Notes from «Ded» in Singapore. Day two

The main events — Token2049 and Solana Breakpoint — are approaching, and the number of side events is increasing. If there were 73 events on Monday, by Tuesday there were already 206.

206 events per day, Carl! Scattered around the small center of Singapore, and there will definitely be people at each one, some speakers, some networking, catering. And half of them proudly call themselves pre-Token2049…

Just think about the high concentration of events, their organizers, attendees, networking, and pitching. How much such events comprehensively contribute to the development of the host country. Hotels, restaurants, taxis, souvenirs and so on, it’s obvious. But also the whole top of the industry came to your country, bringing ideas, contacts, products, knowledge, partnerships, energy.

I promise you — we will do everything to make something like this happen in Ukraine. Speaking of the quality of the events we organize, we are not ashamed of it at all. They are truly at one level with the top events here. And I mean the very best, because most events are slightly lower in terms of organization.

For example, badges. We just scribble our name with a marker and stick stickers on our T-shirt. So, in terms of organization, we’re top-tier, now we just need to scale without losing quality.

And, traditionally, a couple more thoughts.

• Practice makes perfect. Yes, a cliché, but it works. Just after two days of active networking, your communication skills and project pitching improve.

Because of the fact that you talk about your project (in my case, Incrypted) literally every 15-20 minutes, you notice reactions to every line, correct something, change something and in a couple of hours end up with an excellent pitch that’s been tested on a focus group. Plus, people ask clarifying questions and you keep improving your pitch with what they’re really interested in.

Here’s my point: if you have a project idea, MVP, or even a finished product — or anything that requires people — pitch it to as many people as possible. Events with a lot of people are perfect for this, but you can start with friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and so on.

Get really excited about your idea, practice it, and you’ll be able to pitch it to thousands, and possibly millions of people! By the way, you can practice pitching at the Incrypted B-Day Meetup.

• Among the participants in the side events, you can clearly see the trendiness of project directions. In other words, a lot of people are working on more or less similar products, the ones they believe the market needs right now.

On the one hand, this is normal and natural. There seems to be a certain demand, and people try to satisfy it, competing for a place under the sun with other contenders. Your task is simply to make it better and sell it more expensive.

I actually like this kind of approach. I’ve always said that everyone is baking bread, but that’s the fun of it — to enter a market full of competitors and offer something unique. It’s cool and interesting, and it seems like there’s user demand, but it’s not always feasible, and things might not work out. Either your competitors are more capable, or everyone misjudged the demand.

The second approach is to look for empty niches, as in the book “Blue Ocean Strategy”. Who hasn’t read it, I highly recommend it.

• One “live” conversation is better than a hundred Telegram messages, that’s for real. Despite the technological leaps, the future in the smartphone, and so on, nothing is yet as effective as face-to-face communication.

A lot more information is absorbed during a conversation, a lot more conclusions are drawn and decisions are made. There may still be more to come — I mean more effective online communication — but I’m still born in 1984, and live communication still rules.

Issues are still, like in 2014, being resolved on rooftops with a glass of wine in hand and I think that’s wonderful. Just two days of side events gave me so many contacts that the team will be dealing with it for at least a week. And that’s before the main events have even started.

• Everyone is making memes, everyone wants to invest in memes, launch memes, do market-making for memes, make X’s with leverage on memes, everyone wants to flip memes, memes, memes, memes, memes… GraGra. Such a trend…

That’s it, Token2049 is starting. Our team will be writing about the most interesting news and updates from the conference, and I’ll be sharing grandpa-like thoughts and observations. Thanks for reading.

P.S. Well, and traditionally a few facts about Singapore.

1. Only Singaporean citizens can be taxi drivers here.

2. Trees, and sometimes mini-groves, grow right in the skyscrapers, it looks super organic, peaceful, beautiful and eco-frendly.

3. Throughout the city, there are covered walkways connecting buildings to parking lots, bus stops, or shopping centers. To protect you from the sun or rain.

4. Almost all restrooms have low sinks for children. They thought about the little ones, so cute….

5. All traffic lights have a button that triggers a green light, and there’s also some sort of terminal where disabled and elderly people can attach something like a pension card and the crossing time will be extended.

6. 77% of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese.

7. The modern name “Singapore” comes from Sanskrit and translates to “Lion City”: “singa” — lion and “pura” — city. Its symbol is a lion with a fish tail.

Stay tuned to the Incrypted website for more information about TOKEN2049 and the side events of the event.