Roundtable discussions are a huge and popular part of TechCrunch Disrupt, and this year, we asked you to vote for the topics you want to learn about most. We’ve already announced the first and the second groups of winners from our Audience Choice vote-a-thon, and we’re back with a third wave of exciting topics.
If you’re not familiar with them, roundtables are 30-minute, expert-led discussions designed for up to 20 attendees who share an interest in a particular subject. The format allows for deeper conversation, questions and answers and time for attendees to connect and explore collaborative opportunities.
Of course, if you want to participate in any of these awesome discussions, you’ll need a pass. Hot tip: You can save more than $1,000 — if you buy your pass to Disrupt before prices go up on Friday, August 5 at 11:59 pm PT.
These five roundtables represent a diverse range of topics, including why having genuine passion for your industry gives you a competitive edge, how to use flat wins to overcome obstacles, how to scale products that have never existed, how to price for competitive advantage and the challenge of raising up-front capital to build as-yet proven technology.
Love What You Do: Lessons from the passion economy
Speaker: Robin Åström, the co-founder and CEO at Wehype
In this roundtable session, Robin Åström, co-founder and CEO of Wehype, an influencer marketing platform and agency, will lead a discussion on how the passion economy has democratized the ability to make money from creativity — and at scale. He’ll also talk about why it’s important that startup founders operate within industries they are genuinely, deeply passionate about.
Robin will draw on his experience of turning his gaming obsession into a competitive edge. He identified and filled a gap in the gaming influencer market with co-founders he met playing Counter-Strike as a teenager.
Their love of gaming gave them the extra motivation to overcome challenges, allowing them to build Wehype into a rapidly growing and profitable business working with some of the world’s biggest brands, including EA, Microsoft and Ubisoft.
The value of flat wins
Speaker: Alex Hersham, the co-founder and CEO at Zencargo
Founding a business can be one of the most rewarding and gratifying things a person does, but there will always be difficult challenges to overcome. By adopting the concept of flat wins — celebrating when you find a solution and returning to where you started after a period of difficulty — within your operations, you can stay on track and push through the obstacles you face.
In this roundtable session, Zencargo’s Alex Hersham will lead a discussion about how flat wins have shaped his mentality and created resilience in his mindset as a founder. Hersham’s touch points will include:
- Defining flat wins and examining the psychology behind them
- Examples of how flat wins shaped both his career and the success of his company
- How flat wins can create resilience not just in founders, but across entire …read more