Launching Your Startup at a Conference; Lessons Learned by Yunoo

We have asked a few companies to look back at previous conferences and share with us what they’ve learned and share some advice with companies that might be considering attending this year.

Yunoo is a free online personal finance and money management tool where users can manage their financial life and save money in a simple and safe way. Currently focused on the Dutch market Yunoo presented at The Next Web Conference 2009 and consequently raised money. We asked them how they benefitted from our event.

TNW: What exactly did you gain by presenting at our conference?
Yunoo: Presenting at The Next Web made sure that we were visible for a lot of interesting companies and investors. After we had presented on stage during The Next Web startup competition, we were approached by one of those companies (Sanoma Digital). A few months later, we closed our first significant round of financing with them.

TNW: How have you grown since then?
Yunoo: When we presented at The Next Web, we had about 20.000 users. Now we have over 170.000.  We were awarded the overall ‘website of the year’ award in 2010 in the Netherlands and were named one of the top 4 innovative and successful concepts in the financial industry by Accenture in 2010 (and won the public vote for best innovative concept during the Financial Services Innovation Awards.)

TNW: What was your best memory from attending the conference?
Yunoo: Presenting on stage, giving a successful demo of our product. The parties afterwards were crazy too :)

TNW: What would you advise to other start-ups who are planning on launching during a conference?
Yunoo: Make sure that you get a chance to present your company/product on stage. Prepare a damn good presentation/demo of your company/product.  Practice the demo/presentation a million times. First impressions are critical and positive buzz is a must have for a startup.

Also, bring along as many people as you can from your team so that all of them can talk to people and experience all the reactions on the company/product first hand. Talk to as many people as you can!

Reserve your ticket today so you can meet interesting entrepreneurs and launching startups!