StartCon is great for networking and meeting everyone in the tech community. In Sydney, the startup community is much smaller than in San Francisco, so you’ll most likely bump into someone you know. For me, I regularly attend meetups on a weekly basis, so it was great seeing so many faces. There were a lot of awesome startups showcasing their products in the startup alley, one that particular stood out was Nitro, a coffee on tap based product targeted at offices! It was tasty and awesome!

Continuing on from part 1, here are some of the other speakers that I got to listen to.

  1. April Dunford – Founder
    April talked about how to make complex product simple, and how to position in a crowded marketplace. Look at trends and your market. We almost never position our products deliberately.  She gave a recount on an entreprise CRM she used to work for. It wasn’t doing to well until they target just rich investment bankers. So if you’re a freelance web developer and struggling to find clients, maybe target niche audiences such as just dentist, doctors or lawyers!

  2. Elijiah Woolery – Director of Design Education @ Invision
    Where does design break at a company scale? Understand the customer, be speedy, connect with the customers and put into practise! Do fewer things, better. Storyboards are great when everyone can work together and come up with ideas.

  3. Marvin Liao – Parter, 500 Startups.
    Learn to tell your story! What makes you special! Pixar only spend 20% of their time on animation, the rest is storytelling! Your sales pitch should be simple, should have your competition and how you differentiate from them, know your product, customers and channels! 
    Idea – Beta – Launch – Scale
    Sales person #1 should be you, the founder!!
    Build your funnel and always follow up on a lead! Always be closing because everything is sales!! Your startup relies on it.

  4. Robbie Allen – Intercom (secrets on onboarding new users)
    I didn’t manage to take much notes from this talk, but if they was one key take away from his talk is that you should remove any non – essential friction from your site. If the sign up process can be 1 step instead of 3, then it should be! If it doesn’t require a sign up, then don’t!

  5. Saneet – Crazy Egg
    Customer’s want your help, not your sales pitch! There is a difference between seeking attention vs paying attention. Check out the Troxler effect.

  6. Matthew Brimer – General Assembly Co Founder
    This was an interesting talk. Matthew talked about a dance boat party that he hosted in the middle of the day. No alcohol, no drugs. It turned out really great. No one could talk about their work!
    Here’s a few lessons you taught the audience about his experience hosting this:

    There was a lot more talks that I didn’t attend, but these will be uploaded onto the site in due course, and I will link it here once that is uploaded! Startcon is an awesome experience and there really is a startup feel to it, it probably is the best we’re gonna get in Sydney for a startup conference. See you next year!

    Hot tip: Don’t buy food inside the racecourse, walk out 5 minutes and you can get much cheaper food.