Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Why Building an Event Community is Important in 2020

I’ve always been skeptical with the use of the word “communities” in the business world. According to dictionary.com:

A community is a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.

A community isn’t:

  • A directory
  • A freelance community manager
  • A Facebook / Slack / Telegram group
  • A member section of your website
  • A statement

For me, event organizers aren’t community builders per se. I’m not saying they can’t be good at creating elements of belonging that are similar to these groups, but events are temporary gatherings by definition. This is their strength.

So by this definition, I propose the words, “network” or “club” as more appropriate and descriptive as to what a number of self described “communities” actually are.

The recent evolution of the event industry was mostly focused on turning tradeshows and fairs into content marketing machines, with the rise of conference programs and educational initiatives.

Web Summit is living proof of this trend. What started as a small conference became one of the largest tradeshows in the Tech industry.

With social networks and in particular LinkedIn disrupting the way information and business relations were traded, some event organizers already understood that they needed to become platforms and that turning their audiences into communities would be both the most important and hardest task for them.

Renting square meters has nothing to do with a cult.

Initiatives launched by the World Economic Forum and TED are worth mentioning but their platforms are mostly an extension of the content/conference activity. It is not a community business.

You are not Reddit.

Community is the new moat

Investors are raging for communities and startups that built a following that goes beyond business. As reported in First Round Capital’s State of Startups in 2019, “nearly 80% of founders reported building a community of users as important to their business, with 28% describing it as their moat and critical to their success”.

There’s so many conferences, tools, newsletters, reports and communities about communities, that it’s worth an entire article. If you’d like to dive further into this topic, have a look into the work of CMX Connect (recently acquired by Bevy) and the book “Get Together: How to build a community with your people”, by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, and Kai Elmer Sotto.

With the pandemic, things were clear for event organizers. Either they were able to turn their business into a community or they wouldn’t survive. But is it too late already? Who really wants to be 24/7 part of a business community run by an event company?

blank

At Sesamers, we asked ourselves what was the meaning of our community from day 1. We didn’t really plan it, it just happened with karaoke parties (I’m still not sure if my voice has recovered) and our support to entrepreneurs without any financial interest – both usually help a great deal if you REALLY want to be identified as a community builder.

But it became less relevant for us as we were ramping up our business operations and we even tried to turn Sesame Summit, the annual gathering of our community, into a profitable business in 2020. Yeah. Not so much.

Quick litmus test: if people are still bragging about being part of your community long after you’ve produced your last physical event, you might have built something worth investing in.

And that’s what we did from the third week of March of this year onwards. With our weekly Coffee with Sesame, we gathered over 50 event organizers during 25 sessions to date. From this privileged viewpoint, we’ve seen first hand how Tech events are reinventing themselves and launching communities.

Case studies

This is a short overview of some initiatives that are aiming at turning annual events into subscription (and community) based businesses.

Educational approach: Afrobytes

blank
  • Description: a recurring (weekly) business networking event focused on specific topics to educate and connect leaders working with the African technology sector. Current focus: Connectivity, Fintech & Diversity
  • Format: 60min live workshop & 45min 1:1 networking
  • Pricing: $59-89/event
  • Platform: Run The World
  • Registration
  • Website: africantechindustry.com

Content approach: Hello Tomorrow

  • Description: The Core is a resource center including exclusive footage from this year’s Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, as well as panel discussions, keynotes and reports
  • Format: 6 month membership offered to all paid ticket holders, as well as a special network offer for investors
  • Pricing: 65-999€
  • Platform: Swapcard + WordPress (TBC)
  • Website: hello-tomorrow.org/the-core-by-hello-tomorrow

Integrated approach: Node by Slush

blank
  • Description: an online hub that connects startups with investors, partners, and mentors throughout the fall of 2020 (and potentially 2021).
  • Format: the event consists of monthly gathering hosted over several days to provide free and member-only webinars & roundtables.
  • Pricing: 29-109€/month
  • Platform: Hivebrite + Zoom + Slush Matchmaking
  • Website: slush.org/node-by-slush

Conclusion

We will see more offers popping up in the event industry in the coming weeks so this article might rapidly outdate itself. In fact, I hope it does. But the overall trend is here to stay.

For event organizers, this is a major change of focus and it requires new skills and hiring different profiles. Deciding which tools work best for your specific needs is also a big challenge. Event technology software isn’t good at community building in general.

For investors, you’ll need to continue to build platforms and expand your community work, with initiatives like Diversity.vcIncluded.vc or YSYS.

And for startup founders, it will either mean to double down on your existing effort in marketing and allocate more budget to this area; Or build it from scratch. The good news is that it’s never been so important to support your community.

you might also like

blank
Events 6 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.

blank

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.

blank
New Materials 1 week ago

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

Subscribe to
our Newsletter!

Stay at the forefront with our curated guide to the best upcoming Tech events.