Summer is slowly coming to an end and it’s time for startup events to pop up everywhere again… The less I can say is that there are many, many events happening everywhere in Europe. It’s absolutely amazing to see the development and growth of the European and Swiss startup scene over the last 8 years. Now, even in Switzerland (which is still not seen as a relevant startup hotspot), you could attend an interesting event almost every day. Of course, that’s a big trap for first time entrepreneurs (and for everybody trying to grow a startup). You have to select carefully what is truly relevant for your startup, where you’ll be meeting either potential investors or customers (hum… you mostly do not find your customers at startup events!). Or where you’ll be learning a lot.
Hereafter, I’ll present you a little selection of 5 startup events you should be considering to attend in September. In Switzerland but also abroad. A great one (but too late to talk about as it is happening these days in Köln) is Pirate Summit, that you should already consider for next year.
Crypto’16, September 13th, Zürich
On a half-day event, you will be able to meet with key players of the fintech and finance industry to learn about “How cryptofinance changes the world » There will be talks about the cryptocurrency «Bitcoin» and about its underlying technology, the Blockchain. 2015 was the hype year for the term blockchain, 2016 is seeing real use cases happening. Will it go mainstream? You can have a 25% discount by using the following code: startupolic25
Digital Festival, September 15-18th, Zürich
Digital Zürich is a 4-days event including many keynotes (with top notch speakers like Alain Chuard (co-founder Wildfire), Philip Inghelbrecht (co-founder of Shazam), Renaud Visage (co-founder Eventbrite), etc.), labs session across Zürich with topics like Digital Readiness, Business Model, Brand Management, User Experience and Design, Data Analytics. Moreover, the week will end with HackZürich, the biggest European hackathon! I really love what they do there… Great events to attend? You can register with a specific price (half of the normal ticket – limited to 5 tickets) with the following code: startupolic .
SaaStock, September 22nd, Dublin
SaaStock is one day event with two parallel conferences about SaaS (Software as a Service). There will be sessions on how to find product-market fit, learn about the lessons learnt by more than 2’000 SaaS companies, Scaling a SaaS business, the metrics related to SaaS business model (workshop by Christoph Janz, Partner Point Nine Capital), how to engineer your sales and SaaS growth. The conference gathers a great panel of amazing SaaS startups founders, from Leo Widrich (Buffer) to David Okuniev (Typeform), for instance. Definitely a must for every founder who want to learn more about SaaS. And hack it! You can have a 20% discount using this code: startupolic (but HURRY UP, 90% of the tickets are already sold! And this discount is limited to 10 tickets).
Bits and Pretzels, September 25-27th, Münich
Bits & Pretzels connects more than 5’000 participants with Speakers and Table Captains like founders of Virgin, Airbnb, Evernote, Kayak, Home24, Runtastic, Delivery Hero or King.com. Bits & Pretzels creates unique networking around… Munich Oktoberfest and encourages meaningful relationships between founders, investors and the media.
From Richard Branson (Virgin) to Kevin Spacey to Neil Patel (Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, etc. – who is one of my online marketing hero!), there will be amazing people in Münich during Oktoberfest! You can have a 10% discount by using the following code: startupolic
REGISTER for Bits and Pretzels 2016
SIBOS 2016, September 26-29th, Geneva
Sibos is the the annual conference, exhibition and networking event organised by SWIFT for the financial industry. 8’000 business leaders, decision makers and topic experts from a range of financial institutions, market infrastructures, multinational corporations and technology partners.
With hundreds of speakers and conference sessions, nearly 200 exhibitors, and multiple networking events, Sibos is the place to discuss business strategy, build networks and collectively shape the future of the financial industry. You can discover the program and register here.
Keep visiting My Events Selection page if you’d like to know what I’m recommending!