Advice to Start-ups : Do Not Sponsor Big Conferences

I am surprised to see how many new web start-ups that are sponsoring big conferences like Web2.0 Exp, Web 2.0 Summit, Digital Hollywood etc you name it.

I have only one advice to these companies:

If your target audience is not conference attendants (and they very seldom are) Do not waste your marketing budget on these events! It's a total waste of money. Your potential users/customers are most likely not early adopters, partially half-converted Internet savvy media people and developers. If I would be an investor I would be very upset to see resources wasted like this.

Believe me, if you as a start-up would instead pay anybody on the street $50 to become a user - I bet that it would be a better return of investment that paying outrageous sponsorship fees for web conferences.

Go where your users are. And they are everywhere. The big challenge is to aquire real users - Go and get them!

Technorati Tags: Web2expo, Web2.0expo, Marketing, Advertising, Start-ups, Web2expo

Comments

[Uri L.]

nice take - I also never understood why classic consumer apps sponsor big events, during their early/bootstrapping stages.
The 50$ idea could also be implemented with giveaways/coupons and contests, like many project already did...I think that several seasoned entrepreneurs have already mentioned that users would be willing to do a lot (=contribute content, take action on your site) if there's a nice prize waiting.

[kral oyun]

Good and perfect.
Precious work.