OK. I admit it, I miss startup events

12 years ago I wrote in my usual ranty way that I’d be curtailing my attendance of startup events. “Why bother?” I asked. Your customers aren’t there and neither should you be, probably. But now I kinda miss them, and today I’ll be attending an investment event.

It’s not that I haven’t been to events in the past 12 years, but they have changed and they’re quite lacklustre.

So I reflected on why they used to be better. Yes there was community, yes there was a sense of everyone innovating, but also it felt like there was helpful pushback. It wasn’t necessarily explicit - sure there were pitch events and winners - but there was definitely an implicit quality filter being applied.

After pitching your product or idea, whether on stage or just to the person standing next to you, you got instant feedback and people weren’t afraid to tell you why it didn’t make sense - or more accurately - why you’d failed to make it make sense to them.

Did people flock to you or the other pitcher during the break? Did you leave the event and go straight to dinner with other founders and angel investors?

It now feels like that filter has gone. Everyone is interested in every project. Events seem more programme based, focussing on getting startups into a process which may or may not be the right theng for them. It feels like we’ve the founders have become a set of KPIs rather than their ultimate potential to become successful companies.

I hope I’m wrong about that. I hope I’ll find some people that will push back or look confused as I try to condense my next project of “ten years coming” into 30 seconds. Then I’ll know what I’m getting wrong and that’s gold.