This post originally appeared on TechCrunch.

For the next four days if you’re in the tech industry you’re going to hear a non-stop stream of information about SXSW. It’s the time of year when many new startups are struggling to rise above all the noise and be heard.

And when everybody is shouting it becomes overwhelming.

I’m actually in Austin at the moment. It turns out this is “the year of group messaging” and since I’m a shareholder in the largest player in the space, TextPlus (7.7m monthly actives), I thought I should come here to represent.

But … that’s all I have to say about that.

With all these companies vying for attention & others just here to soak up the vibe I thought I’d write a much broader piece on how startups can make the most of their attendance at conferences & events.

1. Be very targeted in which events you attend
Plan out your most important events to attend. You may choose some where your customers aggregate, others where you hope to find biz dev partners & still others where you want to meet investors. Many startups get caught up in the conference circuit. They have fun & meet tons of interesting people and they confuse this with the need to do be at every major tech event. I call them “conference ho’s” – don’t be one. While conferences can be intoxicating they can also be very unfocused, narcissistic and hurt your team back in the office.

Choose wisely. Don’t worry about all the folks bragging on Twitter, Instagram or FourSquare about being at the latest event. Feel good in knowing that while they’re at the latest conference, you can be back home stealing all their customers!

2. Do leg work before you get to the event
The most impact you’ll have at conferences is when you plan meetings before you go. I know it sounds obvious but trust me most people don’t do this. It’s very easy to get a sense of who will be attending an event before you go. Don’t assume that you’ll fortuitously run into potential customers or biz dev partners. Write them in advance and request meetings.

The most experienced conference goers (bigger company ones) often book suites in hotels and plan meetings rather than attending any actual sessions. The single most important thing about a conference in my opinion is the fact that all of your important contacts are in one physical location. Don’t leave it to chance. Book ‘em.

3. If you sit on a panel, make sure you don’t suck
I’m not a big fan of panels. But not everybody has yet earned the right to do keynotes and the truth is that there are some good benefits of sitting on the right panels. I wrote a full post on how to be effective on a panel. Educate your audience on a topic, don’t be a blowhard overly promoting your company. You’ll get way more from an audience respecting your insights and contributions. They’ll want to meet you later.  Remember that most panels are painfully boring & those panelists who entertain people will be the most remembered.

Have a dialog with your fellow panelists. Don’t be afraid of some friendly controversy – it adds spice. Just be polite about it. And don’t be a panel hog – you might get to say more to the audience but if you care about your fellow panelists you’ll piss them off. I actually think one of the most misunderstood reasons to be on a panel is actually the fellow panelists. You have a certain bond after you’ve sat on a panel together.  So don’t piss them off by hogging minutes for an audience that won’t remember you 5 minutes after you’re done. Grab business cards of the other panelists and follow up after the show.

4. Focus more on Lobby Conf than watching panels
Speaking of panels, don’t sit through them all. If you have a few topics you really want to hear – plan them in advance. But the truth is that nothing truly interesting is really ever said on a panel. People are too guarded – they know they’re under the spotlight. So you won’t REALLY learn anything new.

I spend 90+% of my time at conferences in the lobby and I always have. Yes, it’s partly due to ADHD. But really you want to be building connections with people. While the conference is going on there are always people outside the rooms in the lobby. That’s your best chance to get people that would ordinarily be really difficult to get a meeting with.

5. Consider staying out late, sleeping in
I’ve been to many of the TechCrunch 50, Disrupt and many similar events over the years. The most valuable time for me personally was at the W Hotel after the event. I showed up around 10pm and hung out with a bunch of people I hardly ever get to spend time with. There was no artificial table between us, we weren’t scurrying between one meeting to the next. We didn’t have any documents due that night. We just hung. And when you’re out socially with other people you form a tighter bond. Just is.

If you gave me a choice between the late night cocktail and the morning keynote I’d be sipping martinis every time.

6. Schedule dinners
The other secret conference trick that is orchestrated by the true zen masters is to schedule a dinner and invite other people. It’s a great way to get to know people intimately. Start by booking a few easy-to-land friends who are interesting. Work hard to bag a “brand name” person who others will want to meet. All it takes is one. Then the rest of your invites can mention that person’s name on the guest list (name others, too … obviously) and you will be able to draw in some other people you’d like to meet.

Another similar strategy is with customers. If you invite 3-4 customers and 3-4 prospects to a dinner with 2-3 employees and some other interesting guests you’ll be doing well. Potential customers always prefer to talk to existing reference customers than to talk to just your sales reps.

Final tip, sometimes a dinner can be too expensive for an early-stage company yet picking a killer venue is one of the best ways to bagsy high-profile people. Everybody loves to eat somewhere hot. So why not go in on the dinner with two other companies. That way you’re all extending your networks and splitting the costs.

Plan dinner early enough that people can still get out afterward and do other events that may be going on.

7. Don’t get too wasted
I’m not being moralistic here. I like a drink as much as the next guy and have had my share of hammerhead nights. But an important conference is not the place to do this (except maybe SXSW from what I hear). For starters you’re obviously bound to do stupid things when you knock too many back. And trust me there’s always the people who don’t drink very much and when you come into contact with them you won’t represent yourself as well as you’d like.

Save the boozy nights for back home. Or save it for the after party with your closest colleagues. But if you want to maximize your conference experience lay off the last few drinks. Oh, and don’t do crazy man dancing at the party. I see that often. It’s embarrassing. Worse than wedding dancing. You know who I’m talking about.

8. Don’t assume everybody remembers you
When you walk up to somebody who you’ve met before always start by re-introducing yourself (unless you know them really well). Of course they’ll probably remember you, but often you forget the context of how you know somebody so without that slight prompt the connection isn’t made. I wrote a detailed post on how to re-intro yourself properly.

9. Get a wing man
Some people are great at schmoozing – even when they don’t know anybody else. You know the type – naturally charming and conversationalists. Well, that’s not most people. I often suggest that people get a wing man. Get somebody that roams around the conference with you. It’s far easier to meet people when there are two of you together (just like it’s easier when you’re at a bar trying to meet people when you’re single).

Don’t confuse this for just talking with your buddy for the whole event. That’s dumb. You’re there to network and connect with new people. Just use them as an effective way to hunt in packs.

10. Close the loop after the show
I’d estimate that less than 10% of people follow up after conferences. And those 10% all probably all sales people. You grabbed all those business cards for a reason. Take the highest priority ones and write them a short note within 3 days of the conference ending. In the email write something that will remind them who you are. Find something unique to say so they’ll remember you. If it’s not too forward you can even try for a follow-on action – perhaps getting together next time you’re in town. Obviously only request this where it seems appropriate. But no follow-up = wasted meeting in the first place. Shame.

Now after all this, don’t you feel better about not being in Austin?

Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross, one of the Internet’s true pioneers. To say he has had an impact on the web would be an understatement. His impact has even helped a small country gain admission to the United Nations. All of that are in this week’s episode of This Week in VC. Summary notes, as always, provide below. It was a pleasure to write them myself.

Overture (Goto.com)

He invented the category of sponsored search. He presented the idea at the TED conference in the mid 90′s and was literally boo’d while he was on stage. I thing I’ve learned over the years is that technology purists hate advertising even when it is that revenue stream that truthfully drives much of our industry.

He created GoTo.com (later renamed Overture) out of a frustration with search. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs.

The idea actually came to him from the Yellow Pages business. He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. He took out an ad in the Yellow Pages (it was the early 80′s, pre Internet), which cost him $1,000 / month for a half-page ad.

He was skeptical of spending the money but astounded at what a transformational impact it had on his business. What he realized was that the full pages ads were displayed first (say for 3-5 pages) then the half page ads (another 3-5) then the quarters, the eighths. So the Yellow Page business was always “pay for placement.”

Bill’s rationale was the more serious your business was, the more you could afford to pay for placement and therefore the more likely it was for consumers. If it worked in the Yellow Pages, why not on the Internet?

So he launched a company with exclusively paid search. He said it was better than the Yellow Pages because he would provide pricing transparency. Users would know exactly how much was paid for each click.

Heresy.

Google was clear that they WOULD NOT go into this business. Amazon was planning on working with GoTo.com but actually pulled out just before launch. Not because they didn’t want to do Pay-per-click (they are huge buyers of SEM) but because they didn’t want other people to know what they paid for clicks! Funny story, after Bill presented at TED (back when Amazon was still a small company) Jeff Bezos was in the audience. He came up to Bill after the event and said, “clever idea, we should do that with you.” Immediately thereafter Amazon became a large business.

GoTo.com went on to ink huge distribution deals with Microsoft, AOL & Yahoo! – the biggest Internet portals of the day. They were a juggernaut and Google was a small company. Overture was sold to Yahoo! for $1.63 billion – not a bad result, hey? But obviously Google won the war. Bill attributes to two primary reasons. Mostly, Google just had way better organic results (“the loss leader”) so it was always preferred by consumers. Secondly, they had an owned & operated (O&O) website – Google.com – and Overture had shut down GoTo.com at the request of their very profitable and large distribution partners. That gave Google a huge cost advantage.

IdeaLab

In 1995 Netscape IPO’d and browsers started to become more prevalent. Bill had previously created a packaged software company called Knowledge Adventure the produced children’s educational software. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever. He thought, “This way any product you launch you can talk instantly with and get feedback from customers.” He had the idea that people would want city guides to tell them where to eat and what to do. So he founded … wait … CitySearch. Yes, long before Yelp or any similar service.

From here he realized that he was full of ideas and if he could attract people to come and run companies based on his ideas he could generate a lot more companies. So he founded IdeaLab with his wife Marcia Goodstein (he talks in the video about working with a spouse and also working with siblings). As an outsider who has observed them together in action I can say that they seem both very complementary in skills sets & temperaments and to make it work they have to be very respectful of each other’s opinions and skill sets.

IdeaLab has created 75 companies, leading to 8 IPOs, 35 or so acquisitions and more than 5 companies worth in excess of $1 billion. And when I say this I don’t mean they funded billion dollar companies – they literally created them. Some IdeaLab successes / brand names aside from Overture & CitySearch?

• eToys
• Shopping.com
• The Wedding Channel
• Commission Junction
• Cars Direct / Internet Brands
• Picasa
• Snap
• Insider Pages
• eSolar
• X1
• And now, of course, UberSocial, Bill’s latest project.

And while they historically had come up with 100% of their ideas and created the companies themselves, they are increasingly open to funding people with great ideas who want to build businesses with IdeaLab provided the companies will stay be in LA (and preferably Pasadena). They are very hands on. In fact, IdeaLab employees around 50 people who are not necessarily dedicated to a single company.

IdeaLab has a philosophy that if they can get a centralized group of expert staff to help with legal, accounting, recruiting, PR, etc. they can build teams that really focus on building & marketing great products. This has been their formula for nearly 15 years.

If you want to hear a ton of other stories like this please watch this special interview with Bill. And if you enjoy the post or video a quick vote here couldn’t hurt Testing HN efficacy / longevity.

Some other things you’ll learn:

• Bill believes that most of the best business ideas come from people solving personal problems that they have in their every day lives. Almost every business he’s ever launched has been this. I totally agree. I’ve talked about this often – the biggest mistake I made in my first company was going into an industry for which I wasn’t passionate.
• He made a comment that really resonated with me, “You need to make sure your product is 10x better than that of your competitors. First, you’re probably exaggerating how much better it is. But also when you’re developing so is your competitor. So if you shoot for 10x better you might hit 3x better and that’s super important to win.”
• Too many entrepreneurs focus on dilution. Bill thinks that most companies your success is usually binary. So the most important thing is to surround yourself with people who can help you succeed. Make sure they’re as passionate about your space as you are (and have strong knowledge of your area). But over-optimizing for dilution is a bad attribute relative to focusing on creating a big & winning company. I further that. My point of view is that most Internet markets create “winner take most” outcomes where the largest player is super successful and disproportionally less for everybody else. Think YouTube vs. the rest.
• Bill’s a huge believer in MVP. When he tells his stories from the 1990′s your realize that he was probably the original “lean startup.” They would give companies $250,000 to launch their products. They would launch quickly and test whether or not there is any demand. If there was, they would green light the project and if not they were likely to shut it down & move on to the next project unless the team was super passionate about continuing. Almost sounds YCombinator-esque.
• Test monetization early. You can fool yourself into believing that there is inherent value in your product but you only really know when somebody has to get out a credit card and part with hard-earned money.
• Don’t think about starting an incubator until you have real operating experience otherwise you don’t really have anything to offer startups. Bill had been an operator for more than 15 years and had had 2 successful companies before ever launching IdeaLab. I commented that many young entrepreneurs I talk to these days have a desire to “go plural” and create an incubator. I think this makes no sense. When I look at the very successful people doing this like IdeaLab, YCombinator, TechStars or Betaworks – they all have deep operational skills and prior successes.
• We talked about patents. Bill doesn’t think you should over invest in them but he does believe in protecting ideas when you have a true invention and many of his companies have done so. I brought up the fact that I find many larger companies abusing the patent system to slow down smaller competitors which is actually anti competitive. We had a nice discussion on this topic.
• In the video Bill talks about how he started his first entrepreneurial venture at 12 doing a mail-order business (very Tony Hsieh of Zappos who did the same thing). His first “real” business came in college where he designed audio speakers. He sold so many that after Caltech he decided to open a retail store. It’s still there 30 years later!
• He bought a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 (a predecessor to Excel for those youngens) and programmed his own accounting software for his business. Yet again, he was solving for his own needs. He turned his accounting software into a product he could see. He loved it because where speakers you could build a product for $400 and sell it for $500, with software you could build it once and have almost no variable costs going forward. Lotus loved it so much they bought the company and Bill went to work there for 6 years.
• Bill tells an excellent story about how IdeaLab became the first company to buy and own it’s own TLD (top-level domain) when they negotiated to buy the .TV domain from the tiny island of Tuvalu. They generated about $50 million for the island, which was transformative in building hospitals and infrastructure. It also is how they financed their entry into the United Nations. This is a great story – best if you hear Bill tell it.

Anyway, we discussed so much more. I don’t have time to type out all the notes. But if you have some spare time and want to hear from one of the most innovative (in the truest sense of the word) people you’ll ever hear from – I think you’ll enjoy watching this episode of This Week in VC.

Many of us in the technology, media and VC world sit on panels at lot.  Many of them are painfully boring.  It’s a shame since it’s such a golden opportunity for you to build awareness with your audience for who you are and what you do.  And it’s a surprisingly great way to meet people in this industry who share the stage with you. (photo from left to right: me, QD3, Brian Solis, Chamillionaire, Ian Rogers and Brian Zisk – most of whom I got to know through Twiistup panels)

I have written about the topic of sitting on panels before.  I sat on two panels in the past week – once at LeadsCon (** see appendix if you’re interested in a back story here) and today at the America’s Growth Capital conference.  So it’s fresh on my mind.  Hope I won’t be too repetitive.

Here’s my views on how to maximize your time on stage:

Give (your contribution)

1. Educate – Your primary role on stage is to educate the audience.  People have paid good money to be at the show and often times it’s to hear people like you speak.  It’s your job to know thy audience.  And thy topic.  Try to find out in advance the make of of the people who will be attending.  Things to know: mix of entrepreneurs, big tech company execs, service providers, media people, VCs, etc.  It would be good to undertand size of companies.  Make sure you really try to get inside the minds of the audience so you speak about what you believe they will think is relevant.  Obviously it should be closely aligned with what the topic of the panel is.

Tip: On panels I believe it is OK for you (even as a panelist and not moderator) to say, “I want to understand whom I’m speaking to.  Can I get a show of hands for how many people are X?  Y?”

Tip: It is always a good idea to save time on the panel for audience questions.  This is the moderator’s job but it doesn’t hurt to ask (read: remind) them before hand if there will be audience Q&A at the end.

Tip: It is always a good idea to email the other participants in advance with topics of discussion and alert the moderator if you’re worried about the direction it might take.

Tip: Get the audience to respect you for your content contributions.  Make sure they know your name, your company and what you do.  No more.  Don’t oversell or over market.  It will always be viewed in the eyes of the audience as unbearable.  The exception in my mind is if the topic of the panel warrants you talking about how your business operates as part of the learning experience.  But try to make it a functional discussion rather than a marketing pamphlet.

2.  Entertain – It is also your job to entertain!  I’m sure not everybody will agree with me on this one.  But let’s face it, on most panels a large number of people in the audience are surfing the web, doing Tweets, checking email, playing with their iPhones, etc.  It’s because they’re BORED.  You can’t show up with your monotone voice and have a deeply intellectual discussion like you might over brandy and cigars.  You’re on stage! Show energy and enthusiasm.  If you’re capable of it show some wit.  (If you’re not, don’t try. Nothing worse than bombing).  If you’re a nervous speaker bring bullet point notes.  If you’re really nervous join Toastmasters.

3. Have a dialog – I find the most enjoyable panels are ones in which the panelists engage in a dialog.  The worst are the ones where the moderator just asks questions and you go down the line answering each one until the line of people are finished speaking.  When somebody on your panel makes a point to hesitate to politely ask them a question that let’s them clarify their point a bit.  You can also politely jump in with, “that’s a great point.  We had a similar experience …” but if you do this obviously be respectful that you’re not cutting them off too early.  Let them get enough air time first.  When you do this it’s also a good idea to not have a commentary to another person’s point where you then talk for 5 minutes.  It should just be a quick comment / thought.

I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little bit of friendly controversy.  That was always the rule when I lived in the UK.  A panel without controversy was boring and a wasted opportunity.  The audience always likes this a bit.  It spices things up and makes for great entertainment.  If you’re nervous about trying this then go to your fellow panelist before hand and try saying, “hey, do you mind if I try to add a bit of friendly controversy to the panel to get the debate going?  I’ll try my best to do it respectfully.”  Obviously if they prefer not to then don’t.  And, yes, I probably take a little bit too much license with this particular advice.

Get (what you get out of it):

1. Awareness of your brand – You get so much out of being a great speaker on a panel.  I highly recommend it to all companies.  You get to earn credibility as an expert in the topic area.  People at the conference become aware of who you are.  If you say clever things the attribute positive feelings about your company even if they don’t really know what you do.  It serves as a great conversation piece to meet people the rest of the conference.  People will say, “oh, I saw you speak on that panel.  I liked what you said about X.”  It’s a free ice breaker for the rest of the conference.  It’s “earned media.”

2. Business Cards of fellow panelists – Make sure to grab everybody’s business cards.  They’re mostly wired to expect that you’re going to ask so don’t be shy – even if they’re in a league above your pay grade (the best kind of panels).  One of the most surprising things I learned over the years is the kinship you build with other individuals when you simply shared the stage for an hour.  Particularly if you were articulate and made relevant points.  It really is a great way to get to know people.  My recommendation is if possible ask for the business cards before you start speaking.  Afterwards everybody rushes the stage so it’s harder.  If you all arrive a bit late and you don’t have time to grab cards then immediately when the panel ends ask for cards before the herd arrives.

3. Follow up! – Obvious, right?  You’d be surprised how few people do this.  I’ve gotten to know so many people over the years through panels.  At LeadsCon I sat on the panel with Saar Gur, one of my favorite people to spend time with when I’m in NorCal.  Well, maybe we got a bit too friendly on this panel But I actually first met Saar on a LAVA panel in LA.  Afterwards we exchanged cards.  I called him on my next trip to Palo Alto.  From there we just started to get to know each other.  At LeadCon we grabbed 2+ hours, which I really enjoyed.  I never would have known him were it not for the LAVA panel.  Tomorrow I’m going to see Aydin Senkut.  I first met Aydin at a DealMaker Media event where, you guessed it, we sat on a panel together.  I won’t bore you with a laundry list, you get the point.

Avoid:

1. Speaking on panels with too many members – This is a waste of your time.  I have a rule about this.  No more than 5 people on the panel.  I prefer 4.  If there’s more people then you’ll end up not talking much, there will be limited back-and-forth conversation and you won’t get to know anybody.  I find these panels to be low value add for all involved.

2. Over promotion of your company – For some people it’s tempting to be an marketing automaton.  Don’t.  You’re better off with the earned media and the relationships.  Nobody remembers many of the details of what is actually said in a panel discussion anyway.  But they remember the impression they formed of you.  People generally don’t like over promoters who don’t add to the discussion.

3. Long winded intro – I really like when the moderator asks people to limit intros to 30 seconds.  Nobody is there to be “educated” about your entire career history or have a long-winded description of your company in the intro.  Keep it short, sharp, punchy and high energy.

4. Hogging minutes – The other annoying thing on panels is the “over talker” or the person who always has to answer the question first (the way that annoying kid did back when you were in elementary and high school).  Don’t be a wall flower – you should get in your minutes.  But don’t crowd out other people.  If your goal is to sit on panels with important people and build a relationship with them you won’t achieve this by not letting them speak!  (you might think you won’t do this either by being controversial – I think if you learn to do controversy with humor and tact it’s OK.  Just my view.)  Also, when it’s your turn to speak don’t speak for too long in any one question.  People prefer snappy answers to questions.

5. Being a player / manager (aka moderator with an agenda) – Moderators are moderators, not panelists.  That’s why they gave you your own special title.  You’re not a player / manager – you’re a manager.  Understand your role.  Don’t answer your own questions or ask questions that are secretly statements to show how smart you are.  Earn respect of the audience be well thought through questions.  Keep panelists on their toes by not letting them speak too long on any one topic.  Try to get a discussion going amongst panelists.  Get the audience involved.  You are the conductor.  You control the tempo.

(Photo in the banner taken by (cc) Kenneth Yeung – http://www.thelettertwo.com).