This Fall, Tapptitude Joined Techsylvania as a Partner

We’ve always been unofficial supporters of Techsylvania, an annual event held in Cluj-Napoca that brings together tech pros and fans eager to learn and share knowledge. Over the years, our Tapptitude team members have participated in the conference, listened to talks, mingled and met new people, and checked out the Startup Alley – all the stuff you’d expect from dedicated conference attendees.

We decided this year to take the next logical step, and make our support official by becoming a Techsylvania Bronze Sponsor. And that’s not all: we even hosted our own Techsylvania satellite event! We were going to participate in this year’s conference anyway, so we figured, why not take this opportunity to share some of the things we’ve learned from building mobile products over the years? We’ve seen so many founders finding our insights useful, we figured with bring them to a larger audience.

The #TappSquad at Techsylvania

Our support for this year’s Techsylvania event was pretty much unchanged from previous years. Tapptitude team members signed up for talks, participated in debates and Q&As, and got to meet fellow tech enthusiasts – we just did it all online this year.

But our involvement didn’t stop there. We got out #TappSquad members free tickets to the conference, so that they could learn and attend the talks that caught their digital eye. We even organized an online raffle for tickets on our social media channels, which was a lot of fun.

This year’s event had something for everyone. Our team got to enjoy talks around topics like ride-sharing, health tech, remote work, and B2B sales. The remote setup of the conference wasn’t challenging at all, especially for us. The talks were a great way for our team members to relax between tasks and calls, and learn some interesting new things, as well.

Techsylvania 2021 – Tapp Highlights

There’s no wrapping up a conference participation without a list of takeaways. So here’s ours. One of our team members enjoyed Gil Dibner’s talk, ‘A VC View on Enterprise Sales’:

A nice insight: if you are a startup, try to work your way backwards through the sales funnel. Even though leads move downwards through this funnel, try to build capability from the bottom to the top. Start with customer success and support, then sales, and then marketing. In other words, start with happy customers and only then worry about bringing in new customers.

Another #TappSquad member enjoyed a talk from Alexandru Iliescu of Mondly:

Mondly has a great product, and I’ve just started using it recently. It caught my eye because I’ve used Duolingo before, but lost interest in learning a language with it pretty quickly. It was also nice to see a small product created in Brasov take off in such a successful way. Their product expanded and entered VR/AR territory, which I think is a great idea and represents the future of learning and education. I am keen on technology and education, and love finding ways to use tech to prepare today’s children for the future, so these kinds of topics catch my attention.

Another member of the team liked listening to a talk dubbed ‘The Driving Forces of Healthcare:’

I came across Philip Choban, the speaker, and his company Telios just a few days before the event, in an article about them raising a new round of funding from Fortech. So, I was interested to see what it was all about. I found it really interesting that, although the speaker is from the U.S., he started his company in Romania. This is a confirmation that we can do great things in our country, without a doubt. The idea behind the app is also nice, and I think it could cause a shift in the Romanian healthcare system, with more people being able to get in touch with their doctor from the comfort of their homes.

But Wait, There’s More: Tapp’s Satellite Event

Sure, attending talks and meeting new people is always great fun, but the highlight of the Techsylvania experience for us was our very own satellite event. There’s just something to be said about sharing what you know.

Our event, dubbed ‘Surviving the first 1,000 days as a founder,’ was held on Friday, September 24th, via Zoom, of course. It was hosted by Daniel Spijker, Tapptitude Netherlands managing director, product strategist, and avid vinyl collector.

While the topic might seem daunting, hearing some useful insights about building your own product and running a business is helpful, especially when it’s based on the real-life experience of Daniel’s founding of Nearmint. We covered topics from validating your product to ensure there’s a real need for it, planning for your budget vs. planning how to fundraise, as well as making sure you’ve got something in mind for what comes after you launch the MVP, when the work really starts.

Following Daniel’s presentation, we engaged in a short Q&A with our tuned-in audience, where people could ask questions and learn more about what it takes to survive the first days as a startup founder. After the Q&A, participants got the chance to book 15-minute one-on-one sessions with a Tapptitude Product Expert, and pick their brains even further.

Daniel was not alone in all of this, don’t worry. He was joined by Tapptitude product consultants Rares Rosca and Tudor Cutus, as well as Tapp full-stack marketer Erika Kramarik. It was an insightful discussion, but we also managed to keep the conversation casual and relaxed, and encouraged everyone to ask questions and interact with our team.

Closing thoughts

We greatly enjoyed hosting our own satellite event at Techsylvania this year, sharing our knowledge and helping others. We’re also incredibly proud to officially support this awesome event by becoming a Bronze Partner. Beyond that, we got to listen to some amazing speakers and learn new things, discover new products and apps, meet new people, and have a lot of fun. We hope to be able to see you all in person at the next Techsylvania conference next year! Until then, thank you for participating and supporting Tapptitude and Techsylvania!

Cheers!