On the past weekend, I attended the Founder Summit 2019 in Wiesbaden. Entrepreneur University, led by the 26-year old Söder twin brothers from the Frankfurt Rhein-Main region, organized this event for the fourth time and it was my first time going.

I enjoy going to meetups, conferences and networking events, but mostly I attend smaller and more tech-focused events. This one was a generic entrepreneurship event with over 5000 attendees, and it had an additional focus on personal development. Therefore, apart from people from the startup ecosystem like founders and investors, they also had a lot of motivational speakers from the coaching scene, who, in turn, drew a more diverse crowd. Those coaches and what they teach are not necessarily everybody’s cup of tea, but there’s no denying that they know how to entertain huge crowds. And talking about entertainment, well, that was probably my first conference where professional dancers, magicians, and musicians alternated with entrepreneurs on stage and every entrance was accompanied by professionally produced videos, music, and light shows.

Also, they put in a considerable effort to get big names to attend. For example, they had two of the four investors from Die Höhle der Löwen, which is Germany’s equivalent of the Shark Tank TV show. Both had interesting insights to share, I especially enjoyed Frank Thelen’s outlook into the future of technology and honest judgment of things like the blockchain, explaining its potential but not succumbing to the hype that surrounds it. Another great talk was by Iskender Direk of Microsoft on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Even though he omitted critical aspects like privacy, his (simplified) description of a day in the year 2029 with new technologies was vivid and well-presented.

To conclude, I had a great time in Wiesbaden, even though I was suffering from a minor cold over the two days, and I would probably attend this event again. Until then I’ll continue going to smaller events which might have less big names and entertainment but are, no less, products of their founder’s love.