It’s always up to you how much time you want to put in.”

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The 5 Secrets to Community Onboarding: How to Reduce Churn and Create Super Fans

“Walking into a party without your host can feel confusing, alienating, and frustrating. And for your customers, joining a new community without onboarding is just as bad.”

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Community-Led Growth: Introduction and best practices

“By accepting to lose some control over their brand narrative and laying out contribution swimlanes for external users, every company can unlock massive Community-Led Growth opportunities across all areas of their business.”

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Questions To Ask Your Community Members Before Re-Strategizing

“Whatever the reason, the first step I recommend to anyone going through this process is to interview your members. I’ve found that these interviews are the most productive when conducted one-on-one or in a roundtable setting. That’s because it’s a more personal approach than just sending out a survey, and your members will appreciate this level of attention.”

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DeepTech

2021 Tough Tech Landscape

“…the past two years have been defined by a pandemic that has only sharpened our collective sense of urgency to discover and commercialize Tough Tech companies. These years serve as a reminder of why we must continue to create the frameworks to support those who are solving massive problems through the convergence of science, engineering and leadership.” – Katie Rae, CEO & MP @TheEngine

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Pages 8 & 9 of the report

Music

Right Place, Right Time: How SBK Records’ 30 Months of Existence Launched 30 Years of Music Industry Leadership

“People thought we were overconfident to the point of arrogance. We set out to be the best of the best, what we called ‘the SBK Difference.’ We just did everything a little better, spent a little more money on everything from release parties to listening sessions to personal chefs in the office to private jets. For Poe, we rented out a hot-air balloon visible to everyone landing at the local airport in Virginia. We were competing against all the other independent labels at the time – Arista, Motown. Once we hit our stride, we were unstoppable.”

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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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