The Web Summit, also called “the Davos of geeks” (Bloomberg) welcomed 42000 people from 134 countries, 2141 startups, 1000 investors, 1231 journalists, almost 200,000 tweets and of course, a dozen sheep!
1) 2015 changes, learning from 5 years Web Summit
- 650+ meetings during mentor hours for investors to advise startups on their challenges
- Startup University: a tiny stage for startups to question speakers about critical issues. The “Young, brilliant and underground 23: meet the leaders of today” with William LeGate, Rachel Fox and Riley Ennis was a real success. They shared a couple of tips such as: “with investors, make it about you rather than money” and “your personal brand is what people say when you leave the room.”
2) Paddy Cosgrave takes over the world
After the Web Summit and Collision (US), Paddy Cosgrave and his team have decided to take over the world with web conferences. In 2016, four major events will take place: RISE in Hong Kong, SURGE in Bengaluru, Collision in New Orleans and Web Summit in Lisbon.
3) 10,000 free tickets for female entrepreneurs
10,000 female entrepreneurs will be invited as guests to Paddy Cosgrave’s teams conferences in America, Hong Kong, India and of course, Lisbon. If you’d like to invite a female entrepreneur, just send her an invitation via https://Web Summit.net/change
4) “In Dublin, Tinder is bigger than Guinness.”
Sean Rad, cofounder of Tinder (the LA-based company founded by Justin Mateen, Jonathan Badeen and Sean Rad in 2012), was in conversation with Steven Bertoni, Forbes Senior Editor. “We are connecting people and making the world a better place with more than 1.5 million dates per week, 30 million matches per day” says the (once again) CEO of the dating app.
5) French gatherings
After Axelle Lemaire’s visit at the Web Summit on Wednesday, the entire French community gathered up for a Reviens Léon party at Yap Me’s offices with a great panel:
- Philippe Cayrol, Growth manager at Blablacar
- Matthieu Laporte, ancien joueur de rugby pro
- Stan Massueras, cofounder of YapMe
- Pauline Brown, Marketing director at Dataiku
- Bertrand Jelensperger (LaFourchette/TheFork/El tenedor CEO & cofounder) : whose startup was bought by TripAdvisor for an estimate $140 million in 2014.
- Julien Hervouet (iAdvize CEO & cofounder) : the amazing startup that helps develop an e-relation client relationship (click to chat, click to call, click to video) with 70+ employees and a presence in 38 countries.
- Laurent Muzellec, teacher at ESSCA and Trinity
The night ended at Opium with the French Tech ecosystem.
6) From #FOMO to #DemDebates
Dave Jakubowski, the Head of Adtech at Facebook gave us his main tips concerning marketing :
- Social connected the world
- Focus on insights from real people
- Mobile broke the internet
- Native is king
- Be where your customers are
According to him, the key to an efficient marketing strategy is for it to be: accurate, persistant and scalable.
7) Pitch competition sponsored by Audi
From 200 selected startups to 40 in the semi-finals, the winners are :
- For the alpha category : Connecterra, the ‘Fitbit for cows’
- For the beta category Bizimply, the all in one restaurant management software
A special congrats to Jaclyne Clarke, the Lady Pitch Night (organized by Girls in Tech Paris) winner, who made it to the semi-finals with her startup Findify, the intelligent e-commerce search powered by machine learning and big data.
8) “I would never use wifi here”
Nico Sell was on stage to talk about how to protect the digital soul. Privacy, the new fame ? “Every company should hire hackers” according to the founder of Wickr, the “self-destructing, secure, private, anonymous” communication tool.
9) “Toy Story will be turning 20 this month”
Pixar’s president, Ed Catmull, was on stage for the Web Summit closing act. He shared his vision of business and his team: “Always allow practical jokes and childishness in business. You should measure the team NOT by output but by spirit and laughter.”
10) Bye Bye Dublin, hello Lisbon
After 5 years in Dublin, Web Summit will be moving to Lisbon for 2016. The Irish RDS will be replaced by MEO Arena and FIL Feira Internacional de Lisboa.The first event was small, with just 400 attendees. Within 5 years, it has grown to 42,000 attendees. Web Summit has grown into the most important gathering of tech startups on the planet.