Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

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Ray Dargham

Ray reveals his favourite car at age 13, and what he first plans on doing once arriving on Mars.

All this and more on Selected’s Episode 15 with Ray Dargham, CEO of The Step Group.

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let’s talk. dan@www.sesamers.com

Topics Discussed:

  • Weather in Dubai. Not quite hot shit. Yet.
  • You won’t find a pour this good outside of Dublin.
  • Dan’s gonna take some time off.
  • Ray’s been vaccinated!
  • What is the UAE doing right that the rest of the world is doing wrong?
  • “It’s like a factory.”
  • Ray’s other.
  • Ray’s all over the place.
  • And in Texas, pre-Biden!
  • Austin is like mini-California.
  • A lot of Ribs and Brisket.
  • Stepfeed
  • What is it/was it?
  • Where’s it going now?
  • VICE of the Middle East.
  • Newsletters are where it’s at!
  • “Things are much worse now with Substack.”
  • Human are inherently good.
  • What’s up with the weather in Riyadh?
  • The Lightning Round!

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let’s talk. dan@www.sesamers.com

  • Aaaaaaand we’re back!
  • Stepfeed is free.
  • “I live in Europe, and it’s always f*cking cold here in March.”
  • Step Conference 2021.
  • “We were better than others.”
  • Mate!
  • “You’re not supposed to mix a lot of things with alcohol.”
  • Getting people to meet and network at virtual events.
  • The return of Anna Pelova! #onlinesex
  • Dan’s covering trade shows for Agricultural Products.
  • Flying in the face of everything you’ve just said.
  • Entertainment and booze usually fuel meaningful connections.
  • Taking screenshots.
  • 10 pitches. Oye Vey!
  • The webcam or microphone industry.
  • Logitech’s financial disclosure.
  • Step and Ray and Clubhouse.
  • Ray’s first thing to do when landing on Mars.
  • Chelsea vs. Arsenal!
  • Subscribe!

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let’s talk. dan@www.sesamers.com

Where to Find Us:

Find Ray at:

Email

Twitter

Instagram

Clubhouse: @ray

Find Dan at:

Linktr.ee

Clubhouse: @dantelor

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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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