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Attending industry events and its impact on product awareness / customers

4 points by ashfernandez ↗ HN
I'm looking to expand awareness of my product and considering the potential benefits of attending industry-specific events. I'm trying to figure out if the time invested in finding and attending these events is better suited versus running ads and doing online marketing.

This could be anything from tech conferences and startup meetups to specialized workshops in fields like AI, biotech, or any other area relevant to what I'm building. My main objective is to understand whether participating in these events can significantly contribute to the growth, networking, and overall success of my project.

To those who have experience in this arena, I'd love to hear about your journey. How effective has attending events that are closely related to your project been for you? Whether it was a tech conference for a software solution, a biotech summit for a health-related invention, or any other specialized gathering, did these events provide value that was distinctly beneficial to your project's advancement? I'm interested in various outcomes, such as:

Networking Opportunities: Can you share how the connections made at these events have influenced your project? Did you find partners, mentors, or investors who significantly impacted your journey?

Learning and Development: Were there particular insights or skills acquired at these events that you directly applied to your project?

Industry Trends and Market Insight: How did exposure to the latest trends and demands at these events inform your project's direction or strategy?

Inspiration and Drive: Did attending these events spark new ideas, bolster your motivation, or validate the path you're on?

Project Visibility / Investors: What impact did this have on your project's visibility and credibility within your industry and did it bring in any possible partners or investors?

I'm aiming to weigh the pros and cons to determine if the investment in time and resources for attending these events is worthwhile. Your experiences and insights could greatly assist in making a more informed decision.

Thank you for taking the time to share your stories and advice!

6 comments

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dataminded
My advice: Get the value before the event. Reach out to everyone that you want to meet with before the event and schedule in-person meetings at the event, that will give you license to schedule remote meetings before the event for introductions.

Only go to the event if you have enough meetings with a clear line to enough value for it to make sense. Folks that do events for sales/customers, are working those events well before the actual event and have clear lines to value. If you just 'show up', odds are that you will waste your time and not get value.

tikkun
Not OP but this is helpful. What other advice can you share for maximizing conferences?
dataminded
Events are just one of many signals that you can use to start a conversation. Reach out to every interest that is going, or that may want to go and just use the event as a reason to talk. I've landed A LOT of great leads by just reaching out about events that ultimately neither I nor the contact was going to. It was a good enough reason to start a conversation and assess fit/interest.

When you reach out you can position yourself as a thought leader, someone saving them time, etc.

japhyr
> Only go to the event if you have enough meetings with a clear line to enough value for it to make sense.

I agree with this, unless you've never been to one of these events. If you've never been, try to make some connections beforehand, but pick one and go just to see what it's like in person. You'll almost certainly make some connections, and will have a much better sense of how to approach the next one.

ashfernandez
That's a good idea. The events we're thinking of attending are massive, so hard to do that pre-work ahead. But maybe we should target smaller ones with the right people.
dataminded
It shouldn't be harder to do pre-work for a larger event. What specific challenges are you facing?