5. Rethinking Trade Shows for Early-Stage Startups
- Nishchal Dua VP Marketing, inFeedo
My take is that if you’re under a million dollars ARR, tradeshows or any large events only work maybe 10% of the time. They will work for that one person whose case study you are reading and getting inspired by, but 9/10 people will burn their hands and lose their money.
You should not set up a booth at a trade show unless you’ve reached a level where you can spend money on brand awareness. And you only need to do that once you cross $2 – 2.5 million ARR, at least.
The reason is that trade shows are highly inefficient and expensive, especially in the US. To give you context, it takes us almost 2.5x more money to do a similar-scale event in the US compared to India.
To do a trade show, you need to pay for a booth, a speaking opportunity, and the travel of three to four of your salespeople. In India, this is about $15,000. In the US, it’s $40,000. It can even border on being 4x.
This amount of money is very large to burn at an early stage, and you get desperate to get any deal out of it, which is never a good place to be. Also, it's a very crowded market. There are thousands of sponsors and booth exhibitors at any good trade show. In India, there are hundreds. In the US, there are thousands. You will be lost in the crowd.
Moreover, you still need to nail your PMF as an early-stage startup. You don’t know your ICP, if your messaging works, or what your best demo deck looks like. You don’t know if those prospects will convert in three, six, or nine months.
This is why I would not recommend doing trade shows, creating booths, or sponsoring events in person. The only reason for you to attend a trade show, if you’re sub-million dollars in ARR, is that you go as an attendee to learn what others are doing.
Go for intel, not for business. I've seen many founders do this very smartly. Figure out what events your ICPs are sponsoring and attend to learn from them.
For example, if I’m a Martech product, instead of going to a Martech event, I will go to a Content Marketing tradeshow where my ICP, who is a marketer, will set up a booth.
I will know which 50 companies are my target customers and will have a booth at that show in advance. I would create a custom deck for each 50, go as an attendee, and show them their custom deck.
So, I’m not sponsoring, setting up a booth, or going there already. My ICP exists and is taking a very focused approach to selling to them as attendees.