Maybe that’s something for Storj to attend:
Indeed, this can be interesting. 
Looks like a great event.
Wish I could volunteer to attend 
I bet. But honestly I see potential there. AWS, Microsoft and Slack are there for a reason. 
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Yeah I think that too. And Storj could make much more out of this than just attending an event.
Storj could position itself as not just for developers, but also as partner for startups.
Most startups need some sort of storage today and most startups will be grateful if they don’t have to pay high AWS prices for their storage requirements.
But in Munich you will also find a vibrant startup and entrepreneurship community and culture backed and supported by the two large local universities, LMU and TUM. This means there are a lot of potential customers and partnerships. Let me just link to some high profiles Storj could reach out to:
https://www.iec.uni-muenchen.de/index.html
https://www.iec.uni-muenchen.de/take-off/lmu-ec-accelerator/index.html
So if you ever want to go there, make sure to have enough time and schedule some further talks around it.
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Just in case anybody was wondering about how these universities rank, there was just a new ranking published: QS World University Rankings 2023: Top Global Universities | Top Universities.
According to them TUM and LMU are ranking 1st and 2nd place of Germanys universities.
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This looks great. I’ve added it to a proposed list of events. When I have confirmation I’ll update this post.
Thank you!
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Might be “B&B 2023” then, ugh 
When you pick it up, let me know. I know the founders in person since years. Potentially easier to get in touch (qed).
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Amazing. What a potential can be found in this community. 
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That was Bits & Pretzels 2022:
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And growing:
After 5000 in 2022 it seems this event has grown to limited number of 7500 attendees this year.
https://www.bitsandpretzels.com/
Bits & Pretzels hosts 7,500 founders, investors, and industry leaders for three days full of learning, networking & doing business during Munich Oktoberfest.
The list of speakers sounds again impressing as previous years:
- Jarek Kutylowski, Founder & CEO DeepL
- Toto Wolff, CEO & Team Principal Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
- Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO & Co-Founder Klarna
- Robert Habeck, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action
- Christian Lindner, Federal Minister of Finance & Member of the German Bundestag
- Tim Höttges, CEO Deutsche Telekom
- Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder & Chief Wizard Builder.ai
All speakers: Bits & Pretzels Founders Festival • 29 Sep - 01 oct 2024 • Munich
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FYI, we are participating in this upcoming event in Munich:
And we were also presenting at IBC in Amsterdam just a few days ago
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That was the reason to revive this thread.
I hope @john can stay in Munich for a few days and visit the Oktoberfest, which begins on September 21st.
It would have been a nice series of events for the Storj team to attend: IBC Amsterdam from September 13-16, the HPC Roundtable in Munich on the 19th, and Bits&Pretzel from September 29th to October 1st and of course partying at the Oktoberfest every day 
.
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Bumping this as Storj is supposedly looking for VC money.
Especially with that
at least for me this would be a chance I would not miss.
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Storj is missing out again?
See the reputable list of company names who have already recognized the value of this event:
And of course Storj has missed out on the Oktoberfest:
I will visit it next weekend. Does that count?
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Not trying to discount this specific event, but it looks more like it targets startups trying to find sponsors or trying to get bought, not looking for consumers.
I’ve been to some events of this type, nobody goes there looking for SaaS.
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That’s very short-term thinking.
But at least what should have been done as there was the offer to make direct contact with the founders of this particular event (Something interesting for Storj? - #8 by Bivvo) was to get in touch with them and discuss with them how suitable it is or what Storjs role could be.
What you make out of such an event is totally up to you. If your one and only idea is to go there, setup a booth and sell your product, this is probably not how it will be working.
It is a place to come in contact with the people behind startups and the partners of the event. Any startup today needs space for their data, operational data, backups, etc. probably mostly cloud driven today and the question is, will they store their data on Google or on Microsoft because the probably never heard of Storj.
It is an investment and a bet on the future similar to what VCs are doing.
Startups are great customers as they are mostly loyal and grateful for any help and support they can get when they are small. And when they grow they need more of everything including space for their data and Storj could grow with them. So when they start using your services and they stick with you and they grow that’s when things can start to pay off.
Just an example from recent years: When Flixbus started as little bus operator maybe they would have been grateful for a place like Storj to store their data because probably Google and whatever was available back then was very expensive.
Flixbus (Flix) was founded 2012 in Munich, Germany. They started as bus company with a couple of bus lines.
Today they have 95% market share on that in Germany, running buslines in 40 countries on 4 continents including USA. Their turnover 2023 was 2 Mrd. (bn) Euros and they are profitable.
Now they are expanding into operating trains. They recently ordered 65 highspeed trains for 2,3 Mrd (bn) Euros. Who knows, maybe they will even start to operate their own airline some day.
The story behind Flix is not so much about operating trains or buses, but also about the tech behind it. It is basically a tech company running trains and busses: Flix Tech - flix
And this is what I see when I look at this unique event: The chance to meet the next big thing that will grow rapidly as only startups can do, their data grows rapidly with them and if they store data on Storj and not on Google the data stored on Storj could potentially grow as rapidly with them.
That’s why targeting startups and founders has a huge potential. And basically all it takes is to let those founders know about Storj, maybe create some kind of startup storage package for them, network with them and have fun on the Oktoberfest. (There is much more that could be done in that area as already described like connecting to the universities in Munich who are huge supporters of startups, startup culture and students who want to found startups, one university was an early Flixbus investor back in 2013.)
Again, not trying to discount these ideas, but there’s always limited amount of events and potential customers a company of Storj’s scale to pursue, and Storj already has success attracting bigger fishes. It’s good to know about potential choice here, but saying they are missing out might be just as well not seeing the bigger picture.
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