Andrey, the founder of it.com reached out to me when I was organising the 1st Summit (last year at Yum-Sa). I was very honest with him what I am trying to do/organize and also shared that the Presenting Sponsorship is still available, and told that I was in discussions with Sedo about it. .. wasn't bluffing there - up to that point had have 3-4 hour dinner (I paid the bill, of course) with Sedo at Yum-Sa, showed the space, introduced them to the owner of Yum-Sa and so on..
.. and told Andrey that the Presenting Sponsorship is available on first come - first get basis.
.. further my memory might fail me.. met Andrey and his family at Yum-Sa (I was there with two of my daughters as well).. he was very, very cautious, we discussed a number of things and he decided to place a trust in the Summit and me, personally, and shortly after said that it.com will be the presenting sponsor (this covered the rent of the restaurant with food and drinks for both days).
.. many think that it.com are throwing around money - it is definitely not the case > Andrey is very careful on the money invested. .. especially when it.com zone was launched, they had a problem > nobody knew them, and no 'big boys' from the industry acknowledged them.
.. a smaller business owner might think it.com are advertising everywhere possible, like coca-cola
... in reality, they are proving to the big boys that they are a reliable company, that they will not flip the it.com and can be accepted in the 'big boys club'. .. And, the case of the Summit was the same > most large players didn't take us seriously. .. 2 businesses growing together with similar goals and with respect towards each other.
Andrey is the man of his word - and I love it! I am also a person for whom a business handshake is everything.
Nominet supported us with 1 thousand pounds and Sedo supported with 2 (I think), Kieren supported us (put his money in the bar for special drinks), some domainers purchased the business tickets and that was it, I think. .. the end result was small minuses, but you can call it = breaking even.
that was the case of Summit 2022.
.. and 1000% > the moral support of domainers like
@Sam and Colin Smith (Perfect.uk) who promoted the Summit to their network was super important!
I saw the importance of domain name investing forums all the time while promoting Summit 2022.. Bough a header banner at Acorn and my fear was that some day Steve would 5x or 10x the Acorn banner prices > and I would pay them.. Or even worse, let us say Steve didn't like me > he would ban me on Acorn and the Summit would go 'tits up'
.. 6 months later we agreed on a deal (gentleman's agreement) with Andrey on it.com advertising at Acorn and bought the forum. In short: I presold ads at Acorn and all this money went to acquire the forum. .. now the foundation for the Summit was solid!
Couple weeks later
@Ryan Ewen offered me to acquire DNForum. Never planned to own it - had a chat with Andrey, and we stroke a deal similar to Acorn.
.. we were both at the same time, same place and our ideas about the future match.
Summit 2023. It was actually Andrey who pushed me out of my comfort zone > to organize the Summit at the Hilton London Metropole instead of a restaurant (no matter how awesome as it was). .. he knew that my main fear are the huge expenses, and insured me that they will cover the base costs (venue rent, food drinks). And, were like an insurance for the Sky23 expenses, if there are no other sponsors for it > in the end they covered the end bill.
Preparations for the Summit 2023 with a proof of a successfully run Summit 2022 (and the fact that 2 major domain name forums are used to promote the convention) introduced me to a number of the established players in the industry, and now we should be able to fly on our own. This was also an unwritten agreement between us.
I short:
I have a product (London Domain Summit)
I have an absolute and total belief that the Summit is worth more than the price I ask for sponsorships, exhibiting spaces and entry tickets to the right companies
I have tonnes of fruitless business meetings
I have learned to ignore the initial 'no'
.. and keep networking, networking, networking..
does this help?
.. every failed meeting and unsuccessful sales talk (sometimes these take many months) hurt > I have learnt to move on to the next company to whom the Summit or forums can help to reach their business goals.
.. maybe I have disclosed too much
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it.com team has reached much already, their registrars:
https://get.it.com/for-registrars/ .. though, the list could be larger, much larger.
