Editor’s note: this post is sponsored for Dublin Web Summit
The Web Summit is just around the corner, and we’re getting excited about heading back to Dublin between the 4th and 6th of November for another few days of action packed days of talks, networking, and catching up with the new trends and hot products in our industry. While the organizers have pulled together a ridiculous list of speakers, the real value is in who you meet. So, who’s going to be there?
The main reasons we head to conferences is to meet potential investors, some interesting CEOs for collaboration, and media to make some noise. With that in mind, here’s who we think you’ll find interesting, but catch more at The Summit’s Attendees page.
Investors:
With the gravity of Web Summit pulling in investors from Europe, Silicon Valley, and the rest of the world, you’ve got the chance to bump into heavyweights like Paypal’s Peter Thiel (investor in Estonia/UK Transferwise); Alfred Lin, Partner in Sequoia Capital (which yesterday was involved in Stockholm-based Truecaller’s $60 million round); and partners in just about every source of investment capital around the world. That’s not much of an overstatement, check out this list – it’s basically a list of every institutional investor you ever hear making deals in Europe.
Tougher to nail down are the Angels going through the crowd – but with the connected but separate events like The Machine Summit or The Marketing Summit, you should be able to find some smart money related to your sector.
Tech:
Turning our heads to the tech leaders at the event, we’re excited to see Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox; Chris Wanstrath, CEO of Github; or Matthew Prince, founder of Cloudfare. Or what about Oculus’ Brendan Iribe and Arduino’s David Cuartielles – probably some of the more exciting platforms today.
Additionally you’ve got to be happy to see Evernote’s Phil Libin, Tim O’Reilly, and other business leaders to hear their story and what they’ve learned.
And then looking from the region we have to point out Denmark’s Mikkael Svanne founder and CEO of Zendesk; Martin Ferro-Thomsen Founder of Conferize; Sweden’s Jacob DeGeer, CEO of iZettle; Sweden’s Martin Källström, CEO of Narrative; Finland’s Anders Dahlqvist of Holvi; and Finland’s Kristian Ranta, CEO of Mendor. That’s just a few we saw after a quick search, but lets make sure the Nordics are represented.
Media
And lastly, if you want to get your product mentioned in major media, Dublin Web Summit has plenty of outlets for you to approach. At bigger events you’ll see your local media and online media, like ourselves, but there’s some great publications coming to Ireland, including Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and Wired.
For most startups there is also plenty of media that will get you in print, but has started covering startups somewhat more regularly, like the Financial Times, the Economist, and TIME. Now’s about the right time to be strengthening your story and laying the groundwork.
With ticket prices increasing every Thursday, today’s the day to pick up some tickets for yourself. Who from our region is going? Let us know in the comments and let’s try to get a good Nordic/Baltic group together for some drinks.
