note to self: don’t go to conferences

Last week I had a great time at hy!Berlin. Aydo & Hans organized an amazing conference. Probably the best startup event I’ve been to in Germany. I met a lot of people I actually always wanted to meet and had some great discussion with other founders.

In my opinion the major differences to all the other startup events in Germany were:
- truly international
- focus on product (not funding)
- felt exclusive
- free for founders
- lunch on the berlin tv-tower

Startup events are probably one of the biggest distractions for founders. There’s almost an event every day you could go to. There’s almost always some speaker you would like to hear/meet. There’s always something you could miss. And of course, there’s almost always the chance to pitch, win a price and meet potential investors/employees.

On the other hand, you could just stay at the office and work on your product. I love to go to events, meet people and talk about WHY own it. But honestly, it won’t have that much of an impact as all these events promise. Startup competitions are mostly better for the organizer of the event, than the startup … and I doubt that lot’s of startups got funding just because they attended a conference that brings together founders and business angels/VCs.

Anyways. This is a note to myself: think twice, before you go to an event. Let’s see if I can manage to only go to one more startup/web event this year (which will be Online Marketing Rockstars).