Big Startup Events Feel More Like “Startup Zoos”

Ugh. For the vast majority of companies, you would be far better off investing the time and effort meeting with your actual customers and/or doing development on your product.

I've stopped going to most startup events; they turn into cheap theater with folks who revel in their newfound roles as "CXO" or "Investor" (usually just a business card) and are unable to engage and actually get work done. Or those who choose to prey on such innocent lambs....

i would say at least 50% of the companies receive 0 or negative value from their direct presence at these event.

If you are not good with booths and crowds then you're wasting your money.

On the other hand, if you ARE good with crowds, and your product or service is relevant to a wide enough market, then it could certainly be worth it.

Just do the simple best case / worst case math and figure it out yourself.

If my service costs 1000$ per month, and it would be relevant to 20% of the prospective audience, then it's probably worth it for me to go to the event.

Events are just another marketing channel. Wasting your money an channel that's wrong for your target audience is the same no matter if you're wasting money on bill boards, facebook ads, or in this case -- booths at events.

I've had a booth at TC Disrupt a few years ago, 99% of the attendees are fellow startup founders/employees or VCs. If your user base is neither of these, don't bother. Save your money, spend it on marketing to your potential users.

For us, attending Web Summit was worth it. We were there as "Alpha" and gained a lot of attention although we did not do much for it but standing there and "waiting". Interesting people came by and now we have a lot of contacts to follow up which was our goal.

Of course it was super crowded but for me the very worst part of it was, that the internet was super unstable and crashed every few seconds. This is a shame for a format like this.

Startup events remind me a lot of what it was like going to investment banking and sales & trading events, or financial conferences. Every overachieving Ivy Leaguer with no real sense of who they are or what they want to do just chasing prestige that was at finance events truly seems to have shifted to tech.