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independence4 unconnected
standing

contested · 3 claims against 3

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

6 claims · 5 articles · 4 receipts

window

2014-08-02 → 2025-03-28

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Choose the small room over the big booth

Events under a few hundred people convert better than large ones, and the cheapest version is turning up alongside a conference your customers already attend rather than paying to exhibit at it. Whether any of it is worth the days is directly disputed here, with one builder crediting a conference for the clarity that triggered his pivot and another ranking a talk far below a post or a product on reach alone.

Where this splits

Small conferences and side meetups are reported as the highest returning use of travel days, while others measured booths producing no leads and argue the time belongs in building and publishing instead.

  1. side 01 · 3 claims

    Small rooms and side meetups return the most

    Arvid Kahl · Corey Haines

    1. 1Choose conferences under about five hundred attendees over the big ones, because the small rooms convert better into business.
    2. 2Piggyback on a conference your customers already attend rather than exhibiting. FeedbackPanda's cofounder flew in, booked a hotel meeting room with a bar the same night, pulled in contractors and influencers, and shipped branded webcam covers and lip balm chosen for what online teachers actually need.
    3. 3An in person conference can be what finally settles who your main customer is. Kahl came out of MicroConf with the clarity that triggered the Podscan pivot.

  2. side 02 · 3 claims

    Events do not pay, build and publish instead

    Alex Kistenev · Pieter Levels

    1. 1Conference booths do not pay for themselves in signups. Go if you want to watch people react to your one line pitch, not for the leads.
    2. 2Networking events and coffee meetings do not move a product forward, so give that time to building and publishing.
    3. 3Rank your effort by how many people it can possibly reach: a conference talk reaches a room, a written post reaches far more, a product reaches the most.

What it returned

  • 88

    Across 88 days of work travel and 11 conferences in 2024 his best returns came from MicroConf US, MicroConf Europe and CaboPress, and he resolved to attend only sub-500-person events afterwards.

  • 2017

    During 2017 Standuply ran booths at three events: Chatbot Summit and TechCrunch Disrupt, both in Berlin, plus Slush in Helsinki. All three combined produced at most what an ordinary day with no marketing spend produced. The founder still rates watching reactions to the roll up banner as insightful.

  • A same night meetup alongside an online school's conference that people still talk about

  • Rough scale given as a thousand for a talk, a hundred thousand for a post, a million for a product.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

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