Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Ben’s List 19

Hotels are now partnering with virtual event platforms to offer hybrid solutions to event planners. On the outside, it looks like a clever move to ensure that smaller groups can gather in person at hotel venues and enjoy the full online experience with state of the art audiovisual setups.

I could imagine VR holodecks using conference rooms at hotels as well in the near future.

What’s not so cool is that it’s another lock that will force both planners and venues to give away big amounts of data to the platforms. It happened 10 years ago with booking.

This week we also cover community, newsletter, DeepTech, music and a SaaS case study from Sacra. A typical week at Selected.

SaaS

Calendly: The $4B DocuSign of Scheduling

“Calendly is currently on track to pass $100M in ARR by summer 2021. If they do, they’ll have hit that milestone 3 years faster than the similarly-capital-efficient Zapier and more than 4 years faster than the now-$40B+ DocuSign.”

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Community

How My Paid Community Made $5K in Its First Week

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Routines vs Rituals

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Fake versus Authentic — The Gauntlet has been Thrown: Critical Thoughts to Build a Strong LinkedIn Network

“Is it possible the quest for authenticity and the surge in (deep) fake news have a relationship? I now have new evidence to support the fact that they are entirely linked and we should be even more aware of this duo of words as we look to build our network and reputation. And, it should definitely be enough to change the way you approach your Linkedin network building.”

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AP Photo – this woman “Katie Jones” has been designated as fictional

Newsletter

14 Free Newsletter Referral Reward Ideas

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  • sparkloop.app/blog/14-free-newsletter-referral-reward-ideas :: Louis Nicholls

Hospitality

Hyatt Hotels CEO on new digital platform to assist in hybrid conferences

Or how the hospitality industry continues to lose it to platforms, first on bookings, now on events.

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DeepTech

The five questions investors need to ask deeptech startups

“How you summarise and communicate your value proposition when dealing with complex technology speaks volumes to investors. Can you succinctly explain what your product is and why it’s special? If you’re compelling when talking to us, we will have more confidence you can do that when talking to potential customers (some of whom will be non-technical), new hires, and future investors.”


Music

Why fanbases need to be networks, rather than channels

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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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New Materials 3 days ago

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.

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New Materials 1 week ago

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

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