Conferences need revenue too whatever business model they have

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This year again I will be "an expert" at TechCrunch50 having the privilege of watching all these startups and judging them, which is a responsibility and I try to do it as good as I can. Thanks Mike and Jason for having me this year again, TechCrunch50 is awesome and I can't advise more startups to at least show up there and present if they can. I can only agree that the entire TechCrunch team heart is in TechCrunch50.

I have run with my wife Geraldine LeWeb for 5 years so we have learnt a thing or two about conferences and one obvious one is that it is not cheap to run them so revenues have to be generated. I would love to be able to get everybody for free but it is just not possible. LeWeb costs more than one million euros to produce and each year it is the same story: people want to come for free, startups want to have cheap booths etc.

I know both sides, being the head of a startup myself, and they aren't generally compatible. As the head of a startup, you want to keep costs as low as possible and participating at conferences is costly if you add up ticket, plane ticket, hotel and booth if you are an exhibitor. However there isn't a single week that I don't get an email from a LeWeb almuni telling us they raised funds at LeWeb, found a partnership or even sold their company, so the cost is an investment for the startups and it is generally worth it.

TechCrunch50 and Demo have different business models, and I have to say I prefer the one where the startup gets charged as little as possible. I presented Seesmic at Demo last year and we got good value for our money as well as a very qualitative experience, but I don't think startups should be charged that much whenever possible with sponsors, I think Chris Shipley should change her business model for Demo.

At LeWeb we also have a startup pitch contest and we started the first year charging about 500 euros if I remember well to present, just to cover all the administrative costs etc. We got criticism for that and we decided to give up and just ask for at least one paid ticket per startup presenting, which is really I think acceptable given the value the startup receives.

Competition is good, and I think it is great entrepreneurs have the choice between so many conferences. Again, I am very happy to be a judge this year again and will be happy to see you there.

Oh before I forget, we will throw a Seesmic party the last evening of TechCrunch50, so I hope you can join us there.