- Short Description:
- By acting as a convener for events, you can put yourself in the flow of ideas, people, and deals. These events can be closely related to investment themes or more broad. Events can vary in size and complexity from 10-person meals to 1000+ person conferences. When you Host Events, you are more focused on the content. In Have Fun, you are more focused on socializing.
- Benefits:
- Reciprocity: If you are hosting someone, reciprocity norms call for them to give something back. You hope that they will reciprocate with a lead on a deal.
- Builds Relationships: When you spend time in person with people you can build enduring relationships.
- Reflected Status: by appearing “on stage” with experts or other high-status people, you can get reflected status. The higher status may help in generating deal-flow and winning deals.
- Trade-Offs:
- Host Skills: Not everyone is good at playing host. You will want to be comfortable being in the spotlight.
- Logistics: It may be harder to get everyone together in person. You may only get people close to the event to attend. One way to manage this is to host your event alongside another bigger event.
- Cost: With food and physical location, the costs can add up. Do you charge to defray the cost? That can undermine the reciprocity norm but can increase Reflected Status.
- Attribution: is it harder to measure attribution than other sourcing techniques?
- Examples:
- Upfront Summit
- SaaStr by SaaStr Fund
