Web Summit, Noombers, a Dutch startup perspective

How did the Summit go for you?

The Web Summit experience was great for us. Our main goal was to find a mentor to guide us through the trivial questions of entrepreneurship. We have achieved our goal and we are therefore extremely happy about having attended.

Did it match your expectations?

We actually had a meeting before departing towards Dublin about our expectations, we said to ourselves “let´s keep expectations low, and performance high!”. This is exactly what happened and we are happy we kept things clear for us from the beginning.

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

If there is one thing that we would have done differently it would have been to network heavily not only on the day that we were showing our product but on every day of the conference (even the day before and after the conference). There is nothing or nobody stopping you from telling your story when in the main hall or just walking down at the corridor. Also, we limited ourselves to sharing brochures with people only on our exhibition day, If we could go back in time we would have done it from day one.

Did you get any useful feedback from people here?

Feedback was not hard to get on a broad level (about the company name, logo, description) because they are based on a first impression. We were really striving to get feedback on our value proposition “Organize Tournaments Better”, however, that did not happen. On the topic of our company name, I would say that 9 out of 10 people said, “oooh I get it!” and immediately liked it, but of course, there’s always the person that says you need something packed with more WOW and suggested things like “bettertournament” or something in that line of thought. In addition to that, a big amount of people expressed how happy they were that we focused on Ultimate Frisbee as our primary sport!

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

Absolutely not. Actually, we will be focusing more on the things we have been focusing the last half a year. Visitors, entrepreneurs and staff we met at the night summit re-confirmed that creating and managing even a small event is a messy task, let alone something like a sports tournament. Many people were surprised that there was no company trying to accomplish our vision, and that is something we are really proud of.

How did you find Dublin?

Dublin is extremely friendly, finding directions or getting around is much more easy than in the Netherlands, moreover, the fact that everyone speaks English is an excellent plus. We loved this city!

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

Both were equally important for us. We feel like at day time we threw our pitch and showed our formal side and at night we could follow up on more personal things (like dreams and ambitions) and that brought us closer to the people we connected with. It’s the egg or the chicken thing.