Going to the Web Summit 2016?

Too Long; Didn't Read

50,000 <a href="https://hackernoon.com/tagged/individual" target="_blank">individual</a> people, 15,000 companies, a fair share of celebrities and a lot of glitter and glitz. Sounds pretty overwhelming. That’s what we’ve been told to expect from the <a href="https://websummit.net" target="_blank">Web Summit</a> this year. I’ve been to the event 3 times before and have found it pretty rewarding, despite some obvious issues that come with a conference this size. The Web Summit has received a bit of a <a href="http://tech.eu/features/6244/web-summit-scam-well-ask/" target="_blank">bashing in the media</a> and some of that criticism did resonate with me. Mainly because I feel like it’s easy for the whole <a href="https://hackernoon.com/tagged/startup" target="_blank">startup</a> scene to turn into a circus with a continuous flow of events. It’s not unusual for people to lose focus on their product when they’re busy pitching for investors and attending massive (not to mention expensive) conferences. At the same time, big events like the Web Summit and The Next Web are a great place to meet a lot of relevant people. In the end, it’s up to you to make the visit effective. I’ll be at this year’s summit with part of the <a href="https://squads.com/" target="_blank">Squads</a> team and I’d love to meet. If you’re a startup founder looking to build or grow your product, you can schedule a meeting with us by <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">contacting me</a>. In this post, I’ll share some recommendations for first-time attendees based on my previous summit experiences.