The first full day of Web Summit can be daunting for many founders. But not, it seems, for Ayaan Mohamed Ali.
Before the Digitech Oasis made herself centre stage in Lisbon, I picked the brains of David Savage, a film-maker, podcast host & group technology evangelist at Nash Squared, to ask how founders should go about making the most of their time at Europe’s biggest tech conference.
Savage has covered and helped to moderate seven editions of the event, plus another four if you include Collision in Toronto and Web Summit Rio. He is closing on 800 episodes of his hugely popular podcasts which include Tech Talks.
“In the early days, it was a passion project off to the side while I worked as a recruiter,” he tells me at a KPMG networking event on Monday evening. “In those early conversations, I found that a lot of my clients were quite isolated. They were looking for platforms, for events, for literature, because they were in the trenches, eyes down, delivery mode… and they were genuinely intrigued to see what their peers were up to.
“I think that’s changed over the last nine years. There are now so many channels, and I think so many more events where people can go and find out what is going on across the industry. The knowledge share has expanded and we can now talk about a whole wider range of topics than we would have ever done before.”
He says the Rio event is a bit like Web Summit in the early days – “a bit scrappy with a completely different energy” – while the Portuguese mothership has lost some of the hipster aspect but matured into something more sleek and polished.
“I think people come here now because they recognise that it’s a really good platform to get their brand and their message out. I think a lot of startups come and they hope that they’re going to get investment and that this is going to be their big break – but unfortunately that can be a bit of a false dawn for them.”
Savage says attending the event today is more about building presence and a network for the long game rather than signing deals.
“Don’t try to do too much,” he advises. “It’s very easy to think: ‘I’ve got three days, therefore I’ve got to be everywhere, see as many people as I can and catch as many talks as possible. You become overwhelmed, and you don’t take as much away from each individual as you could do.
“The organisers are great at helping you navigate, but just the sheer scale of it and the numbers mean that it’s very hard to do so. If you boil it down to one or two key events and five to six key meetings that you know have a chance of adding value, you’ll probably walk away from the Summit with more from those interactions than if you try and pack too much in. Let serendipity do its thing.”
Hijacked
One founder taking the bull by the horns is Mohamed Ali of Manchester-based data automation software firm Digitech Oasis, which is part of GM Business Growth Hub’s ASCEND cohort delegation in Portugal.
“I hijacked a pitch stage at the Venture Summit area when they were on an interim break!” she tells me. “The crowd was full so I tried my luck and asked if anything was happening on stage. They said ‘not for another 15 minutes’.
“So in true fashion I jumped on the stage and did a 90-second pitch, with the hope there were investors in the room.
“I had some investors from Khosla, 500 Global & an angel approach me for a chat and I ended up in the investor lounge!”
Felix Robinson of Pet Trust UK, also part of the ASCEND programme, gained meetings with big-name investors – and stepped in to host a roundtable when the moderator was late!
Manchester ladies don’t mess about, it seems…
Web Summit Wednesday highlights: 5 to watch
Building the cities of tomorrow
10.05-10.30am, Stage 15 Pavilion 5
Ricardo Rio, Mayor of Braga
Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands
Jukka Mäkelä, Mayor of Espoo
Ari Alatossava, Mayor of Oulu
Stefano Lo Russo, Mayor of Turin
Thomas Gegenhuber, Professor, Linz Institute of Transformative Change @ JKU linz
Bruno Contreiras Mateus, Journalist, Dinheiro Vivo
Fintech 2034: The unicorn roadmap
10.45-11.15am, Stage 5 Pavilion 2
Iana Dimitrova, CEO, OpenPayd
Charles McManus, CEO, ClearBank
Janine Hirt, CEO, Innovate Finance
Martina Fuchs, Business Correspondent, Xinhua News Agency
Turning spare change into a startup fortune
10.45-11.10am, Stage 12 Pavilion 4
Amman Ahmed, founder, Music for Pets
Andrew Filev, CEO & founder, Zencoder
Amanda Slavin, founder, LearningFREQUENCY
Unlocking the digital assets economy
2.15-2.35pm, Stage 3 Pavilion 1
Herman Narula, Co-Founder and CEO, Improbable
Gen AI integrations: Building the dark matter between systems
2.31-2.42pm, Stage 6 Pavilion 2
Sean Brown, CEO, Versori