Chargebox, the Berlin perspective on Web Summit

Interview by @SimonCocking

How did the Summit go for you?

The summit was a great experience for all of us. There were lots of good conversations and interesting ideas around and we are looking forward to working with some of the people we met. It was also really exhausting as we wanted to make the most of it and after three days, we hardly had any voice left. It was a great feeling to be amongst the forefront of technology companies.

Did it match your expectations?

We knew what to expect so there were no surprises. It was quite disappointing though that the web summit could not provide working wifi, and did not allow local networks, which would have been really helpful for presenting our product.

If you were to do it differently what would you have done?

We would have made even more appointments upfront and would have brought our own router, in spite of the rules.

What did people think of your product?

People loved our charging stations and they saved many peoples days at the summit. The same effect they always have on trade fairs. They also liked our approach of offering charging services for free and financing them by advertising instead of charging the users.

Did you get any useful feedback from people here?

We got lots of input; so many people had interesting ideas. We’ll see how many of those make sense for us to realize.

Will you be changing or pivoting your project based on what happened at the summit?

No, we knew quite well which route to take beforehand. But it is always good to hear many different opinions and ideas.

How did you find Dublin?

To be honest, we did not get to see much of Dublin except for the summit venues. As far as we can tell it seems to be a lovely place to visit though and we are sure to come back with some leisure at our hands.

Which had more use for you the day summit or the night one? why?

The day summit. We went out and met some great people during the night summit (Thanks a million to the guys from connect.comfor the great Tuesday night!) but as far as we can tell yet, there is more feedback from people we met during the day (and who were sober…).