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Had we not gone to Echelon, QSearch would have been a very different startup, and not a better one

Two years ago, the QSearch team won the E27 Taiwan Satellite and had the privilege of presenting our startup at the Singapore Echelon. It was our team’s first conference. (Average team age is 23, with me as the oldest outlier). None of us had any idea how going to the conference would change our team of five.

At the conference, we took orders and sold our advertising services. I got my picture taken with David McClure. The team got its first taste of doing international business, and it was a baptism by fire.

But even with broken English (the true international business language), we were able to communicate. We also printed our pitch deck on the back of our t-shirt. The team’s awareness that we must level up our game and our learning was the true take away from the event.

From that single Echelon experience, we collected over 400 contacts, but most importantly, we had a mindset to create a network of value from those business cards. For the last two years, not a week has gone by where we have not had a chance to talk to and work with the people we met at Echelon.

To date, we have touched and created value for over 34 per cent of the contacts we met that day. One of our best customers, who has become a partner in Southeast Asia, is the one who we met at Echelon 2014.

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Echelon is a high-density serendipity at its finest.

Two years later, we have grown to 12, have clients around the world. We are profitable without having to take outside investment, and we control our own fate. I recognise that we’ve been lucky and had many people helping us along the way.

Despite having won other contests and even being part of startup programs and networks, none has had the lasting impact and the kind of return on time as Echelon. The Echelon experience has been an extra booster for our rocket ride.

Had we not gone to Echelon, QSearch would have been a very different startup, and not a better one.

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The article first appeared in Medium.

The post e27 + 2 years: How the Echelon conference changed our team of 5 appeared first on e27.

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