Paycento Web Summit 2012 - Day two: Aaaaargh matie

Introduction

This is a follow-up post to the post from yesterday. While the first day was really nice, the second day was completely different.

Meeting people

After a good night of sleep and some breakfast at our AirBnb host, Geert and I got back to the venue. As this was our second day, we seemed to have less challenges handling the Irish traffic in our "Fiat Cinquecento". As we arrived there, we met up with Pieter again we had a small chat about the event he had the night before, had some coffee and a small breakfast (I love the catering at Web Summit), finished some things I had to do on my laptop, and started socializing.

First things first; as Geert introduced me to the guys from 8thcolor yesterday - another Belgian start-up -, I decided to go and see what their product "asksybil"actually was like. Christophe and Martin gave me a short demo about their product, and I was really amazed: by analyzing your source code commits, they actually make a smart estimate about the experience of a certain developer with a certain tech stack. They then use this data to determine your liabalility on this dependency, and even estimate your risk exposre by looking whether some knowledge is only known by a single person.

By talking with them, I realized I might have a potential lead for them, so I will try to introduce them in the next week into this company.

We also had some great discussions about possible evolutions/alternate paths one could follow with this product; and we decided to keep in touch. I really think this is a product to watch out for...

Another product I have seen was Birdbox: this is like a tool that aggregates all your pictures and videos over all social networks/sites/... I am definately going to try the beta of this. As we met over lunch I also told him about another startup idea I had, which in the end seemed to be similar, but not exactly the same; maybe it is still a potential case for my #Startup10 project.

We also met a lot of other people who were actually really interested in building a business relationship with Paycento, so we did achieve what we wanted to achieve on this venue.

The end is near

Near the end of the last day, we met the guys from BuboBox, another Belgian start-up who walked a path comparable to Paycento. As the venue was closing down, we decided to have a few drinks with them at the pub across the street, and I have to say I had quite some interesting discussions with both of the founders. After Pieter and Geert finished talking to the founder of 9Gag we all regroupeed and had a few beers, but mostly a good chat talking about start-ups, persistence and life in general. (On a sidenote, I also found out one of them actually did read at least one of my blog posts - the one about the trip to Paris -, which is always great to hear...)

I also noticed on twitter both @RobAshton and @GraemeF were in Dublin for a node conference, but unfortunately we failed to meetup this time...

Finally, in closing

... we decided to have dinner at an Italian restaurant close to the venue, to discuss the Web Summit, start-ups and Paycento. It was a great evening, and we gained some valuable insights, but also had lots of fun during dinner.

Finally, we headed back to our car, and arrived back at our AirBnb, where we said goodbye to our hostesses, thanking them for their hospitality with some Belgian beer.

So, that is it; Web Summit is gone.

As we have to get up within a few hours, and I still have some other things to do, I will end this post with a quote from Sun Tzu - The art of war:

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized"

Good night,

Tom