I attended Twiistup 5 yesterday at a private hangar at Santa Monica Hangar. You could call it a 21st century form of expo which was held from 7 PM - midnight. Twiistup has been around for quite some time and apparently this has been the biggest till date with over 600 visitors. The best part about this event is that it’s unlike a conventional tradeshow which are mostly held in daylight and are formal in nature. Grab a beer, a cigar and if you are hungry get a cupcake; roam about in a lounge-like atmosphere and stop by one of the start-up company’s booths to play around with their product/service. I will not say that this is a geeky conference as there are  a lot of ideas that any manager/entrepreneur could use after attending it. But yes, you will find a ton of geeks :-D

Upon speaking to many start-ups I realized that there were many who were backed by VCs and angels; while on the other hand there were also those funded by the founders themselves - so Twiistup presented a platform for them to show off their company and connect with some investors. For me, it was merely a networking event but I found a lot of interesting business models as well.

“Ad revenues is not always the only source of revenue for a web start-up. There’s premium subscription, pay-per use and many more.”

 

The most common feature of all these start-ups (mostly web 2.0 services) was “convergence”. They let you show your updates from across different platforms such as twitter, Facebook, wordpress blogs, Linkedin on one website (such as chi.mp). “Convergence” in terms of being able to connect with various non-profit organizations from one website was enabled by causecast.com. Another example of convergence was the scour search engine which can fetch search results from Google, Y! and MSN and use its own algorithm to put the best one at the top of the query results. 

So where were their revenue streams? I did ask this question to many of the startups (which were mostly only looking to build audience at this point and did not seem to have a revenue model). Surprisingly to me, not all of them said ‘advertisements’ (while many others had no clue how they were going to make money). Some companies already had deals with partners who enabled their service which could sustain them as the company grows. For example, if you are a website that brings together all the shoe manufacturing companies together on an electronic marketplace you would charge the suppliers to pay you a fee to be displayed on the website. Although, initially you would not expect them to pay as you are still building an audience. How else could you make money with your Web 2.0 startup? There was also another way to generate revenue. Say you came up with this excellent tool for your iPhone that lets users access and connect with specific businesses such as hotels or car-rental companies. You would need their company information, their IT resources and create a custom design to be shown on your website, your mobile tool, etc. If you are dealing with brick-and-mortar businesses it’s likely that they don’t have the expertise and even if they do, they don’t know how your tool could help them grow their business. If you are enriching their business, you might as well consult them with their online/mobile marketing strategy. If your tool is useful and can enrich their business, they would be more than willing to pay you for your knowledge.

“Another observation I made was that so many start-ups which provided a one-stop shop web 2.0 startups such as Twitter had them because of the audience that Twitter or such other services have. But what if they go kaput because of no revenue model? I don’t mean to be cynical, but it’s just a thought. Especially, when so many start-ups are based on a service like that. Apparently, Twitter would get one soon, but no solid ideas as of now.”

Taking a step back, let me talk a little about who I met at the event. Investors, entrepreneurs, techies, geeks, head-hunters, prospective employers and MBA students :-). I could go on about the interesting people from various fields that you could meet at Twiistup. But, if you fall under any of the following categories, it’s totally worth attending Twiistup!

 

• Someone who likes to read different blogs on the interenet and loves Google and wants to party on a Thursday night
   
• Someone who thought he knew so much about social media and thinks that it’s just crazy and a lot of fun
   
• Job-seekers
   
• A budding entrepreneur
   
• Someone who has extra money, loves to criticize, analyse and make money from an idea - investors
   
• Someone who’s really ignorant about internet startups and thinks its a bubble 
   
• Most of all - headhunters - who are looking for new talent (I’m looking for a summer internship :) )

 

What else is there about Twiistup that you should know?:

• If you liked a startup gives the participating companies a pebble, those startups with the maximum number of pebbles win. No idea what they win though!

 

 

• Loads of freebies - t-shirts, coasters, stickers, glow sticks, t-shirts, food, drinks, pens, mouse-pads, t-shirts and more :) 
  

  Check out the $1 note - that's scour.com's incentive to use their search engine!

• Drinks, drinks, drinks
   
• Free Business ideas
   
• Guitar Hero, Beanbags and free cigars! :)
   
• It costs $75 in case you didn’t win that FREE ticket (they have contests and give-aways!) or don’t have a friend who can sneak you in
   
• No idea when Twiistup 6 is going to be held but I hear in the next 3-4 months. Keep checking their website or connect with them on twitter! and remember to watch-out for the give-aways. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about it but I might know someone to sneak me in for the next event :D