Events are exciting! Aren’t they! A lot of startup entrepreneurs visit umpteen events and exhibitions to network and exchange cards, in hope for potential partnerships. They visit some events to get at least a small piece of the speaker’s time. But is this the right way of doing this or can an entrepreneur make better use of his time. Let’s
find out:
Exhibitions: A lot of entrepreneurs are tempted to set up exhibition booths at international conventions. The problem? They don’t have funds and each exhibition charges at least to a tune of `40,000. To host a stall. And top that with founder’s travel, accommodation and food expenses. So is it a worth it? Frankly speaking, no. If at all the entrepreneur can partner with the event and get the stall complementary, then it’s a different story. Otherwise it is better to just visit the exhibition (and that too only if it is important) with lots of business cards and if possible pamphlets, and distribute them to the folks there.
Startup Networking Events: Every month a new VC hosts a dinner or a certain get-together of start-ups at coworking spaces. Should you go or can you give a pass? I personally think the answer lies on the type of session. If it is in sync with your core product, then you can plan visit, otherwise you can give it a pass. Most entrepreneurs visit every single event, and all they end up accomplishing are bills of their travels to the event and registration fees. But why? Why do you need to attend so many events? Maybe you can visit one event every six months and instead use the events-attending time to really build your product and market it.
Own Events: Now this where it gets interesting. If your brand is in a domain where you can host exciting events, by all means do so. Try to get a venue partner so that you don’t end up spending on booking the venue and instead just host an event at a pre-existing venue. This may be a college auditorium or a café shop or an office. Since the event is of your own startup, you can plan some activities for visitors and give them a good experience of interacting with your brand. Social media is possibly the best way of promoting such events. When we hosted Comic Carnival Indore recently, we realized that we reached a lot of untapped audience by just creating the event and sharing on Facebook.
In conclusion, I would like to summarise by saying that attend events — only if they are core to your value proposition. Or else just host an own event.
If you have any queries write to Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com
Rajeev Tamhankar
Twitter@rajeevtamhankar
The writer is IIT-R Alumnus, Entrepreneur of The Year’17 (Print Business) and the Founder of TBS Planet Comics