Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

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Ben Costantini

“It’s the holiday season … Santa Claus is coming round … ”

It’s the holiday season friends, and this was our last show of the year. And in so much, I thought I might be a nice time to sit down with the Boss, a.k.a. Ben Costantini and have a chat about Sesamers itself, where it came from, and where it’s going.

Likewise, Ben gives us his view of the Virtual/Hybrid/Live event landscape and what event organizers could and should be doing right now to stay relative and active in the game.

And we also discuss Ben’s murdering of innocent octopuses and spicy cauliflower. All this and more on our James Bond Holiday Special Edition of the Selected Podcast.

Selected – The Sesamers Podcast – Episode 007 Show Notes

[1:08] – The raison d’être. A decidedly French theme.

[2:01] – Monsieur Ben Costantini

[2:50] – Everybody’s wrapping things up. Quite literally.

[4:01] – The status of Ben’s christmas orders.

[4:12] – An Old Monkey Statue.

[5:03] – How LeWeb leveraged time.

[5:55] – The creation of a Unicorn.

[6:38] – Other than work, work, work, work, work.

[9:15] – Chef Ben!

[11:00] – The next time you see Ben, he’ll have cauliflower for you.

[11:43] – The origins of Startup Sesame.

[13:38] – Revenue Models.

[15:45] – The worst three word combo possible.

[16:24] – I get things wrong. Ben sets me straight.

[17:12] – The Pivot.

[18:38] – The tough one.

[19:07] – Repurposing technology to adapt to the times.

[19:24] – But wait … there’s more.

[21:00] – The vision of Sesamers.

[21:30] – Sesamers solves the problem of event management. As an attendee.

[21:40] – The Black Box of Events.

[24:01] – Ben’s Crystal Ball.

[24:45] – Everything you produce disappears after a short amount of time.

[26:44] – People are lost. They are asking for recommendations.

[30:13] – BREAK

[31:10] – When Dan should expect to get the vaccine.

[32:15] – Ben’s take on the event landscape now. Virtual? Hybrid? In person?

[33:38] – Whenever I see people not following the safety instructions, I’m mad.

[33:50] – 300,000 French employees out of work.

[34:40] – What’s exceptional about online events.

[35:25] – Why offline event organizers were reluctant to go digital.

[35:45] – We are in a bubble.

[36:20] – Apple’s betting big on virtual technology.

[37:52] – As an event organizer, what can I be doing now to prepare for the future?

[39:00] – The biggest opportunity for event companies right now.

[42:15] – Don’t mess with the Scots, Ben.

[42:38] – Messing with Birmingham is fine.

[43:37] – What’s in the future for Ben?

[44:30] – I wish everyone else would approach it in a similar way.

[44:45] – Ben goes on holiday in Spain. To work.

[45:12] – If you don’t own the business, don’t overwork.

[45:25] – This has been the Selected podcast, I am your host Dan Taylor, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that jizz jazz, I. Am. Outta here.

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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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