Web summit: how my startup that doesn’t exist was selected for ALPHA
This happened in 2016 but I never published it, so, here it goes.
I like to test things around me until they break, and figure out why they broke, and fix them. On a rainy day in Düsseldorf, when working for trivago, I started to see a lot of ads for web summit, the venue had changed to Lisbon, and, having lived in Lisbon a few years prior, I was extra curious to check it out better this year.
Out of curiosity, I signed up with my startup, a tinder for people looking for furniture, eg: “I am a man seeking a couch” and one could swipe right and left to find a match, and I decided to name it tinditure.io <- the .io domain means I’m a real startup.
The domain was never registered, and there was absolutely nothing on that page since the DNS couldn’t resolve a domain that doesn’t exist. Would they vet anything? Would they compare my idea/market/niche/app to others and make a decision, or are they simply looking at selling as many 1 metre booths as physically possible? Those were my hypothesis, and I was hopeful that my absolutely nothing wouldn’t be selected.
The first email included some expected scarcity and social proof selling tactics, these would make the next email seem amazing.