7 Ways to Stand Out at a Tech Conference

My name's Elena Volotovskaya, I'm head of Softline Venture Partners, a corporate venture fund of Softline Group, and Investment expert.

Last week, while I was in the UAE at GITEX GLOBAL 2022, I had over 60 meetings. Some of them I will remember for a long time, while others will soon be forgotten. The diversity of these meetings and their outcomes have made me think about ways to stand out in the crowd.

In this post, I combine all my observations about others and share tips and tools that I personally use to stay visible. I'll start by telling how I was won over in Dubai.

Come bearing gifts as the Orient teaches

Prepare a gift related to your partner’s interests: it always works, especially in the Orient. It shows your preparation and your willingness to go an extra mile.

At one of the meetings in Dubai, Nayagam Pillai, CEO of Seven Seas Technology (a leading system integrator in the UAE, now part of Softline Group), gave me a book by his classmate, the guru of the venture industry Mahendra Ramsinghani, called The Business of Venture Capital.  The gift was a nod to my work in the VC sphere and it had an added personal touch by being written by somebody Pillai knows. 

The book is full of insights from the leading practitioners on the art of raising a fund, deal structuring, value creation, and exit strategies. The author is an investor and consultant for leading security startups. As a seed investor, he has invested in more than 50 startups. 

Learn more about your companion

This is an extension of the previous advice. To choose the right gift, you obviously need to know something about the person. Therefore, your first step must be to determine the purpose of your attendance at the conference. If you are a startup founder and need to find investors, use social media to check out in advance who will attend. Follow the event’s hashtags and select five or so people each day.

After that, carefully study their accounts on social media and look for additional information about them online. You can learn a lot of important things about a person and their interests from interviews and even profile photos, and when the time comes, you’ll be able to easily keep up the conversation and make close contact. Believe me, talking about yesterday's football match, children, or a recently attended concert will definitely break down the barriers of officiality.

I advise you to put information about your potential interlocutors into flashcards so that you can refresh some talking points in your memory if necessary. If you have trouble locating the right person at the conference, you can turn to the organizers for help.

Take notes and write summaries of the meetings: who you talked to, what you discussed, results of the meeting, and your plans for the future. You can do it In a notebook, on your phone, or even on a business card –– the format doesn't matter as long as you do it. But if you don't write it down - you very well may forget it.

Become a storyteller 

The better you tell your story, the more people will listen. It seems like a simple thing, but very few people focus on the actual presentation. Write down your story and practice, practice, practice your presentation skills. If you need a role model, look for the way Americans do their presenting. They manage to combine showmanship with sincerity. Check your pitch not just for memorability, but also for honesty.

Speak clearly about what your product does and what value it brings. Remember that public events are not the place where investors go to study documents and commercial offers. Such steps come afterwards, if you make a good first impression.

Remember that you only have 30 seconds to grab someone's attention.

Demonstration

If you can show the product’s functionality in action, do it! Consider the availability and quality of Internet connection at the event. Instead of relying on Wi-fi, buy a local SIM card with internet access.

Take a photo

If the person you talk to seems approachable, ask them to take a picture together after the meeting. Sending the photo afterwards is a good excuse for a follow-up to the meeting. You can also post the photo on social media, tag your partner, and express your sentiments about the meeting with a caption.

Remind about yourself

If you followed the previous advice and wrote down the summary of your meetings, doing a follow-up to remind your interlocutors about yourself should not be a problem! 

Postpone other tasks to give your attention to the business cards you collected during the meetings. Otherwise you will miss the opportunities these meetings created. Send reminders about yourself to the people you met during the conference immediately upon returning home. Everyone you’ve met should receive a message from you with a meeting follow up. Sending a letter with your feedback on a conference speech to the speakers you don’t know personally is an accepted practice, and this can be your chance to make useful contacts.

In your follow-up letters, mention where you spoke, describe what was discussed, and make a specific proposal for cooperation.

To sum up, make sure to remind your interlocutors about yourself, and do it without delay.

Dress for success

It's easy to become just another face in the crowd at large events. Add something memorable to your outfit. It may be related to your product. As Christina Farr wrote at VentureBeat: “Who could forget the man in the wedding dress? Evergram’s founder (pictured, left) caught my attention when he tossed me a bouquet of fake flowers. I chatted with Duncan Seay, expecting to be merely amused but was struck by his shrewdness and sincerity. Like all great networkers, Seay followed up the next day.”

Here’s his 30-second pitch: Evergram is a “future messaging” app for weddings. It lets you send an audio or video message to a happy couple that is delivered at a later date. The idea originated when Seay was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to find a better way to communicate with his loved ones.

The distinguished Chris Myers (CEO @ B:Side Capital, ex CEO @BodeTree) summed this up concisely:

“Anyone who's met me at conferences or seen me on TV knows that I'm a bit of a bow tie fanatic. My bow ties and penchant for colored pants (thanks to Bonobos) have become somewhat of a trademark and help me stand out from an otherwise perfectly uniform crowd. 

In addition, my team and I always try to stand out in the way we interact with clients. For example, we always give away unique videobooks that automatically play when you open them.”

To summarize:

• Before the event, check out the list of contacts you are interested in and find them on Twitter, FB, or other social media, find out about their hobbies, and write down the possible topics for conversation

• Prepare personalized gifts

• Compose your 30-second elevator pitch, rehearse (a lot!), be sincere and confident

• Prepare everything you need to demonstrate your product (charge your phone, buy a SIM card and practice the speech)

• Take a photo together as a keepsake and a reminder of yourself

• Do a follow-up, and do it repeatedly, but unobtrusively

• Add a memorable element to your outfit in line with the event’s dress code and context.