Is it helpful for a startup at the initial stage to participate in conferences for attracting investments?
Hi, I want to share our story.
“We are a young startup with ambitious expectations” - this is what most people think of themselves, and we are not an exception. At some point we decided to attract funding to our project ... And with surprise for ourselves we found out that the infrastructure for startups consists in most of the events, accelerators and funds with not always clear experts who are trying to earn a lot of money on startups, and What is your project - for example, we have a visual task manager To Round. We started with participation in startup parties and the first successes immediately appeared:
It would seem that everything is great, we are surrounded by competent people who seem to know what to do, but none of them is responsible for the result. Therefore, we refused to pay programs and in a couple of days go to the IIDF.
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Sometimes the performance at one event gave us the opportunity to participate in the next, more ambitious. So, for example, once, having submitted an application for participation in the Expert Investment Session from the First City Business Incubator of St. Petersburg and having passed two selection stages, the project reached the final. There, we received second place among startups, and with it, two tickets to participate in SLUSH from one of the experts of the jury. About 40 contacts were collected on SLUSH, 17 useful ones (accelerators and investors). They were sent friendly letters:
One investor refused, another promised to send out information about the project, two more investors and one accelerator showed interest in us, the rest did not answer. Later it turned out that participation in the accelerator costs about 400 € per month, and work with investors ranges from 1,200 € to 6,200 €. The measurable result of such cooperation, unfortunately, is not promised. For greater clarity, the results are illustrated.
Recently, we were invited to take part in WolwesSummit, according to the results of the selection, the project was among the top 300 startups, which are promised many buns. After the selections, an invoice of € 695 was sent to participate. Is it worth it?
We came to the conclusion that at the initial stage it is better to focus on the product, the method of its monetization and promotion.
“We are a young startup with ambitious expectations” - this is what most people think of themselves, and we are not an exception. At some point we decided to attract funding to our project ... And with surprise for ourselves we found out that the infrastructure for startups consists in most of the events, accelerators and funds with not always clear experts who are trying to earn a lot of money on startups, and What is your project - for example, we have a visual task manager To Round. We started with participation in startup parties and the first successes immediately appeared:
It would seem that everything is great, we are surrounded by competent people who seem to know what to do, but none of them is responsible for the result. Therefore, we refused to pay programs and in a couple of days go to the IIDF.
')
Sometimes the performance at one event gave us the opportunity to participate in the next, more ambitious. So, for example, once, having submitted an application for participation in the Expert Investment Session from the First City Business Incubator of St. Petersburg and having passed two selection stages, the project reached the final. There, we received second place among startups, and with it, two tickets to participate in SLUSH from one of the experts of the jury. About 40 contacts were collected on SLUSH, 17 useful ones (accelerators and investors). They were sent friendly letters:
One investor refused, another promised to send out information about the project, two more investors and one accelerator showed interest in us, the rest did not answer. Later it turned out that participation in the accelerator costs about 400 € per month, and work with investors ranges from 1,200 € to 6,200 €. The measurable result of such cooperation, unfortunately, is not promised. For greater clarity, the results are illustrated.
Recently, we were invited to take part in WolwesSummit, according to the results of the selection, the project was among the top 300 startups, which are promised many buns. After the selections, an invoice of € 695 was sent to participate. Is it worth it?
We came to the conclusion that at the initial stage it is better to focus on the product, the method of its monetization and promotion.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/297938/
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