To strengthen the startup ecosystem and celebrate innovation, Akros Advisory played a pivotal role in organizing a flagship startup festival in 2024. By managing over 100 sessions across 10 locations with a team of interns, staff, and executive volunteers, we delivered an engaging, impactful event that exceeded community expectations.
Client Context
This annual startup festival serves as a celebration of innovation, entrepreneurship, and collaboration. It brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and community leaders to foster connections and highlight emerging industries. For 2024, the event aimed to scale operations while maintaining its core values of inclusivity, grassroots participation, and community-driven content.
Key Contributions
Streamlined Event Planning: Assessed past events and similar events out of state to address pain points and implemented a system to coordinate 100 sessions across 10 locations seamlessly.
Effective Team Leadership: Managed a collaborative team of 8, setting clear goals and leveraging tools to ensure smooth execution of the festival.
Enhanced Participant Experience: Curated diverse themes, introduced a digital platform for easy navigation, and incorporated attendee feedback for more interactive sessions.
Fostering Inclusion: Ensured diverse representation among speakers, partnered with community organizations, and delivered events that were welcoming and authentically Minnesotan.
Overcoming Challenges: Delivered a highly impactful event despite minimal resources, technology constraints, and logistical complexities, earning high praise from attendees and hosts.
Results
Expanded Impact: Successfully coordinated 100 sessions and drew over 1,000 attendees across sessions, anchor events, and social gatherings. This included participants ranging from early-stage entrepreneurs to seasoned investors, highlighting the event’s broad appeal.
Diverse Attendance: While most attendees were from Minneapolis, there was a strong regional representation, with participants traveling from Wisconsin and North Dakota. Notably, the majority (58%) of attendees were first-timers, while a significant portion had attended for 7+ years in a row.
Active Participation: Most attendees participated in 6–10 sessions throughout the week, indicating high engagement with the content and event offerings.
NPS Success: The event achieved an impressive Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 56, with 85% of respondents rating the event positively and expressing a strong likelihood to recommend it to colleagues or friends.
Future Commitment: The majority of attendees reported they would attend the festival again in the future, reinforcing the event’s reputation as a key milestone in the regional startup ecosystem.
Motivation and Connections: The majority of respondents said the event motivated them to build a startup, become a founder, or mentor other entrepreneurs. Over 80% reported making meaningful connections, highlighting the event’s ability to inspire action and foster collaboration.
Session Host Engagement: Session hosts were highly satisfied, with most indicating they would definitely host a session again in future festivals, underscoring the value they found in engaging with attendees and showcasing their expertise.
Client Feedback
“This was the best startup festival ever!” – Attendee at the Closing Session
“Yes, yes, and yes. I am in my first steps of my entrepreneurial journey and found this to be a great first event to address topics of high relevance to me, be inspired by others who are further along in their journey, and to meet and discuss with bright founders”. ~ Attendee
“I've committed capital to become a first-time angel investor! I've also found several great contacts that will help me build additional networks and spaces for established firms to engage with founders, especially around the social impact of their ventures”. ~ Attendee
“Direct and candid conversations, and ongoing contact established rather than one-off small talk”. ~ Attendee
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