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I have about 10 years working in the tech side of large B2B events, so comments are based on that. It’s fine to start a business in an industry you’re not craz

I have about 10 years working in the tech side of large B2B events, so comments are based on that. It’s fine to start a business in an industry you’re not crazy about but most people who make a success this way know there’s a ready and waiting market to earn money in with an existing product. People need plumbers and roofs need tiling. Most “start-ups” should be founded on the principle of “We’ve identified a problem and we’re the best people to provide the solution” and even then most of them fail. Even pivots are based on that principle (“what we built didn’t solve a problem but we identified another problem we can solve”). It sounds like you’re gone the route of “I’ve identified a market that I want to provide a solution for.” The events industry is big, which means there are a lot of people thinking the same. During my time I integrated our system with several companies that no longer exist. Many of these products didn’t solve actual attendee or organiser problems or desires and so uptake or return was very low. Attendee needs are fairly simple and limited (easy to buy tickets, get information about what’s on, and easy conference experience) and they rarely want anything more (e.g. only a tiny fraction or marketing types actually want networking apps). Conference organiser needs are many and they want to use as few suppliers as possible as each additional supplier means extra work on integration. So most of the businesses doing well in the event space are companies that can provide a large, near holistic product for them which covers a lot of needs. So to complete against them you’ll need a lot more resources than it sounds like you do. Reading between the lines it sounds like you already know what you need to do. If you’ve lost the drive and conviction that this will be a success then and unless you can find a real problem you can build and sell a solution for quickly and easily, then it’s probably time to call it a day. Try again in a bit and if possible without the pressure of money from family and friends.

ghaff 8y ago
Re: networking I don’t know how many networking apps (including hardware devices) I’ve seen over the years. They’re at best a novelty and more commonly unwelcome. I suspect the friction with just scribbling down an email, exchanging a business card, or later connecting on LinkedIn is superior to people using the tech to mass spam people.
- tonyarkles 8y ago
  That's definitely the case for me. Digging in my pocket, pulling out my phone, searching around for the app while trying to continue to ignore SMS notifications that I'd ignored during our conversation, then getting an error that the app can't connect to the Internet (because the conference Wifi is terrible)... that is so much more of a hassle than reaching into my pocket and exchanging business cards. For a big event, sorting through the cards after the fact is a little bit of a hassle, but I get to do that on my own time, not when there's a (often rushed) social encounter going on.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Exactly and there are apps to process business cards though I don’t use them enough to bother most of the time and only need one or two pieces of information—and LinkedIn for their faults is mostly my Rolodex anyway. And, as I say, I strongly suspect I don’t want something that is bump wristbands or something convenient or, worse, doesn’t require my permission at all to add me to some list.
- TomK32 8y ago
  Then offer attendees 50 business cards waiting for them at the sign in desk.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  what would be the most useful is something which everyone would need to use. phone app that tracked your location and time, and would show you the info on people you stood near for... maybe a min of 30 seconds? location tracking may not be good enough for this indoors all the time, but for me, that's the one thing that I've wanted at conferences - a way to remember who i was talking with without interrupting the conversation to ask for cards/emails (especially in larger group discussions).
  - ghaff 8y ago
    With all due respect, I do not want to be fracking tracked when I'm at an event. And loaded in a database somewhere. I can maybe be persuaded for event organizer use if it's truly anonymous--though given the difficulty of truly anonymizing I'm uncomfortable. The existence of such data has huge security/privacy implications given that people meet at shows to discuss all sorts of things that aren't on the radar. Maybe opt-in? I certainly wouldn't.

ghaff 8y ago

Re: networking I don’t know how many networking apps (including hardware devices) I’ve seen over the years. They’re at best a novelty and more commonly unwelcome. I suspect the friction with just scribbling down an email, exchanging a business card, or later connecting on LinkedIn is superior to people using the tech to mass spam people.

tonyarkles 8y ago
That's definitely the case for me. Digging in my pocket, pulling out my phone, searching around for the app while trying to continue to ignore SMS notifications that I'd ignored during our conversation, then getting an error that the app can't connect to the Internet (because the conference Wifi is terrible)... that is so much more of a hassle than reaching into my pocket and exchanging business cards. For a big event, sorting through the cards after the fact is a little bit of a hassle, but I get to do that on my own time, not when there's a (often rushed) social encounter going on.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Exactly and there are apps to process business cards though I don’t use them enough to bother most of the time and only need one or two pieces of information—and LinkedIn for their faults is mostly my Rolodex anyway. And, as I say, I strongly suspect I don’t want something that is bump wristbands or something convenient or, worse, doesn’t require my permission at all to add me to some list.
TomK32 8y ago
Then offer attendees 50 business cards waiting for them at the sign in desk.
mgkimsal 8y ago
what would be the most useful is something which everyone would need to use. phone app that tracked your location and time, and would show you the info on people you stood near for... maybe a min of 30 seconds? location tracking may not be good enough for this indoors all the time, but for me, that's the one thing that I've wanted at conferences - a way to remember who i was talking with without interrupting the conversation to ask for cards/emails (especially in larger group discussions).
- ghaff 8y ago
  With all due respect, I do not want to be fracking tracked when I'm at an event. And loaded in a database somewhere. I can maybe be persuaded for event organizer use if it's truly anonymous--though given the difficulty of truly anonymizing I'm uncomfortable. The existence of such data has huge security/privacy implications given that people meet at shows to discuss all sorts of things that aren't on the radar. Maybe opt-in? I certainly wouldn't.