Latest from Ben
202 articles
The most digital companies in the world are opening coffee shops
The AI industry runs on GPUs, APIs and Discord servers. So why is an AI insurance startup valued at $4 billion signing a lease…
The empty startup area: why tradeshows fail at startup sales
Picture this. A strategy director at a major exhibition calls with six weeks to go before the show. The brand new startup area has…
10 things founders can do during the summer event break
The event calendar goes quiet in July and August. Deadlines don’t. This article assumes you’re an early stage founder, pre-seed or seed at most,…
Why events are lying about their metrics
This week I read about a hackathon claiming 6,000 attendees over a single weekend. The venues hosting it can’t accommodate more than 1,000 people.…
Best Startup Events in the Second Half of 2026: The Complete Calendar
The second half of 2026 is packed. Between July and December, there are more than 30 confirmed events worth your time across Europe, the…
The hidden costs of events: Why founders get the math wrong
Most startup founders treat events like they’re going travelling: count the days, block the calendar, done. But event tickets don’t come cheap, and the…
US Expansion Isn’t Dead — and 5 Insights to Help European Startups Cross the Atlantic
Index Ventures’ book ‘Winning in the US: The Founder’s Guide to Building a Global Company from Europe’ explores U.S. expansion as a pathway to…
As Techarena raises €1.1M in VC funding to scale across Europe, a Q&A with CEO Omid Ekhlasi
Techarena has secured €1.1 million from Stockholm-based VC firm BackingMinds to fund its expansion overseas.
SXSW 2026: Format changes, fresh opportunities and Europe’s moment
March 12-18, 2026, SXSW will run all its programming simultaneously for the first time.
Navigating the future of events: Insights from Kai Hattendorf
After a decade at the helm of UFI, the global association of the event industry, Kai Hattendorf is one of the most knowledgeable experts…