Flowpoint at Web Summit 2022

Getting ready

Like the White Label Expo from Frankfurt, attending the Web Summit 2022 was a very spontaneous decision.

I was scrolling through social media one day and saw an advert from Web Summit. It featured the Alpha program for start-ups, where you must undergo a selection process and fit some criteria. If we were to be accepted, we would receive three tickets and a booth for one day at the Web Summit.

I instantly remembered my discussion with Andrei one year prior when we had visited Lisbon. Back then, we said we would only go to the Web Summit the following year if we had our product to showcase. So that moment, when I was scrolling through social media and saw Web Summit’s advert, I realized that we now have one, and it’s time to fly to Lisbon again.

The application process was smooth, as we were ticking all the boxes. We eventually got accepted. The next step was to book accommodation and plane tickets, and two weeks later, Andrei, Stefania, and I met in Lisbon at the airport.

Day 1 – The secret gathering and opening night

The first day was already intense. I was invited to attend a meeting with other 200 start-up founders organized by Web Summit but in a secret location. So, of course, I said yes, and on Tuesday at 9 AM, I was grabbing breakfast with this group of exciting people who were all sharing their stories while queuing for their cappuccinos.

We learned a lot of things from each other, such as from our experiences about scaling a business and ideas about product-led growth strategies.

In the evening, we all attended the Opening night! The arena was full, with about 75k people attending, and we are already thrilled for the upcoming days. Again, we saw huge crowds of enthusiastic people all waiting to see what was coming next during the week.

Day 2 – a 5 hour trip and loads of new features

Day 2 hit us hard in the morning. While we were on track based on the schedule we had developed a week before, leaving the accommodation at 7:45 AM made us arrive at the Altice arena at around noon, making us miss some early meetings and conferences.

However, being stuck for 2.5 hours on the highway resulted in an excellent team-building experience as we observed how we problem-solve under pressure.

Just as we finally convinced ourselves that waiting in traffic for 2.5 hours had been a fun experience, we ended up queueing at the arena for another 2 hours.

But this was great as we met some fantastic entrepreneurs from our home country who were happily waiting to get in.

After all the good stuff from outside the arena ended, we finally managed to get in and attend some of the conferences we had on our list.

The highlight of the day: an impressive presentation about product-led growth.

We wrapped up the whole day late in the evening with a complete list of ideas and features we must implement that have been added to our roadmap today, surrounding a better onboarding experience, user engagement, and more.

We hope you will soon see all those new things on our platform.

Day 3 – 5AM club

We changed the game a bit on Thursday, starting early in the morning. As we didn’t want to end up at the arena again at noon, we decided to leave the accommodation at 6:30 and drive before everyone else.

It was terrific; we arrived before everyone else and settled in properly.

This day was more about investment and gathering information in preparation for our seed round next year.

It was also full of networking opportunities, discussed at a roundtable with Daniela Braga, CEO of Defined.ai, – one of the hottest unicorns in the AI space that attended the Web Summit this year with many more entrepreneurs from different parts of the world.

We went the extra mile in the evening and attended the Night Summit. An event in the evening organized by the Web Summit where entrepreneurs can meet in a more casual environment over a beer.

It was cool; however, we immediately remembered that we woke up at 5:30 AM, and the next day it was our booth day, and we had to do it again.

Day 4 – The big showcasing day

Of course, on Friday, we arrived at 7:30 AM again before everyone else did, but we had to install our tech and prepare people to come and check out Flowpoint.

The day was fantastic. Loads of visitors came to our booth, telling us about their painful experiences with the current analytics solutions out there and how grateful they found our solution. This made us incredibly proud as we got some additional validation and plenty of new customers and started discussions with several partners from different parts of the world who are planning to help us expand in the next several months.

We listened to great feedback and learned about many other start-ups and their current challenges.

At the end of the day, even though we were exhausted, we were super enthusiastic about returning to work the following week.

The end

Last day we got the chance to visit a few unique places around Lisbon but also relaxed throughout the day to recover our energy for the following week.

Best ideas usually come when you are relaxing after long periods of hard work, so the last day was very welcomed.

We, of course, had to steal the Flowpoint banner, take it with us during our trip and turn him into a star.

Next year we will surely be back with even more energy.

So, Web Summit 2023, see you in a bit!