Colliding in Downtown Vegas

Over the course of the two days, May 13 - 14, Collision Conference attendees overtook Downtown Las Vegas. We strolled from the conference grounds to hotels, restaurants, casinos in our branded lanyards and yellow wristbands. At the slight risk of looking too much like tourists, we were able to easily identify fellow attendees and exhibitors, giving off a great sense of camaraderie. Handily enough, this also eliminated the issues of getting lost and forgetting names.

The conference was set up in a campus arrangement that spanned across a main building (awesome startups!), parking lot (food trucks!), a speakers tent and a networking tent. There was a diverse collision of startups, with companies flying in from the Mid-West, Canada and various European countries. We exhibited on Day 1 along with some of these great neighbors; Lono, Mojio, Teespring to name a few. We got some great questions from exhibitors and attendees alike about how to get more out of email!

The quick, dynamic twenty-minute talks proved an excellent format for short attention attendees. A range of valuable quotes were thrown around from speakers including; Ryan Holmes, Founder & CEO of HootSuite, Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, Nicole Glaros, Managing Director of TechStars and even the Mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman! There was talk of the need of companies to be transparent internally in order to succeed, of getting to know your investors ...because there is no divorce clause“, and of the importance of winning the trust of your customers.

But ultimately all eyes were on the pitches from finalists AirHelp, Sole Power, IMGEmbed and CareLuLu. These four companies solve very common issues in ways that are disruptive in their respective industries. Great job presenting, guys! We're looking forward to seeing these ideas develop over the coming months.

[ Posted Fri, 23 May 2014 21:55:38 ]