Russian startups at the 2013 London Web Summit

Hi, Habr! We participated in the Web Summit , which took place on March 1 in London, and want to share how it was.

By analogy with Kpyto , who described his adventures in Barcelona , I will also start with a small adventure, which could well have ended with our absence on the Web Summit. The fact is that we flew to the UK without a visa ...

Who cares - I ask under the cat.
')


The fact is that when submitting an application for a start-up contest, which was held within the Web Summit, we didn’t particularly hope to be among the finalists - the event is one of the key in Europe and many want to “light up” on it (we have already applied for last year’s Web Summit in Dublin and then received a polite refusal). As a result, we were pleasantly surprised when we learned that we were among the finalists, and we were unpleasantly surprised when we learned that we did not care to make a visa. There were 2 options - to refuse to participate and try to enter the UK, using the rule of land transit, giving the right to move from one airport to another and stay in the country for up to 24 hours. Well, we decided to take a chance.

After reviewing the rules on the UK Border Guard website, we realized that it was impossible to just take a ticket back and forth in 24 hours - this is not transit, you need to fly somewhere else from London. The following route was obtained: Petersburg-Helsinki (train), Helsinki-Stockholm-London (SAS), London-Han (Ryaniar), Khan-Frankfurt (bus), Frankfurt-Petersburg (Russia). Everything was fine until we arrived at the customs in London. There we were asked “why fly to Frankfurt via London?” - the version about what is so cheaper (although it’s not strange so really cheaper) sounded not very plausible and we were kept for 1.5 hours, learning all the details of our strange journey. It was saved by the fact that we clearly stood on our own version of the “type we decided to take a weekend ride, drink beer and see Germany,” we were not inspected (there were Web Summit tickets, business cards, flyers, etc.) and, apparently, that we obviously were not dangerous.

I had to be nervous, but with the words "watch your pockets and let me miss the flight" we were allowed to go to London. This “adventure” ends. We will not repeat this and do not advise anyone.


From Heathrow Airport to the center you can take the subway - go long enough. When they reached the hotel, they went to eat in kebabs - the police “dined” there.

The event is organized on the highest level - you understand it as soon as you find yourself on the spot. Although it was possible to guess about it right away, having paid 500 pounds for 2 start-up tickets (50% discount - a regular ticket cost 500 pounds).


The Brewery building, where the event took place, and the “information desk” at the entrance

The event began at 7:30 am with breakfast with investors, though startups came to 7:30 mostly, and investors began to actively pursue closer to 9.


We get acquainted with the program of the event, communicate with other startups

The main program of the event began at about 9 am. On the main stage there are panel reports of experts, and on a small pitch of startups.


Presentation of our project and another startup

I am glad that Russia was represented both by startups (our Autosprite ( time management system for car services , website for motorists ), Lectrio (HQ in London) and ZeeRabbit ), and by investors (Troika, Mail.ru, Synergy Innovations and others). In general, 3 start-ups from 25 are cool enough - there were more projects from Germany and England, but it is understandable. True to the top 4 of our projects did not hit. In general, the word Russia sounded quite often - primarily in the context of the fact that this is an interesting market for Internet projects.


The large conference room appears to be located in the former barn. Panel members were greeted by live music - just like in a talk show - very funny.

At lunch, everyone moved to the exhibition area. There were not many stands and they were placed very compactly - The Brewery is not suitable for exhibitions, it is still a conference center. Of the large companies were sponsors of the event - Microsoft, PayPal, Dyn, KPMG and some others. There were stands and startups. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our own booth (we could’t afford 4000 pounds), so it was difficult for some to find us, although I hope everyone who wanted to do this did it.


Lunches in the exhibition area

In addition to pitches for startups, 3 speed networking sessions of 30 minutes each were organized, a series of reports and accelerator presentations.

Each startup had to participate in only one speed networking session, but nobody particularly followed this, and many, including us, managed to communicate with investors from different sessions. Only the time of communication with one person was very limited: a call rang every 3 minutes. 3 minutes, of course, is not enough for full-fledged communication, but in general, if the investor had an interest, then there was no problem to agree to continue communication after the session.


Huddle dude presentation on how to sell to the state and big business. The main idea "your startup must be sexy"


Presentation of the terminal for processing payment cards from PayPal and massage advertising bot Grafton media (the voice of the dude is quite consistent with the appearance - everyone was delighted)

On the main stage, reports went in a continuous stream after lunch, but in general, “business activity” decreased markedly and communication became more informal.

I would like to mention this format of the performance from the stage as an interview (a journalist from a thematic publication like TechCrunch or Wired talks with a guest, it turns out very cool because both of them know the topic very well) - it seemed to us the most interesting and relevant. Especially memorable are the interviews with Matt Mullenweg, WordPress creator and David Tisch, the head of the TechStars accelerator - smart guys, especially Tishch.


In the basement, beer has been used since the beginning of dinner. From the main stage all the time there was a live broadcast (via LiveStream )

At the very end of the event, 4 super-finalists presented their projects from the big stage, and the jury selected the winner.


Grand Cru Games from Helsinki presents a superb 3d designer game for the iPad. The Supernauts

Won Flubit - a site that finds the same product for a lower price.

In general, the event left a lot of positive impressions. It’s a shame, of course, that we couldn’t get into 4k, representing projects from the main stage, but this is quite objective - firstly, almost all the projects were really cool, and secondly, the presentation skills need to be honed - you just need to keep within 4 minutes , and make the listeners believe.