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Ben’s List 34

I was told by Suzanne that I’m a bit obsessed with NFTs and web3 lately.

And last week I said this weekly list was getting shorter and more focused as I’m busy with the upcoming launch of sesamers (got a profile already?).

But here we are, talking about NFTs again. One of the current challenge of crypto adoption is the fact that you need to have a wallet, buy crypto and get into Discord or Telegram. But as soon as Big Tech will launch initiatives to make it more accessible then the growth should accelerate massively. And that’s what Twitter is doing as discussed below. Who’s next? Google or Facebook?

SaaS

Scaling to $100 Million

“While it’s generally accepted that more ARR will result in a higher valuation, the less intuitive reality is that the growth rate of that ARR matters almost as much as the quantum of ARR itself. The higher your growth rate, the quicker your company will ‘grow into’ its valuation; therefore, investors are willing to pay higher prices for a higher growth rate. Maintaining an average or best-in-class ARR growth rate is a key driver of success.”

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Community

Moderating on Discord

“We built the Discord Moderator Academy as a comprehensive resource so that anyone, from first-time moderators to experienced veterans of massive online communities, can find resources to learn about moderation, community management, and more.”

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Machine Learning

Red Hot: The 2021 Machine Learning, AI and Data (MAD) Landscape

Without further ado, here’s the landscape:

  • View the chart in full size & high resolution
  • Full list in spreadsheet format: despite how busy the landscape is, we cannot possibly fit in every interesting company on the chart itself.  As a result, we have a whole spreadsheet that not only lists all the companies in the landscape, but also hundreds more
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Blockchain

Twitter enables tipping with Bitcoin, plans to let users authenticate NFTs

Bitcoin isn’t the extent of Twitter’s crypto plans: the company said it is also planning to support authentication for NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, by letting people connect their crypto wallets. ‘NFT authentication will come in the form of a badge, shown on profile pictures, marking the owner’s NFT as authentic,’ a company spokesperson said.”

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Politics (?)

Trans Identity Is Not a Social Media Fad

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Music

Bringing Aaliyah into the Streaming Era

“On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the tug of war over Aaliyah’s musical legacy, how family tension shaped the business of the Aaliyah estate and the role her music — even though it was largely unavailable digitally — played in the evolution of contemporary R&B.”

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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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