From a Barbecue To One of The Largest Startup Events In Europe | Benjamin | TechBBQ

and a couple of other serial entrepreneurs who just got together and had a barbecue and had a great time with a lot of like-minded [music] peers. So maybe 50, 60, 70 people. And they thought to themselves that this was great. And they felt that when they started their journeys, they lacked that community. I don't care very much about being a lot larger. When you get to a certain size, it's almost at about 5 or 6 [music] thousand as well. It gets increasingly harder the more you are to find the [music] right people. It's our role to make sure that the best experiences also are on the [music] floor at Tick Barbecue and so the speakers don't just come and then go out again, but that they stick around and meet the people. Organizing a large scale event, you rely on incredible collaboration across departments. That's what investors [music] are focused on. And if you don't fit what they're looking for, you're not going to be able to raise capital. >> Benjamin, nice to meet you. >> Hey, great to meet you, Julia. So you are the CIO and the CEO of Tech Barbecue. >> Yeah. Could you tell us a bit how you incorporated in Tech Barbecue and what was when you came and what is now? >> Yes. So uh I this is my 10th year at Tech Barbecue. Uh I started as a volunteer during my studies. I uh I saw this exciting uh job ad for a paid internship. I applied for it. I went to an interviews and I didn't get it. But our CEO asked if I wanted to come anyway as a volunteer. So I did that for about six months and then about three months in he said, "Would you like a job after all?" And so it was kind of a match made in heaven. Early on we we clicked. It went pretty well. And uh yeah, now I'm 10 years in. 10 years ago it was a yeah, a smaller gathering. It was um I would say about 3,000 people, two and a half, 3,000 people at a much smaller venue. And uh we've been scaling it to about 10,000 attendees to over 90 countries and uh throughout the entire journey we've just been hyperfocused on making a difference for founders. >> What's the main focus of Tech Barbecue? Founders, investors, operators. >> Yeah. So all of them are part of the ecosystem but at the center of attention is uh to make a difference for founders and all of the stakeholders around. So you have the investors, you have subgroups under investors like LPs, angels, early stage, late stage investors and everything in between. Um journalists, you have community builders, uh you have government arms, you have private companies like Google that supporting with credit and everything in between. And all of them play a role as a global ecosystem helping founders. And we bring all of this together and we're essentially just a platform where we hope that they meet and support the right founders at the right time. terms of the of their journey and uh yeah that that's really how we're we're trying to build and operate. So founders at the center of attention the ecosystem is incredibly important and we're trying to position the ecosystem to help the founders the best. >> What's the origin of tech barbecue? >> So it started about I think 13 years ago. It was a small gathering. It was a couple of serial entrepreneurs. It was actually uh the previous CEO of Just Eat that scaled Just Eat globally. uh the co-founder of Unity uh the co-founder of Wideway uh and a couple of other serial entrepreneurs who just got together and had a barbecue and had a great time with a lot of like-minded peers. So maybe 50 60 70 people and they thought to themselves that this was great and they felt that when they started their journeys they lacked that community. So they thought maybe they should keep going like that. And after a couple of years where they kind of paid out of their own pocket, they uh they wanted to professionalize it a bit and maybe not have to pay for everything themselves. So they approached our current coit who was doing something called startup parliament and said, "Hey, do you want to take over tech barbecue?" And uh thankfully he did. Uh did a couple of tech barbecues in our opera house and um and another venue too. I think it was a CBS. And then uh then I joined in 2017 where we were at the meat packing district for a couple of years. Then we went to the locomotive um venue and now for the second year in a row we've been at Bella Center. Yeah. And we're Europe's second largest tech event founders today. >> Amazing. Congrats. >> Thank you. >> I heard also from Kevan that each year tech barbecue has grown in numbers right of attendees. >> Yeah. How do you maintain this grow and which actions do you take to impulse it? >> It's a very good question. Uh to be honest and this is a personal opinion a lot from tech because you share it but it's also a bit nuanced. Uh but I don't care very much about being a lot larger when you get to a certain size. It's almost at about five or 6 thousand as well. It gets increasingly harder the more you are to find the right people between you know it's it's harder to find the people that you want to meet. So especially today and last year we've been very focused on creating intimate inspiring side events with relevant people. So for instance uh this year we're hosting the future of fintech. We always partner with a renowned founder and this one is with sand from flat pay uh where we're inviting 250 to 350 of the best fintech founders, operators, executives, investors to come and meet. so they can meet amongst like-minded peers. It's sort of like a small divorce uh but founder focused. So we have these events in the event in in large 500 square meter event rooms inside a bella where this is happening for like a half or whole or two-day event. So this year we're doing the future fintech. We have an aentic AI event. We have defense and dual use, deep tech, life science, and we actually also have a stakeholder type event which is a board summit. So focused on board members working in in startups and scaleups. So we're we're very focused on creating these intimate inspiring side events with relevant people rather than trying to grow another thousand or 5,000. Naturally, you will grow when you do this. uh but it's a growth that more interesting in the sense that it doesn't dilute the amount of relevant people that's around and once you get very large what tends to happen is that people host side events around the event instead of attending the event and uh that's a disservice to everyone who's at the event in our opinion it'll always happen and I love all of the side events around it but our um I guess it's our role to make sure that the best experiences also are on the floor at tech barbecue and so the speakers don't just come and then go out again but that they stick around and meet the people. We also don't don't have a a huge backstage where speakers just hang out. We hope that they go straight from the stage out to the audience and mingle with like-minded peers cuz if we do that all the way around instead of secluding them everywhere, you know, the general level of the flow is is very cool and all the inspirational people that the newfound founders look up to. They will spot them in the audience. They'll learn from each other and they'll meet each other and so very much focused on scaling through intimate inspiring side events. What's one thing that you cannot avoid if you really want to do a successful event >> in the organization? [clears throat] >> Organizing a large scale event, you rely on incredible collaboration across departments. So you need a a very good dynamic between people uh a very f a large focus on being helpful. The opposite of being silo driven. If you have a silo driven organization, you're not going to succeed doing something like tech barbecue. you just aren't because you will have some of the largest uh of our partners are the likes of Google and Microsoft and Nvidia. They have some great speakers and so we can help provide you know great speakers for the program. The people who are focused on building relationship with founders and investors could also support the program but uh if we don't think about other departments like the program and if the program doesn't think about other departments other than their own we will not create the best event possible. Which challenges does your role entail as CCO and CIO? >> I'm responsible for our revenue and so I'm always very focused on being missiondriven and having a huge faith in that if we just focus on building a diff making a difference for founders the founders are going to be around and if the founders are around then the sponsors want to be here the attendees will sign up and so on and so forth. So that's the simple answer. every every product that we do should be there to make a difference for founders. >> You've seen a lot of startups, scaleups, companies around. Is there any lesson that you would like to tell the audience if they come to tech barbecue to be successful? So I would say building a startup uh one thing that I've learned that has changed in the modern era of AI is that uh it's a lot more powerful to be lean and work smart and be let's say AI native and work on refining that and so that when you scale you can scale to be an incredibly big company in terms of revenue with a very lean company in terms of full-time employees, but they are all AI enabled, AI native, and that's really the venture game today. That's what investors are focused on. And if you don't fit what they're looking for, you're not going to be able to raise capital. And that's okay. You don't have to go that direction. But if you're trying to become a venture-backed startup, this is what they're looking for. And that has changed over the last three years. And it's still something that need to change in their mindset. But the ones who really nail this, they're going to be very successful.