Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

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Alex Theuma

With a focus on entrepreneurship, investment, culture, ecosystem relationships, and events, the conversation delves into the dynamic realm of the tech conference and events team, where Alex shares SaasStock’s raison d’être. In this episode, Alex shares both valuable insights into the industry, as well as the intriguing story behind one of his tattoos.

Highlights

SaaStock: The Upcoming Event That’s Making Waves

SaaStock, the crown jewel of SaaS conferences, takes center stage in this episode. Alex Theuma sheds light on this year’s event, taking place October 16th to 18th in Dublin. With the event’s history dating back seven years, SaaStock has since established itself as one of Europe’s premiere conferences for SaaS founders and their teams. It’s a powerhouse for connecting with peers and investors, or, as Alex puts it, “SaasStock is not just an event; it’s a powerhouse where connections with peers and investors flourish, and dreams and businesses take flight.”

In this episode you hear Alex talk a lot about the collaborative spirit that fuels the tech events ecosystem. An example of this is how events like SaaStock and B2B Rocks can collaborate, creating an community where events are more allies than competitors. Alex argues how such collaborations enrich the ecosystem, fostering a sense of community and camaraderie among tech enthusiasts.

Scaling Events in the Industry: Staying Fresh Amidst the Familiar

Growing as big as they have, SaaStock clearly knows a thing or two about how to scale in the events industry. Alex offers valuable insights into the challenges and strategies behind how SaaStock manages to have grown to this scale while striking a balance between remaining both fresh and new, and also having repetition in events. He gives his perspective on the view that while some may find recurring themes familiar, these themes also serve as powerful reminders and reinforcers of key principles and strategies.

Membership and the Challenges of Event Growth (a.k.a Post-COVID problems…)

The conversation takes a turn toward membership and the challenges of growing event attendance, arguably one of the top performance indicators for events. Despite their success, its true that SaaStock took a knock when the industry suffered as a consequence of the pandemic. Alex shares about how these challenges were network wide, and in this way, so were the solutions. He discusses how the pandemic prompted the need for more support and connections among founders, which led to the creation of the SaaStock Founder Membership.

The SaaStock Founder Membership is a valuable resource for founders scaling their businesses to $10 million in revenue, and Alex details how this value add from their approach in creating the membership has ultimately worked in SaaStock’s favor. The membership is not just a ticket to events; it’s a support network, a place for education, and a platform for founders to connect, learn, and thrive.

Festival Vibes and Networking: Where Business Meets Fun

The podcast episode also explores the unique festival-like atmosphere that defines SaaStock events. The spirit of this is captured in the name, as Alex puts it, “SaaStock is like the Woodstock for SaaS”. He shares his insights into the importance of networking, both professional and personal, and how SaaStock events foster a sense of community and connection through the fun and positive energy they seek to foster at their events.

Tune in to the full episode to dive deeper into these topics, and to learn the story behind Alex’s curious Balloonicorn tattoo

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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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