Flashback:
In 2012 we founded Springbeats and worked day and night on a prototype of our revolutionary collaborative Digital Audio Workstation that never got out called Instinct.
Excited by the product that was slowly taking shape, but also afraid that we’d lose ourselves in non-core features, I somehow managed to convince Denis that we needed a deadline to keep the motivation high. What better deadline is there than presenting a demo during the Musikmesse? It was the biggest music fair in Europe, taking place in Frankfurt, Germany. It would also cost money, so that was a good kick in the butt too!
We inquired the organizers for the price of a booth, gasped at the initial quote, and used every once of French charm we had to convince the cold-hearted German woman on the other side of the email conversation to give us a discount.
I say “charm” but it might have been more begging than charming. In the end, it worked and we got a small discount on the smallest booth in the software aisle. It was still way too expensive and we used a big chunk of the company’s money.
Now comes the funny part:
When you book for a fair, you only get an assigned space in the hall, no physical booth per se. You then need to hire contractors to build stands, stages, lightings and what not.
At least that’s what normal companies do. We, on the other hand, had no budget left for the fancy stuff.
So instead, I created a basic orange poster with our shiny new logo and printed it at the local print shop. Then, a few days before driving to Germany with my car’s trunk filled with our personal computers and external screens, we made a stop at my parents' home, spent time with my then 2yo niece (she’s in high school now…), and borrowed some trestles, planks and tablecloths.
I can swear this was the shittiest booth in the history of Musikmesse.
We did hire a friend of my cousin as an hostess too. She was the nicest hostess you could wish for. Fluent in German and English. A musician herself. And pretty too. Which attracted some guys that weren’t there for the tech demo. Not the best leads…
In the end, the demo was crap and didn’t get much traction. We got some good connections with existing brands though. Some of them sent us some gear. Others just stole ideas from our app. And I got featured in a Japanese blog.
It was an interesting experience… But I don’t regret any of this. This makes for great memories and that’s something more valuable than any ROI. Especially now that Denis is gone.
If I were to do it again, I’d just share a booth with other smaller brands and spend most of my time walking around talking to people. Oh… and I wouldn’t couchsurf to save money. I forgot to mention that part, involving us waiting for the last train in the cold to get to our host’s flat on the other side of town. But that’s a story for another time!