Paddy Cosgrave

@paddycosgrave

@rrhoover I'm hoping Ryan Hoover will become favourite, I've heard great things :)... so the truth is when you're running a conference you don't actually get to appreciate every speaker in a way that I'd like. There's just not enough time. Personally my highlights are all related to one simple thing: pub crawls. The fact that Elon Musk, Bono, Jack Dorsey and so many others have happily gone on pub crawls with our attendees when they were at Web Summit was kind of magical, and really speaks to the spirit of the whole community.

⭐️

Ben Tossell

@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt

If you had to swap lives with a tech CEO for a month, who would it be and why?

5 share tweet・9 months ago

@paddycosgrave

@bentossell Fabiola Gianotti - she runs CERN - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa...

1 share tweet・9 months ago

@paddycosgrave

@bentossell it's not just incredibly interesting work, it's so fundamental to everything.

upvote share tweet・9 months ago

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

Hi Paddy thanks for joining us today! What secrets to the Web Summit's growth can you share with us? How did you build your audience to such heights in such a short space of time?

4 share tweet・9 months ago

@paddycosgrave

@ems_hodge hey that's a great question. Grew up on a farm surrounded by cows and computers. Always interested in software. Tried to make some software in college. Failed. Started a little conference 6 years ago. Applied software to the challenge of bringing people together. It seemed to work. Web Summit has gotten a lot bigger. We use things like graph theory, computer vision and statistics. Our team is part engineers, part data scientists, part conference people. We just focus really hard on making every tiny component of what we do better, from our lanyards to our signage to our own mobile and web apps. It seems to work most of the time. But there's no such thing as perfect, and we work on that basis. Everything we do is imperfect, and next time around we need to make it better. That include how people queue, register, listen, navigate etc.

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Vinay Khosla

@vinay123 · Co-founder Zenyx.com. Builder. Investor.

Hi. At the Web Summit in Lisbon, which topic will be discussed more: Brexit or Trump? What effect do you think Brexit will have on the tech landscape in Europe, if any? Thanks.

3 share tweet・10 months ago

@paddycosgrave

@vinay123 Trump. Web Summit happens on the week of the US Election.

upvote share tweet・9 months ago

Harry Stebbings

@harrystebbings · Podcast Host @ The Twenty Minute VC

Paddy gig fan of yours here and have heard wonderful things, I am intrigued to hear at which point you decided that this could be a massive business and what the catalyst to this realisation was?

@paddycosgrave

@harrystebbings There was no plan. It didn't start as a business. It took two years until we moved out of my sitting room. Four years later there's over 100 of us beavering away in Dublin. I don't think we decided ourselves. When you create a product, like ProductHunt, the community decides... if that makes sense. They ultimately turn your crazy idea from something that starts as a passion and then becomes something more.

Thomas Stöcklein

@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com

What are some of your favorite: 1) apps 2) books 3) movies 4) Gifs 5) newsletters?

@paddycosgrave

@tomstocklein books are meditation. Underlining in particular. If I want to travel in space or time, I read books. Perhaps too much. In terms of an interesting book that I've recently read, it's go to be Inferred Function of Performance Learning - it's long and dense, but fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Inferred-... Every morning I use Google's Scholar Metrics as a starting point for an hours reading of academic papers. I generally just read the abstracts, methodology and conclusions/results in a particular field. So I start with papers that are bubbling up in say organisational behaviour over the last 5 years, and then work from there. It's amazing what you learn: https://scholar.google.com/citat... I avoid all books on best seller lists. If it's in an airport book shop then I'm not reading it. I accidentally read a book on check lists a few years ago. It essentially took a paragraph from an academic paper, used some Gladwellian devices, and extended that paragraph to two hundred pages. It's an inefficient way to learn. If I want to learn fast, I don't want narrative or other literary devices, I just want facts and footnotes.

Kunal Bhatia

@kunalslab · Co-founder & Design Lead @SlidesUp

@paddycosgrave what's your biggest challenge in running Web Summit, Collision, RISE, etc. as these conferences continue to grow? How does that challenge compare to challenges with more intimate events like F.ounders?

@paddycosgrave

@kunalslab Logistics... organising events on the other side of the world is a huge challenge.

1 share tweet・9 months ago

Susana Campos

@susanacampos486 · CMO, 486software.com

Hi Paddy, its 486Software first time at Web Summit Lisbon. Give us your main tip for the show. Thanks

@paddycosgrave

@susanacampos486 Great to hear you are coming - we have lots of startups coming from Porto. There is a basic thing we always say to startups coming to Web Summit and that is “do your prep” and then be prepared to hustle, hustle and hustle some more. Our startup team will help as the days count down with lots of tips and advice. But in more general terms, I think you have to come to an event like Web Summit with an open mind. Come to meet people and be open to new ideas and new contacts. Attendees tell us that's what makes their Web Summit special.

1 share tweet・9 months ago

Theoharis Dimarhos

@theo_dimarhos · Marketing+Biz Dev at AngelouEconomics

Hi Paddy! If you had to start all over again with your event, what five things would you do differently?

@paddycosgrave

@theo_dimarhos I'm not sure about 5 things, but I'd definitely get a more comfortable sofa for the first 2 years.