Created by the team behind Web Summit, Collision is one of the fastest-growing and most popular tech conferences in the world. It’s an ideal place to meet other start-ups, venture capitalists, and investors. For Roam, it was a great opportunity to network, meet with organizations and companies, and showcase what we do. Read what the 3-day experience at Collision Conference 2022 was like from the words of our CCO, Hugo Wolfert, and our Account Executive, Louis Lamonerie.
Day 1: Booth day
Hugo and Louis: The first full day of Collision was a booth day for us. And it went really well! Plenty of people stopped by, some to set up a potential partnership and use our products, others were just curious to see how we managed to reduce battery drain by 90%. It was really cool to see the variety of startups at the conference. So thanks to everyone that stopped by!
The first day of the conference is always the busiest and surrounded by the most hype, so it was a lot of hard work but equally rewarding. Since it was a booth day for us we weren’t able to see many other startups, but we knew we had 2 full days for that. In the end, we weren’t really sure what to expect on our first day, but it was even better than expected if that makes any sense(?).
Day 2: Walking around, networking, & meeting people
Louis: On our second day we got to walk around and network. We met with the great NLatCollision team, filled with organizations from all parts of the Netherlands. It was great to talk to them, and we even got to do some networking to potentially set up meetings with interesting companies for us. So we were very thankful to them for that, and for the events that they organized after the conference days.
We spent the rest of the day walking between booths, and once again it was great to meet so many interesting people working on really cool projects. We also attended a few talks, which was interesting considering the great lineup of speakers Collision had set up. For instance, we got to see McLaren Racing’s Head of Commercial Technology, Edward Green, give two talks on “Winning F1 races”, and “the technology racing ahead in Formula One” (which was great for F1 nerds like Hugo and myself).
Hugo: NLatCollision was there with a few startups from the Netherlands, helping them get in touch with some significant players in their respective markets. Besides this, they also work on getting exciting new talent to the Netherlands. Their booth was there for 2 reasons:
- Networking for the Dutch (with other Dutchies and foreigners).
- Informing people about the business/startup climate in the Netherlands, and what the Netherlands has to offer to these entrepreneurs/ businesses.
It was great to meet them on our second day, and we’re thankful for the networking opportunity they gave us and their hospitality!
Day 3: More of that walking and networking stuff
Louis: The final day was a shorter one, especially since it was a lot less busy than the first 2 days. Nevertheless, we still walked around booths and talked to any remaining startups and companies we didn’t meet the first two days. We spent a big part of the day also attending talks and chatting again with the NLatCollision team. Most importantly, I’m very grateful for the air conditioning, it was a hot day.
Hugo: A big thing at this conference was privacy! Even though GDPR is a European thing, it was heavily included in many of the talks. Throughout the three days, we noticed that many people value our stance on privacy and see that as one of our biggest assets (besides our product features). Also, location is hot. Speaking to people on our last day, many of them noticed that you can do a lot with location and that it adds to the user experience. For some, the use case is more straightforward than for others, but with that said many companies saw value in it. That’s of course nice for us haha.
Final thoughts
Louis: I am very grateful for the opportunity to come to Toronto, [I] really enjoyed the city, and of course the conference. Looking forward to coming next year, and even perhaps checking out Web Summit in November.
Hugo: All in all a very successful conference for us. The opportunity to meet so many people in a short time and have direct conversations with them was amazing. This could also be felt in the room in general, for many this was the first big conference again (since the pandemic), so that was very exciting. We’ve seen a lot, done a lot, it was very worth it! Also good to get more in touch with the North-American market. A conference like Collision is a perfect opportunity to speak to many “local” people. Hopefully, we can do the same for the European market at Web Summit.
While the conference only lasted 3 days, our post-conference work has started now, and that’s equally exciting.