Last week, a small group from Intuit disembarked in Dublin to join a few other folks (OK, about 20,000!) at the Web Summit. The Summit started as an informal meet up of 450 members of the tech community in 2010; by 2013 it had already grown to more than 10,000.
The attendees ranged from Amazon to Zynga, with VCs, industry analysts, and media thrown in for fun. They joined for all different reasons: get funding, get bought, find technology to invest in or buy, feel out industry trends, meet people, build their brand. I personally attended to get in touch with potential partners and get Intuit’s name out there … while learning something new along the way.
20k+ people at #websummit, #intuitdev here to meet amazing new partners! #WebSummitHQ pic.twitter.com/AKiI2TYeoP
— Elena Angela (@eang3la) November 4, 2014
Of the over 200 startups that were chosen to participate in PITCH, and hundreds more that were sponsors, there were plenty that were focused on solving the problems of the small business customer and their advisors. So the Intuit team — Avi Golan (IDG VP and GM), Rich Preece (UK Country Manager), Cedric Menager (FR Country Manager), Elena Angela (UK Partnerships) and I — spread out to talk to as many companies as we could to learn more about them, and vice versa. The set-up made it quite easy to meet with one another, even with so many people attending. We were fortunate to meet some incredibly ineresting companies, rainging from P2P financing for business (such as Grid Finance), to smart retail software (such as Shopperly, POSPulse, and iStreet Bazaar), to foreign exchange tools, made popular by TransferWise in the consumer sector (such as MayfairFX for B2B).
Brad Smith (Intuit CEO) also got up on the Main stage with Dan Levin, COO, Box, and Mikkel Svane, Founder, ZenDesk. If you missed it, be sure to check out the discussion right here:
And finally, we were able to enjoy a Guinness (or 2) along the way…and we all agreed that it really does taste better in Dublin!
Team Intuit at McDaids in Dublin, opened 1779 @divinecassie @tsitovich @IntuitBrad @intuitdevgm @rich_preece pic.twitter.com/a47aAALEPT
— rlanesey (@rlanesey) November 5, 2014
Overall, it was a great event and one that I recommend to our developers to look into for 2015, especially if you are interested in raising money and expanding globally. Intuit definitely plans to attend again and if you do as well, we look forward to grabbing a Guinness with you!
Have a great week!
Kathy Tsitovich
Director, Partnerships, Intuit Developer Group
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