Startup Events 2019: 7 Opportunities to Help Grow Your Business


Building a startup can be daunting, and the time founders  spend on the responsibilities associated with that can make it hard for them to connect with people who can help them along the way. 

Thankfully, startup events and conferences offer a concise way to meet and learn from leaders who have successfully grown their businesses from startup to scale-up and beyond. 

Today, we’ll take a look at seven startup events across five countries that eager entrepreneurs and their teams can look to as opportunities to learn from the best and find a helping hand with the obstacles they’re facing. 

Those startup events taking place this year are:

1. Startup Grind Global Conference
2. Fuse Launch
3. Arctic 15 
4. Katapult Future Fest
5. Grow Your Business Show
6. Startup Brekkie
7. Dogpatch Labs

1) Startup Grind Global Conference 2019

Starting a business means you have to focus on a huge amount of things at once. As well as building out your product and service offerings, you have to think about investment, hiring, partnerships, and more. 

Thankfully, the Startup Grind Global Conference brings those who have found solutions to those challenges and those facing them for the first time under one roof. Over 8,000 of them, to be precise.

Startup Grind

Over two days and six stages, thought leaders in the startup space as well as worldwide directors and investors will join together in Silicon Valley for the conference. 

The Startup Grind Group will also be hosting a similar conference in the UK this June if the Valley is a little bit too far away.

Location: Silicon Valley, CA, USA.

Date: February 12th & 13th, 2019.

Tickets: Starting at $455.

2) Fuse Launch

If you’re after something a little more intensive than a conference, Fuse Launch is an 8-week course aimed at startup founders who want to take their business to the next level. 

Fuse Launch

The course aims to give business owners a deeper understanding of their business models, including its weaknesses but also its strengths. 

The team behind this course also offer a variety of recurring and one-off events aimed at helping businesses in their early stages to flourish. Some examples include their Friday Fundamentals lunch and learns and their Fireside Chat series.

Location: Washington, USA.

Date: April 9th – June 4th, 2019.

Tickets: $397 for non-Fuse members.

3) Arctic 15 2019

As well as giving you access to 15 tracks covering a broad spectrum of startup topics, Arctic 15 will put a strong emphasis on matchmaking between startups, investors and media teams. The team behind the event will be using a pre-event matchmaking tool to make sure the 900+ attendees can use their time to its fullest ability throughout. 

As well as roundtables and workshops, the event also provides an opportunity for 1-1 meetings in a designated Deal Room. According to the event homepage, 40% of those meetings have historically led to real deals for those involved. 

Arctic 15

There’s also an option for startups to exhibit at the event and the organisers will provide those who go with this option with all the equipment they’ll need to showcase their offerings. 

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Date: June 5th & 6th, 2019.

Tickets: €359 for startups.

4) Katapult Future Fest

Katapult Future Fest prides itself on being a unique, collaborative experience. The organising team are a non-profit movement devoted to driving positive societal change through technology and impact investing. 

Katapult future Fest

The startups that apply to the Impact Startups program running as part of the conference will get the opportunity to present to hundreds of investors. They’ll also get marketing exposure across all channels of the Katapult Future Fest brand. The application form is available here

The general call for speaker nominations is also still open, but you can keep an eye for updates as the talks are released here

Location: Oslo, Norway

Date: May 15th – 17th, 2019

Tickets: NOK4,200 for the Early Bird startup package. (That’s around $495.)

5) Grow Your Business Show

The Grow Your Business Show is a one-day, free event that will see 100 attendees exhibiting and connecting to discuss all things startup. 

Grow Your Business Show

The line-up for the day will include morning networking, seminars, keynotes, and a Dragons’ Den-style panel for new and upcoming entrepreneurs. Following the main events of the day, attendees will be treated to an evening at the Epsom Downs Racecourse. The focus of the event is creating a sense of community and an opportunity to make genuine connections with like-minded people in business. 

Location: Surrey, UK.

Date: July 4th, 2019.

Tickets: Free!

6) Startup Brekkie

If low-key events are more to your taste, Startup Dublin has just the thing. As a non-profit, independent organisation that’s been in operation for almost five years now, the organisation uses a multi-faceted approach to promote innovation-lead products and companies to the fore. 

Startup Dublin

Their next event is a networking breakfast for founders in Dublin to get together, enjoy a keynote speaker, and gain insights into the startup ecosystem from each other. Oh, and to eat croissants. 

They also run a monthly invite-only event called Mentoring for Scale. At these startup events, companies in their early stages can sit down with serial entrepreneurs to pick their brains about any growth issues they’re having and learn from their sage advice. 

Location: Dublin, Ireland

Date: The next edition will take place on March 1st.

Tickets: Free. 

7) Anything at Dogpatch Labs

Staying in Dublin for our last installment in this fine list, we turn to Dogpatch Labs. As well as providing a space for other event organisers to host, Dogpatch Labs produce a bunch of regular events for those in the startup industry and beyond. 

Dogpatch labs black

Their First Fridays for Startups series always draws an enthusiastic crowd set to learn from the keynote speaker presenting at these events. They also host fireside chats as part of their events series and lightning talks, meaning there’s a little something for everyone on offer from this team.

Location: Dublin, Ireland.

Date: Various. You can keep track of their upcoming ventures here

Tickets: Again, various, but often free. 

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