Web Summit and Slush 2024 takeaways: what’s up and what’s new?

Sitting in the plane from Helsinki this Friday morning, I found it a great opportunity to reflect upon my experiences at Web Summit and Slush. So, what’s new and exciting, if anything?

1. Omnipresence of AI in conversations, but no concern about Yuval Harari’s “Nexus”.

First and foremost, it’s the omnipresence of #AI in conversations. A new buzzword was in the air, and more times than I care to count people asked me: “Do you invest in AI?” Initially, I struggled with the answer, but then started asking a question back: “Are you from OpenAI , 微软 , or 谷歌 ?” Briefly enjoying the puzzled face of my counterpart, I then explained that true AI investment is beyond my financial capability, but that they, in all probability, are not an AI company either, but an AI-enabled business. From that moment on we could have an intelligent conversation. This situation effectively dates back to machine learning/big data craze, when everyone who managed to collect data of 1000 customers considered themselves a #bigdata business.

My educated guess is that AI follows the steps of internet adoption back in 1999, hopefully without a similar crash looming at the horizon though. For the last two decades nobody asks “are you internet business?” Even if you are a small hairdresser’s shop without conscious online presence, which is also hard to imagine, you are there on Google Maps and in many other places. In two years’ time there will be no sense in asking if you use AI or not – it would be impossible not to. Even if you try it for whatever reason, you will be smashed by AI-enabled competition, and there will be one non-AI business less in no time.

It was an interesting coincidence (was it?) that I was reading @Yuval Harari’s “Nexus” being there. It was kind of flattering to see that great minds think alike ??- I am certain that we are the final chain of biological evolution in the labor of giving birth to non-organic intelligence, and now I know that there are at least two of us out there. But not too many people seem to care about it; what they care about is building the next unicorn. It is fine, but our economic model as we know it is at the verge of a radical reshuffle powered by huge productivity leap and elimination of both blue- and white-collar jobs at a great scale. In no time robots will manufacture robots and code will write and deploy code, and I am not sure that our societies are ready for such abundance of resources and free time on our hands.

However, I had a conversation over breakfast hosted by VNTR in Helsinki whether today a founder is able to build a business alone using AI tools to scale it, from accounting to sales. The more I think about it, the more intrigued I become. Maybe, one-founder teams are really the thing of the future… Thank you for the nudge, Henrik JO Karlsson ;)

2. Startup founders’ learning curve – why there are still gaps with so much accumulated knowledge around?

I was quite surprised by reaction to my masterclass on go-to-market (G2M) strategy and my mentor’s hour on fundraising at Web Summit . I did not invent anything new, and anyway it is not quantum physics, but the attendants were mostly unaware of that stuff and quite liked it – I have some very nice messages to prove the point. Similarly, when I attended a masterclass by Heikki Haldre at Slush devoted to importance of “Non-customers” experiences, most of the founders didn’t know that either. That made me think that possibly our business education is broken – people leave classroom without knowing the things they absolutely need to know to avoid systemic errors. It added more food for thought about structuring our DMBA program for AAlchemy Ventures Growth Lab. The knowledge is there, but it is not properly packaged and delivered – and our executive team of myself, Maksim Leukhin and Panis Pieri intend to do it first and best ??

3. 6000+ investors at Slush vs. 5000+ startups – is it good or bad? What does it mean for professional players?

The biggest surprise for me this year was that the number of #investors at Slush was higher than the number of #startups – our industry had matured and attracted interest from adjacent fields: family offices, private equity firms, other types of outside investors. Similarly, I noted that, notwithstanding my experience described above, professional level of founding teams had increased. Those trends signify that risk level got lower, and expected returns should follow downward trajectory too. And this is good news – gold rush is largely over, and we substitute shovels and nets with excavators and affinage factories, so to say. The global #innovation machine is ready. We, angel investors and mentors, will continue to play a significant role in the community, bridging the risk gap for VCs who come after us – I do not think that early-stage VCs will squeeze us out any time soon as what we do is more an art than a science, this is where our name AAlchemy Ventures come from by the way ??Maybe AI will substitute us completely one day, but so far it is more a valuable assistant, than a competitor to us. However, we will be training it on our own data??, so…

Another thing I articulated just this year for myself is that attending industry events, big or small, speak, teach and mentor has a profound positive spillover effect by changing the type of my marketing outreach from outbound to inbound – I more and more see people I am interested in to reaching out to me instead of me chasing them, and this is pretty much the same as moving from paid acquisition to organic. So much for the guy who spoken of the knowledge gaps of startup founders a couple of paragraphs before ??

4. Tips and tricks

We pulled one trick off at Slush with a team member registering as our portfolio startup rep. It was like a cloak of invisibility for him, and he could walk around the place meeting people not being pulled in 5 directions at the same time. I, on the other hand, felt safest in the investors’ lounge at Web Summit until one of the startup founders managed to get it through a hole in the perimeter ??And as soon as you get out you get peppered with leaflets and elevator pitches.

And here comes the tip to founders: cold approach is legit unless you begin the conversation asking me what I invest in. Do you seriously want me to pitch it to you? I am literally speechless by midday after speaking with people I wanted to converse with. The right approach is the opposite one: “We do this and this, is there a chance you may be interested?” It makes my life much easier as I just need to move my head up-and-down or left-to-right, which I am still able to do; and if I’m positive just connect with me on LinkedIn, give me a physical artefact if you have one and be on your way – your mission is accomplished, don’t push your luck too far, ping me the week after the conference when I will be obviously processing all the leads.

This is that, next newsletter will explore intersection of entrepreneurship and business management research and mentoring practices based on my experiences at RENT Conference and Bilbao Mentoring Conference. Subscribe not to miss it!