“Being at your desk is not building your company”: Why you should participate in some big tech conferences

Startups often ask us the question: is it really worth it to attend big tech events like CES, Web Summit, and VivaTech?

Published on Jan 17, 2020

In our newest podcast episode, we set out to answer this question with three STATION F entrepreneurs:

– Aymeric Wuidart, co-founder & CEO of Artiris Parfum, an alumni startup formerly in the EDHEC program

– Khaled Sehly, co-founder of AirWayBill, a startup building a peer-to-peer shipping platform

– Clémence Demerliac, founder of Adalong, a startup using AI to automate the curation of user-generated content.

There is a belief in the ecosystem that if you are attending events you are not building your company. However, in this episode, we discover that attending shows is of the essence for two reasons:

Getting feedback from clients

Trade shows are a great opportunity for you to gather feedback from potential clients. It’s essential to start attending one or two years before launch to be able to refine your product and ensure that what you’re building responds to market needs.

Meeting business partners

Big events are also the perfect occasion to meet high-level attendees. As a startup, it can be difficult to secure meetings with key decision makers in big companies. However, big events like CES and Web Summit are unmissable rendez-vous for business executives to meet and connect with startups. In these instances, they are in a open state of mind to discover what younger companies are doing, something which might not be their first priority on other days.

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