Fundraising Networking Events

I showed up late to a Pavilion dinner and they made me sing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ on the spot—awkward, but it drove $327K in pipeline. Our team is heading to SaaStr & Gartner CSO. Here’s our No-Booth Pipeline Playbook: 1. List First, Luck Later Don’t come in blind. Research every attendee, speaker, and sponsor name. Enrich against your ICP. Run list in ChatGPT: “Give me 1-3 convo points I can build my value around”. Now you’re armed with a list and thoughtful ice‑breakers tied to their business. 2. Lock Slots Pre‑Flight Two weeks out, DM prospects, clients, and people you want to meet—now you have an easy start to warm you up with pre-booked meetings during the event. 3. Just Have Fun Convos People overthink it: “How will I start a chat?”, “Am I bothering them at lunch?”. Get out of your head! Everyone there is looking to connect. Just go and talk to them, compliment their red Nikes, ask for guidance, or just say hi. What’s next? They come ‘inbound’ and ask “so what do you do?”—that’s it. Easy. 4. Go Where the Crowd Goes Don’t lurk at empty barista lines or charging spots. Go where people go. At sessions, talk with the folks sitting next to you—the talks offer great topics to discuss. During breaks, lunch/coffee lines will allow more casual talks. 5. The Real Event = Afterhours VIP dinners, breakfasts, parties, cocktail hours—this is where the magic happens. It’s where people have real connections, are less stressed, and build real trust. My karaoke moment at dinner turned into a long night of networking with our ICP, which continued to late-night parties and post-event follow-ups. People buy from people who share Uber rides, not booth swag. 6. Nail Your Talk Track Don’t wait until day 2 to feel comfortable with your conversations. Write down your qualifying questions, short, casual pitch, and booking process. 7. Book Follow-Ups on the Spot This is where ROI often gets flushed down the toilet. People try to play the volume game, but if you’re just collecting emails—prepare to get ghosted. Have meaningful conversations, make them memorable, and book on the spot! The best event follow-up is no follow-up; We pull our Chili Piper + Take notes over a screenshot of their LI profile + DM on the spot, “Great chat!” + Send Aligned room to stay top of mind, prevent no shows, and capture buying signals. 8. Mind the Little Things - Don’t look at badges (it’s like “are you a DM?”) - Don’t disqualify titles (title ≠ influence) - Don’t wear what won’t last the day (i.e. full wool suit) - Don’t skip breakfast, or sleep (or drink too much) - Don’t forget water (and Tic Tac :) —— A neon booth: $100K. Uber to dinner: $18. There’s more than one way to attend events. What’s your wildest zero-booth win or best tip? Best story earns a karaoke duet at SaaStr 🎤 See you in San Mateo & Vegas.

❌ Stop selling at events! Do this instead: - First, reset your expectations. Events aren't made for selling. Sales think they are. Marketing wish they are. Management hope they are. They're not. (Unless you're selling B2C or very fast transactions <€5k ARR B2B. Maybe then...) Events are made for lead generation. If you do it right. Here how to strategize your your event funnel: 1) CATCH ATTENTION Candy, competitions, games, juggling, sound, vision, gadgets. Whatever does the trick. You gotta create traffic to your stand. (even purposefully asking questions at the end of keynotes so you can name-drop your own business and stand # can work) 2) ENGAGE & FILTER Talk to *everyone* that comes by the stand. Look them up. Engage. Don't hide comfortably behind your phone or colleagues. Question 1: Name Question 2: Company Question 3: Position Now --> #filter Are they a potential lead? - Yes, go to 3) ⬇️ - No, stop talking. Move on 3) CONVERSATIONS Assuming a *yes* from above. DON'T START PITCHING DON'T START SELLING DON'T START DEMOING Ask questions. Just ask questions. Do like you would do at a dinner with family and friends. Ask questions. Show genuine interest. Create a conversation. Learn as much as you can. People like to talk at events. If the conversation is great and you have a potential lead, then what? DON'T START PITCHING DON'T START SELLING DON'T START DEMOING Just book a meeting for a demo. Get the contact info. Take notes from your conversation. Close the conversation 5-10min in. Move on to the next person. 4) MEETING BOOKED Now you booked a meeting with an interested lead. You did *not* demo - i.e. there's reason for them to show up. From here on, the lead is part of your pipeline. You should know what to do 😉 - Trust me. This works. It will feel like you got the cheat codes. You'll fatigue way later. And your pipeline will 📈

Selling at live events is why most of them don't work. At Outset, we've learned to approach live events very differently. They're one of our most effective GTM channels. It's not because of pitches or demos. Come steal our “Community-first GTM” playbook: Build a stage, don't hold the mic ↳ Bring senior folks from the community to talk, not your team ↳ Pull panels that address the big fears and questions in your space ↳ Give people a reason to show up (learning, connection, honest conversation) ↳ Create space for them to discuss and enjoy together Put the right people in the same room ↳ Curate attendees thoughtfully ↳ Senior buyers, practitioners, people actually making decisions ↳ Quality over volume Don't sell while they're there ↳ Let the conversations do the work ↳ Trust forms first, everything else follows Think brand advertising, not conversion ads ↳ Events are like hyper-targeted billboards ↳ They pay off over time, not immediately ↳ But the impression is 100x deeper than any ad One of our earliest enterprise deals started at a live event we hosted. Weeks later, that conversation turned into a pilot. Then a rollout. One good conversation beats a dozen follow-ups. If you treat events like a funnel, you get leads. If you treat them like a service to the community, you get customers.

Hosting 2 exec dinners back to back reminded me that you don’t need a DJ booth and branded tumblers to build pipeline. You need proximity. It's 2025 and there's still this lingering belief that the bigger the event, the bigger the impact. The logo wall, the glitzy booth, the team dinner that cost more than a quarter’s marketing budget. IMO conferences are great for visibility, but they’re terrible for real conversations. You scan 300 badges. You remember 3 faces. And the best interaction you had? A random intro in the hotel bar. That’s not so much a strategy as it is simply gambling with your marketing budget. IMO the best way to do this is to go small, which ironically, will allow you to win big. We’re talking: 1. Executive roundtables with 20-30 handpicked guests (like the ones Sales Assembly does every month). 2. Working sessions tailored to a real, shared problem. 3. Dinners where the customer does 90% of the talking. 4. Field events where every attendee is pre-qualified and mapped to pipeline. Why it works: - You control the guest list. No wasted conversations. - You control the environment. No distractions. - You control the follow up. No getting buried in a sea of booth emails. These aren’t “networking events.” They’re high-trust conversion machines. Because when the room is small, the stakes get higher, the conversations get deeper, and the pipeline gets real. If you want to win business, don’t just go where everyone is. Go where real conversations happen. Or create those environments yourself. Thanks as always to Nooks, Capchase, and TigerEye for their continued partnership in creating these types of environments, including this one last night in Salt Lake City!

The best B2B marketing channel in 2025? Small group events. No contest. Not booths, not outbound, not AI-generated content. Real, in-person, exclusive, intimate gatherings. Dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants. Casual happy hours at local wine bars. Power breakfasts. Lunch & learns. Fireside chats. Or just vibes. This week alone we at Blue Seedling did two: ⭐ A breakfast with networking + a fireside with a former client CEO (you’ll hear all about this one soon) ⭐ A casual happy hour with clients (past, present, future), partners, and friends - no content, just conversation. ➡️ Why is this working so well right now? Because people are starved for human, authentic connection in a sea of AI SDR spam and robotized marketing. Because huge tradeshows with 5,000 people and 20 relevant folks are exhausting and impersonal. Because hopping in a car to meet 20 peers over wine feels real. Because these moments create a premium, offline, imperfect, very human experience, and that’s rare now. And when you get the right people in the room— Customers start selling for you. Prospects see the magic. A community authentically emerges. You don’t need a sales deck. You just need good food, good people, and good energy. I’ve written before about the power of community and the magic of customer-led storytelling. These events are the embodiment of that. No structured referral program. Just humans being humans. And yes, we practice what we preach. These photos are from this week’s Friends & Family happy hour. Twenty wonderful humans mingled, laughed, and connected. Perfect Tel Aviv weather and two special guests (looking at you Timothy Jung and Jordan Elkind) were the cherry on top. 🍒 Great for brand awareness (hello, LinkedIn). Great for prospect nurturing. Great for customer love. And the ROI? I’d take a $2K–$10K investment in one of these events over the same spend on ads or content or swag, any day. Sometimes the ROI is immediate. More often it’s long-term and compound. But always worth it. So yes, cheers to more small group, community building events in 2025. 🥂

Are startup events your cheapest unfair advantage? Most founders treat events and meetups like “nice to have marketing”. In reality, they are your fastest R&D lab, sales call, and investor meeting rolled into one noisy room. The tension:   You can build in isolation for 6 months   or   You can be “wrong” in public for 6 hours and save 6 months. Here is why events are so valuable for any startup, including Ryza: 1) You hear the unfiltered “no”   Landing pages and surveys give polite answers.   In person, people interrupt you, get confused, push back.   That friction is gold.   How they react to your 30 second pitch exposes:   • which problem actually lands   • which words confuse   • which benefits nobody cares about   Use that to refine your positioning before you spend on paid media. 2) You find aligned early adopters, not random leads   At events, the room is already pre-filtered:   • people who care about your space   • people who are actively looking for solutions or collaboration   A 5 minute deep conversation beats 50 cold emails.   You are not selling a product; you are recruiting champions. 3) You shortcut trust and partnerships   Online, it can take weeks to build credibility.   Offline, one thoughtful conversation plus a warm intro can unlock:   • a pilot customer   • a co-marketing experiment   • a critical advisor   You are not just networking, you are assembling the “unfair advantage” around your product. 4) You become memorable in a crowded feed world   Everyone is fighting for attention on LinkedIn and email.   Very few are willing to show up in person consistently.   When they later see your posts or product, there is a human memory attached.   That memory is what converts “interesting” into “let us talk”. Core takeaway:   Events are not a cost line.   They are a live testing ground for your narrative, offer, and network. #StartupGrowth, #NetworkingStrategy, #RefreshWithRyza, #GoToMarket, #BusinessDevelopment