People used to turn to their elders with questions they had no clear answer to. In our community, too, we often hear the same questions come up again and again. So we decided to listen closely and put them to the most experienced people among us.

We bring you opinions, strategies and insider insights straight from the founders shaping Split’s IT scene. No filters, no clichés – just concrete answers to current questions.

QUESTION OF THE MONTH:

Conference season is behind us. What are your experiences with taking part in conferences, whether through booths, speaking slots, panels or something else?

Has it brought you concrete partners or clients? What do you see as the biggest benefits, and what as the drawbacks? And if you don’t take part, what do you do instead for networking and visibility?

Antonio Perić-Mažar (Locastic)

We’ve been present at conferences practically since Locastic started. We experimented with booths and sponsorships, both locally and globally, but to be completely honest, it didn’t prove to be good value for money. For branding, authority and recognition, both personal and the company’s, keynote talks and panel appearances worked much better for us. I think we’ve done over 250 of them, and we consider it an excellent way to build a brand, recognition and authority.

If you’re on stage and you know what you’re talking about, it definitely helps potential clients trust you more and see you as an authority.

Specifically, this has brought us quite a few sales results too, but the talk is only part of the story: around every talk you also need to do content marketing and use it for promotion as much as possible. Sometimes even a little shamelessly 🙂

If you’re asking whether we’ve signed a contract because someone heard a talk, the answer is: almost never directly. Nobody comes up after a panel and says “here’s a project for you”. But indirectly, yes, and in two ways.

The first is that a talk shortens the sales cycle. When we come to a first meeting and the other side has already seen us on stage, or someone from their network was in the audience, the conversation doesn’t start with “who are you”, but with the problem. Some of our clients came to us precisely through a recommendation from someone who first saw us at a conference. The second is partnerships within the ecosystem: other agencies we share projects with today, people who are now in corporations and think of us when they need something. All of that came out of conferences, but from the conversation after the talk, not at the booth. In fact, the most important part of any conference is the socialising afterwards and the conversations that happen off stage (networking).

In my experience, the biggest benefits are three. Trust and positioning: thirty minutes on stage says more about you than any sales deck. Hiring: developers want to work with people they’ve seen have a point of view. And discipline of thinking: preparing a talk forces you to boil your position down to something you can defend in front of a hundred people. The bonus is that one good talk gives you material for months of content on LinkedIn and the blog.

The drawbacks are just as clear. Time: a good 30-minute talk means several days of preparation plus travel, and those are days you don’t spend with clients and the team. ROI is almost impossible to measure, so it’s easy to lie to yourself in both directions, that it pays off or that it doesn’t. It’s also easy to fall into the trap of becoming a “professional speaker” who always talks to the same audience while the business stands still. And more and more conferences sell their slots, which the audience recognises, so the value of the stage is dropping.

That’s why we have a simple rule: we only go to conferences where we have something to say and where the audience includes people we want to work with or hire. And we never talk about things we don’t know or that aren’t part of our expertise. The audience recognises that quite quickly and punishes it. We cover the rest with content, LinkedIn, the blog and the community through Unit and Split Tech City, because that’s where visibility is built more cheaply and more measurably.

Mateo Perak (Profico)

Honestly, booths only pay off if you’re building a presence in a highly specialised niche and going to an expo where you’re showcasing an equally specialised product. Or if you’re there for hiring and know there will be plenty of people looking for a job. Everything else is a complete miss with zero return – something we’ve proven in practice over 14 years.

Speaking slots – only if it’s a presentation or keynote on a current topic you specialise in and the audience has a high interest in that topic.

Panels as a rule never give an individual enough visibility and generally aren’t useful, unless it’s a hot topic and you’re really deep into it.

A 1-on-1 fireside chat is a useful format because it gives high visibility, and the interview format gives the speaker extra credibility.

As a company, we’ve proven that we get the biggest benefit from simply attending conferences and networking.

Sometimes, as speakers on very current topics, we can also make relevant connections, while booths don’t have a good ratio of investment to return compared with just attending a conference.

Ivan Lovrić (Workspace)

Here’s my fresh take after several conferences in recent weeks, and ahead of another one waiting for me in Zagreb next week:

I primarily see tech conferences as an opportunity to meet colleagues from my own industry, exchange experiences and learn something new.

If you’re an exhibitor, the people who most often come up to you are students looking for a job, developers from similar companies wondering “whose grass is greener” and free merch hunters. On the other hand, speaking slots and panels have a different value, because they build your personal brand and position you as an expert in the field you’re talking about. I can’t say that any appearance like this has brought us a client directly, but every appearance builds visibility and trust, which may eventually influence a decision to work together.

The biggest drawbacks are cost and time, because for a team of our size, taking part often means several people away from their regular work for several days, plus weeks of preparation before the event. Choosing the right conference also matters, because most tech conferences bring together agencies and developers, while the people who commission software go to industry fairs and professional gatherings.

That’s why we’re increasingly turning to those events – that’s where our customers are, and the conversations are more concrete and closer to real business needs.

Mario Frančešević (SeekandHit)

Booths haven’t brought any real results. Speaking gigs are okay.

Panels depend mostly on the moderator, on the quality of the moderator.

In general, smaller events work better. We somewhat avoid the big ones, especially when it comes to booths, but some specialised events are usually fine.