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THE WEB SUMMIT sets up shop in Dublin for the last time this week before jetting off to Lisbon next year.
The annual tech conference started back in 2010 when it drew in around 500 people from mostly the local tech community, and has grown to a point now where this year more than 30,000 attendees are expected from more than 100 countries.
On its website, the event describes itself as “one of the world’s most influential and international tech events”, with 2,000 startups set to exhibit.
While the conference will bring together some of the biggest names in the tech industry, does it deliver the results for the startups attending it?
Show me the money?
There is no doubt that for some companies, the Web Summit is an opportunity to receive some serious investment.
On the company’s website, a blog post in April listed 40 startups who have received $925 million (€840 million) in funding in the six months after last year’s event.
While this was a great result for those 40 companies, 22,000 were at the conference, and not everybody left happy.
“I think they definitely overplayed it, they said there was going to be loads of investors walking around,” said Michael*, who displayed as part of the Alpha programme for new startups last year.
They made it look like a really fantastic by saying there would be massive opportunity.
Michael came into the conference with his sights set on securing funding, something that didn’t materialise.
“There was nobody walking around with the investor badges. Many of them spent their time in the back rooms and things like that,” he said.
Others reported similar experiences.
Co-founder of Mashup Media (a digital content producer) John Tobin displayed at the event last year:
“We got a kind of two for one deal as part of a prize that we won, so it wasn’t like the companies alongside us.
“I know that some of them were a little bit disappointed with the opportunities that they got to meet investors. They weren’t as readily available as they thought they would be. I think some of the foreign delegates there were disappointed with the outcome really.”
Looking past capital investment
While early-stage startups may struggle to secure investment, such criticism may stem from assuming that displaying at the Web Summit means an automatic investment windfall, or as founder Paddy Cosgrve puts it:
“Web Summit is not some sort of magic elixir for attendees.”
In a response to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for the Web Summit said, “We work hard to give every attendee a great experience, especially startups. They are at the heart of Web Summit and we have learned lessons from 2014 and all our other international events in 2015.”
He said that those attending Web Summit 2015 could expect the “most influential gathering venture capital firms this year” and that office hours and mentor hours will be in place to facilitate meetings between startups and investors.
While the cost to attend might seem steep – ticket prices range from €1,195 to €5,245 and the cost of displaying from €1,950 to €3,950 – those who treat it as an investment in education and making contacts come away happier.
While he noticed the difficulty for overseas attendees, Mashup Media co-founder Tobin felt that the conference had helped his company develop a network of contacts which had in turn given his business a boost.
A video produced by Mashup Media for the 2015 Bloom festival
“I suppose it was a window for our company if you like. In terms of seeking potential investment, probably not that good, but then again, we never really set out with that mind anyway. We were just not at that stage yet in business,” he said.
This expectation management may be the key to how successful an experience a startup has.
Networking
With such huge numbers in attendance, a plan of attack is a big part of gaining the upper hand at the conference.
Iseult Ward displayed at the conference both last year and in 2013 with the company she co-founder FoodCloud, a social enterprise that helps redistribute surplus food that would otherwise be dumped.
“I can be a bit challenging I suppose because there are so many startups there,” Ward explains.
But with a bit of planning and preparation in advance they do have attendees up on the website so you can make a little plan beforehand to see who it is it would be most beneficial for you to meet.
Taking this focused approach led to her startup making connections with a business operating the same model in Phoenix in the United States and also with mentors who have helped with the development of FoodCloud.
Last year her company got the opportunity to not only display, but to also speak at the conference after winning a competition ran by the US Embassy.
That was brilliant. Because of the fact we were speaking we were listed as speakers. Everybody that came to hear us speak were there to hear us speak.
Web Summit as a learning experience
The conference also gives tech companies an idea of how their products weights up in the international scheme of things.
Ronan Higgins attended for the first time in 2012 with Aftermath, an app that turned social media time for younger students into an educational reward.
“We pitched to a judging panel at that conference, and when we heard the calibre of the other pitches, it was a bit of a wake up call that we were not ready for investment,” says Higgins.
Seeing the calibre of other businesses from around the world, it became clear a lot of work had to be done.
If you can walk away from a conference and know that you have a lot of work to do, that is very valuable as well.
From this experience, Higgins returned to the conference last year with his new company TvAdSync as attendees, and managed to make contact with meet a number of “good quality investors” and have his company featured on Fox television in the United States.
TvAdSync co-founder Ronan Higgins appearing on Fox Business in the US – the full clip can be viewed here.
Is the conference value for money?
In a blog post from earlier this month entitled ‘Is Web Summit a scam? – setting the record straight‘, founder Paddy Cosgrave says:
Because what matters is not absolute price, but value. Do startups get €1,950 worth of value out of Web Summit? The evidence of our growth, repeat attendees and our relentless polling seems to suggest that, generally, they do.
In a post last month about who should and shouldn’t attend the Web Summit, Cosgrave said, “Yes it’s true startups have emerged from Web Summit with tens of millions in funding because they met a single investor in a pub.
But it’s also true that some startups have met tens of investors in many pubs, and walked away with nothing.
Speaking about the experience of startups at the Web Summit, a spokesperson said, “Web Summit is a massive opportunity for startups but that is not to say that everyone will succeed and that everyone will have a uniformly great experience.
As with all products, reviews are always distributed from five stars to one star.
It is hard to get a completely accurate picture of how startups experience Web Summit, especially as the list of startups that have displayed in previous years at the event are considered to be commercially sensitive by the company.
Despite this, those who go into the Web Summit with clear aims seem to come away satisfied. As TvAdSync co-founder Higgins says, “You really have to put in the effort to hustle to meet the right people.
That maybe isn’t the typical behaviour for a tech startup founder. They’re not known for being aggressive in their outbound efforts to meet people. They tend to be quite passive.
*This individual’s name has been changed as they wished to remain anonymous.
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These deals are usually done months beforehand. Paddy gets wind of them on one of his piss ups and runs to the media shouting about another massive web summit success story. I’ve first hand evidence of this happening. He’s the chancer of the decade.
Was at it last year. It’s totally overblown hype. Honestly. Was interesting for the first couple of hours & then after that, you can start to smell the air of desperation from the exhibitors. Very much a question of style over substance.
I was at it last year. Not attending this year. Exibitor halls last year were full of absolutely desperate people. Crammed into a one meter space and trying hard to stand out amongst hundreds just like them. There was no investors working the halls fromm what I could see. Some of the talks were interesting but too many took the ‘look at how brilliant I am’ humble bragging approach.
I went last year, just as an observer. Apart from the absolute waste of money that each of the startups felt (at least thse that weren’t at the dragon’s den style shows), the biggest thing was the total disdain that the backroom investors had for the plebs that paid for their piece their rental of a homemade 1 sq.m. wooden stand. Look up the video for Dave McClure from last year – “Im not going to waste my time looking at your f***ing crappy startup here, if I wanted to invest I would know about you already.”.
All of the success stories – every last one of them – were made before this conference, and in the case of Uber it was two blokes in the Shelbourne with no Paddy in sight, and even then, what did it do for Dublin or Ireland? Paid the tax on the pens and paper that signed the contract?
This conference is just a new forum for snakeoil salesmen, where the successful charlatans have come back to taunt you.
You get what you put into it, if you fail to plan……..
Attended every year, directly and with clients specifically to meet specific individuals. Thankfully we did do our homework, and we get what we wanted to achieve.
I wish everyone who attends this year the best of luck. Planning is essential, know your objectives, research your target market, pre-arrange your meetings. Execute in style.
Such rubbish!
I saw Web summit “Volunteers” today in pink T-Shirts outside Fire, from a quick search it appears they enlist students and pay the nothing for running their event that makes them millions!
Paddy Cosgrave can go to Lisbon! We can all do without free loaders!
Why is the Students union of Ireland not protesting this event about non-payment of “Volunteer” computer science students – I’m sure the parents of these students have not paid nothing to put them through the courses they are attending!!!!
How about Paddy Cosgrave uses the money he’s paying you for these “articles” for his web summit instead of asking the government for freebies.
and so, the Paddy Cosgrave love-fest begins.
The only person who loves Paddy is Paddy.
Pretty much everyone else thinks he’s a smug, egotistical, self-glorified event organiser git.
Just read the blog post. This is a direct lift from it:
Pley raised $10,000,000: Pley’s Lego subscription service was a massive hit at Web Summit. They’re no longer a tiny startup, and now their 27 person team will be joining us at Collision in 2015.
I was talking to the guy on the PLEY stand because I thought it was a great idea. He told me they’d already raised their finance prior to the summit, but they’d booked their tickets, stand & accommodation, so decided to come any what rather than burn the cash. He was less than enthusiastic about having to be there.
Can’t believe they’re taking the credit for that..
I’m torn between my dislike of the ineptitude of the government and lack of business acumen and also my dislike of these smug tech-heads and their tosser angel investors. I think the whole industry is well overdue a crash.
Jealousy will get you no where in life.
The Tech sector is a modern day gold rush…sure, some will strike it rich…most wont…
I disagree Johnny. Tech is ubiquitous now – with adoptions rates from 1 year old to grannies on Facebook. The rate of innovation in the industry means there’s always something new. It’s not stagnant at all. So in my view it will only increase.
The web summit reminds you of the times that you walk into a bookstore and you see a book on how to be a millionaire so you go off and buy it you end up the same but the author now is a millionaire. Real stone in the soup stuff.
The media puffery that surrounds this thing is just embarrassing, no naysayers are allowed to rain on the parade, independent news and media will not permit comments on their puff pieces for fear of upsetting advertisers and event organizers.
Startups need a reality check if they think they will get investment. MANY of the startups exhibiting there last year are dreamers, brain farts or cottage businesses, an app or a website that does exactly the same(or worse) as services already out there, or they are complete novelty.
A very “softly, softly” article…why do you give Paddy Cosgrave’s response to criticism plenty of space, without actually explaining what the criticism was about in the first place? Because the piece on Tech.eu that he’s responding to certainly shows how startups are exploited by the Web Summit. Oh look, here it is… http://tech.eu/features/6244/web-summit-scam-well-ask/
Getting sick of listening about the Web summit rubbish.
The most interesting people make hardware.
Boring people,borderline crooks, make software.
Coders=Codders.
At least a lot of the time.
Coder do Joe coders……….
Like the crooks who made it possible for you to comment on this site & that contribute to open source projects that they don’t make a dime from. Free software. Yeah real crooks all right.
@pete undoubtedly the most ignorant/naive comment I’ve seen in the journal in a long time. If you drive a car that has an ecu that boots up with firmware (i.e software).
Getting to see your creation come to life is enough payment for some, and actually, that’s what’s behind a lot of success stories too
Loving the bland criticism after they decide to move location…Where’s the objective commentary on WHY they’re leaving Ireland? Toxic economic climate? Anti business agenda? Simply prohibitive tax systems?
More freebies in Portugal after draining the goodwill in Ireland?
@AM I think the critisism was there already. It’s very pricey and after attending last year I don’t think it contributes a huge amount of value for startups. Some of the talks were interesting but some were terribly poor. If Cosgrove and the summit have been excellent at one thing it is PR. They have built a lot of hype around this and managed that hype exceptionally well. Once you step away from the hype the scales fall from your eyes and you understand it’s like a lot of other tech conferences but without a real single thread holding it all together. For example a Tableau or Gartner conference are very focused and attendees get a huge amount of practical stuff to go back to work with. The Web summit has gone into sports and food as just 2 examples.
Can’t see how the web summit is useful in any meaningful way to the small guys renting out the small booths.
I’ve heard VC investor people brag about how they would never bother to look around on the floor where the booths are. They only meet with start-ups that have “traction” already. It seems like primarily the event was a piss-up / lovein for people who had already made it and as the size of the thing got bigger it isn’t even relevant on that basis anymore. They are as well off getting out of Ireland as the backlash has surely begun and people have seen through Cosgrave and his merry band who are coining it for themselves and good for them I suppose.
have your say