Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

Data trends and Clubhouse

This list was started two weeks ago. You’re looking into my brain as of February 10th. And here we are, publishing on February 18th.

As mentioned in previous articles, I always enjoy looking into patterns in these lists, especially afterwards.

There’s an overarching structure that encourages you to read through the list from books and reports, to general articles around strategy, entrepreneurship or venture capital. And then we go deeper into marketing, podcasting, newsletters – topics related to Selected – before ending with some science, gaming, arts and music.

In some occasions, there are also deeper connections between items which looks fascinating in retrospect since I never plan them. We explored them in our annual list of lists.

I feel like this is a consequence of using this list as a form of digital gardening, a way for me to collect ideas and stories worth checking afterwards. You can do it on Notion, Roam Research or Evernote. You name it.

This week, the red thread is data. It’s present on (almost) every single item. And it’s the core of what we’re building at Sesamers as mentioned in my recent Clubhouse article.

Welcome to the most Selectivest.

Books

Paving – Conversations with Incredible Women Who are Shaping Our World

A book about 25 global women leaders would be remarkable by itself. The fact that it is written by a teenage girl makes it incredible.

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The Cold Start Problem

Otherwise known as the “Chicken or Egg Problem,” the “Cold Start Problem” is a puzzle that this book promises to address by revealing “what makes winning networks successful, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.”

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RyanBerg

Big Ideas 2021 Report

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Faster Than The Future: Facing The Digital Age

Shoutout to one of this report’s co-authors who also happens to be one of my good friends, Robin Wauters

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Culture

A letter to my people: I

Ignorance is a choice, thus it is not an excuse

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MemeGenerator
  • Link: nicolasdolenc.medium.com/a-letter-to-my-people-i-b19a3ae1f8f5
  • Author: Nicolas Dolenc

Venture Capital

Turning up the heat on VC cold inbound pitch forms

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Marketing

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Battery
  • Report: battery.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Battery-Whitepaper-B2BTechBranding.pdf
  • Author: Rebecca Buckman

The Loop: Our Community & Public Platform strategy & roadmap for Q1 2021

Inspired by the interplay between their Community & Public Platform teams.

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Podcast

A Post-Mortem for Social Podcast Discovery

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Data

The Data Source #2 | The Metadata Revolution ✊

It all starts with having a strong framework around extracting metadata into one source of truth, an end-to-end lineage powering use cases including data operability, access control, quality, auditability, and more.

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Pinterest

Helping the Enterprise build reliable data products

From a VC point of view, if you’re a believer in the evolution of the stack, playing the monitoring part is often a “good” bet to take.

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Source: bi-survey.com/top-business-intelligence-trends (n=2,653)

Gaming

A sneak peek at MetaHuman Creator: high-fidelity digital humans made easy

Creating one high-quality digital human is difficult and time-consuming. Scaling that effort to create many diverse digital humans of the quality required by next-gen platforms and high-end virtual production is a formidable task indeed.

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YouTube

Science

Algorithmic and human prediction of success in human collaboration from visual features

What’s the best group to win at an Escape Room game? Larger, older, and gender diverse groups are more likely to escape. And machines are better than humans at predicting the outcome.

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Music

How Music Promotion is Going to Change in 2021 (Spotify Growth, FB Ads and Beyond)

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Smarter Playlists: automate your music discovery, playlist strategy, and library organisation

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Events 22 hours ago

AI is reshaping how people discover information. Search traffic, once the lifeblood of websites, is plummeting as AI tools provide answers and context immediately, eliminating the need to browse to websites for answers at all.  Understandably, companies are responding by going down avenues they can control: newsletters, podcasts, memberships and events. This reality is true for startups as well. You simply can’t rely on Google traffic or algorithms to build trust anymore. You need direct channels, and there are few ways to build trust more powerful than  meeting people face-to-face. Welcome to the ‘post-click’ era Startups have long played by the ever-changing rules set by Google and social media platforms, which are more often than not prone to changing their algorithms and leaving everyone scrambling to adapt overnight.  AI is not only accelerating this instability, it’s almost making Google referral traffic obsolete. Companies need to adapt to this new reality with strategies that let them talk directly to their prospective customers. The media industry, one of the most vulnerable to the changes, is proving to be one of the quickest to adapt. Morning Brew, for example, blends its newsletters franchises with events. In a recent interview, Sam Jacobs, TIME’s editor-in-chief, highlighted how the company went from organizing two to three events per year, to holding the same number of events monthly. Even digital-first players are embracing events. Podcasts like Acquired and All-In now host live events to bring their listeners together. Finimize has built grassroots meetups around its newsletter. The new defense tech media title, Resilience Media, born on Substack, is planning events to connect experts in its niche. Alex Konrad’s new Upstarts ecosystem includes live interviews, an upcoming podcast and curated events. These aren’t just extensions of the content; they’re ways to nurture communities. Startups should copy this strategy. They must consider where their credibility and relationships will be built in this new landscape, especially as visibility is no longer about simply appearing on top of search results or burning money with ads; it’s about building lasting trust in the spaces that matter. Events are singularly effective at doing that. Lessons from after the pandemic If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that being present online is insufficient. Platforms like Hopin promised a future of global, scalable, online events. Even experiments in VR conferences were the subject of occasional hype.  All of that fell short, however. What founders, investors and marketers learned was simple: There is no substitute for shaking someone’s hand, catching their eye, and sharing time in the same space. When the pandemic ended, events came back with a bang. Companies large and small continue to invest in gatherings. Events still carry symbolic weight: just look at Apple’s meticulously choreographed product launches, or how scaleups like Helsing showcase new technologies.  For startups, events can also serve as tools for strengthening internal communications and bonds with their employees and their community. Here’s a great example: Italian travel scaleup WeRoad holds an annual, two-day global gathering of its travel coordinators and staff that strengthens culture and commitment in ways a Zoom call never could. Why startups need to show up Startups live and die on the strength of their relationships. Securing investors, signing first customers, and finding the right partners are all processes that depend completely on trust. These early relationships are crucial. In an AI-driven world where digital discovery is fragmented, saturated and noisy, events cut through the noise. They offer something AI and algorithms never will: human presence. Startups should think of events as essential investments in visibility and credibility. Whether it’s speaking on stage, hosting a breakfast or simply showing up to the right conference — being in the room matters. It’s OK to be selective. It’s OK to pass on events when priorities point elsewhere. And don’t take this to mean the digital realm and AI should be ignored. But in this era where we’re putting AI on a pedestal, founders should not underestimate the power of a physical meeting for establishing contact with investors, talent, or any other important stakeholder.

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New Materials 2 days ago

After a successful first edition, JEC Investor Day 2026 is now returning for its second year with expanded ambitions.

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Events 5 days ago

TechCrunch Disrupt? Overrated. Web Summit? A $4,700 mistake I’ll never make again. I’ve burned $18K learning which startup events actually matter for B2B SaaS founders trying to close deals—not just collect business cards. Here’s what nobody tells you: the biggest events aren’t where B2B deals happen. Why “Best Startup Event” Lists Are Useless for B2B Founders Every January, tech blogs publish the same recycled garbage: “50 Must-Attend Startup Events!” They rank by size and buzz. What they don’t rank by: where your buyers actually show up with budgets. I learned this after exhibiting at a 70,000-person mega-conference. Spent $4,700 on booth space, flights, and hotel. Had exactly zero conversations with our target market. The attendees? Mostly consumer startups and the press are looking for the next Uber. According to Cvent, 81% of trade show attendees have buying authority—but only at industry-specific events. Generic “startup” conferences are networking theater. If you’re serious about finding the right startup event strategy, you need to think differently. The 5 Best Startup Events Where I’ve Actually Closed B2B Deals SaaStr Annual – Where SaaS Deals Actually Happen 13,000 SaaS professionals in San Mateo every March. APIDays – The Technical Depth You Need If you’re building APIs, this is your room. 2,000-3,000 API architects who can actually read your docs. Paris is the flagship, but they run 10+ cities globally. What makes APIDays different: it’s deeply technical. No marketing fluff. €3,000 gets you in, and European buyers are way less saturated than US markets. Big Data & AI Paris – Enterprise Buyers With Actual Budgets 15,000 enterprise CTOs and data engineers. I closed two partnerships here worth €400K combined—with French banks and telecom companies that had active Q4 budgets. The French government subsidizes AI adoption, so budgets are real. But your networking tactics need to adapt. Less aggressive, more relationship-focused. €800 for a pass and 3,200€ to exhibit as a startup, totally worth it if you’re targeting European enterprises. Track it on Sesamers so you don’t miss early bird pricing. MicroConf – Where Bootstrapped Founders Share Real Numbers 200-300 attendees max. Everyone’s profitable or trying to be. Zero VC hypergrowth bullshit. I’ve learned more in hallway conversations here than at conferences 50x the size. The attendees are other founders who share actual numbers—not vanity metrics. Churn rates, CAC, payback periods. This is how you measure real ROI from events. Worth every cent if you’re bootstrapped. Industry-Specific Trade Shows – The Secret Weapon Here’s the move nobody talks about: skip tech conferences entirely. Go where your buyers congregate. Healthcare SaaS? Hit HIMSS. Fintech? Money20/20. HR tech? HR Tech Conference. I watched a founder close a $400K deal at a healthcare event while competitors were posting selfies at Web Summit. These cost $3,000 avg, but attendee quality is 100x better. According to Statista, B2B trade shows hit $15.78B in 2024. This strategy works because you’re fishing where the fish actually are. The 3-Filter System I Use to Pick Events Filter 1: Who’s actually attending? Can you name 20 people who match your ICP? If not, wrong event. Use Sesamers to check historical attendee data before buying tickets. Filter 2: What’s your actual goal? Raising money? Go to investor-heavy events. Closing customers? Industry trade shows. Different goals need different event selection criteria. Filter 3: What’s the all-in cost? Ticket + flights + hotel + meals. If it’s over $3K, you need $30K in pipeline to break even. Most events don’t hit that unless you’re strategic. Events I Skip (And Why You Should Too) Web Summit: 70,000 people is networking hell. Consumer-focused despite the B2B claims. Pass unless you need Series A+ PR. CES: Consumer electronics show. Your B2B SaaS buyers aren’t here. I see founders at CES every year wondering why they’re not closing deals. Now you know. TechCrunch Disrupt: Great for press and VCs. Terrible for enterprise buyers. Worth it for launch PR, not pipeline. How I Track Everything Without Losing My Mind I track every event in a spreadsheet: cost, conversations, pipeline generated, deals closed. After three years of data, the pattern is crystal clear. Niche beats broad. Quality beats quantity—industry-specific crushes general tech. The best startup events for B2B SaaS are never on TechCrunch’s homepage. For API companies: APIDays and API World are superior to generic conferences. For AI/ML: Big Data & AI Paris provides European enterprise access that’s nearly impossible to achieve otherwise. Geography matters—European buyers at European events are way less saturated than US markets. Stop Wasting Money on the Wrong Events You have limited time and budget. Most founders can hit 3-5 events per year max. Choose wrong and you’ve burned $15K and 15 days for zero ROI. Choose right and one event generates $500K+ in pipeline. Use Sesamers to find events filtered by your industry and target attendees. See which ones similar founders recommend. Track ROI data. Set reminders for early bird pricing. Never waste another $4K on an event where your buyers don’t show up. Because the smartest way to pick events is learning from founders who’ve already tested them—and can tell you which ones actually matter. Ready to find your next high-ROI event? Start tracking on Sesamers and build your calendar based on data, not FOMO.

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