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The Gift of COVID19

For many reasons 2020 is a year that we’re never going to forget, but it’s not all bad news. There’s something happening which makes me excited, even though it’s not making front page news.

First, a somewhat safe prediction: Ten years from now, we’ll be looking back at Covid19 as the biggest catalyst for digital transformation since the internet was invented.

Almost overnight, huge numbers of the global workforce were suddenly working from home – an almost utopian dream which had been loftily predicted and vaguely promised for at least two decades, by everybody and nobody – but hadn’t actually happened.

It’s early days and it will take time for companies to understand how to make the best out of remote working, instead of sitting 8 hours a day in sub-optimal video calls, but the genie is out of the bottle and won’t be going back in.

Second, another prediction for ten years from now: We will look back at Covid19 as the tipping point where business stopped following the capitalist rules of growth at all costs in order to maximise shareholder value.

Instead, we’ll be focussed on business that makes a profit, but not at the cost of people and planet. That concept in itself isn’t entirely new. Ben&Jerry’s started with this mindset back in 1978, and the growth of like-minded Patagonia is incredible. Despite this history, it hasn’t yet broken into the mainstream – but it’s about to.

The biggest gift that Corona has given us, whether we wanted it or not, was time.

Time to think, time to feel, time to experience a different way of life. We’ve already changed our work, travel, and spending habits – and that’s all going to have an impact on how we do business. The old normal isn’t coming back, and I, for one, am grateful for that.

In 2030, generation Z will be fully installed in the workforce and have considerable spending power. You can bet that they will not be working for, or buying from, businesses which are bad for the world – no matter how big or small.

The clock is now ticking – I believe that companies have fewer than ten years to adapt their business and prove that they have a right to exist. Or go bankrupt. The good news is that we are living in exciting times where it is finally possible to do good for the world and make a profit at the same time.

The internet has made young, small and medium business a powerful force to be reckoned with. If you don’t have significant investment debt and unreasonable shareholder expectations, you have freedom. There are enough new business models out there, there are enough people who want to see and support a different future. There aren’t any excuses left. We just have to make that decision and do it, and if we don’t, we will only have ourselves to blame.

Whether you’ve already started to orient your business towards making positive impact, or are looking to start, here’s a few relevant events:

ImpactFest 2020: October 27, 28 & 29
Billed as “Europe’s biggest impact meetup” their program has a mixture of online and offline content spread across three days. Tickets are just €20 or €10 for Startups.

ImpactLab Open Series: October 1, 6, 13, 20 & 27
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship is the dedicated centre for social entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford and is hosting a series of online events covering Impact Leadership, Impact Investing and Story Telling for Impact. Tickets are free.

Meaning Conference 2021: 11 November – Brighton, UK – CANCELED
One of the flagship events for the industry, running for eight years already, Meaning Conference connects and inspires the people who believe in better business. Tickets are €295 or €245 if your company has fewer than 25 employees.

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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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