Summit at Sea: DOPE on the boat

This year I represented DOPE Drinks at Summit at Sea in Miami — a 1,000-person gathering of founders, investors, and thought leaders aboard a cruise ship that sails for three days while you do nothing but talk to interesting people.

Among the speakers and guests: Richard Branson and Diplo (yes, the same trip).

The most useful thing about an event like this isn’t the keynotes. It’s the third coffee on the second morning, when you’re standing in line behind someone who turns out to be the right investor at the right moment, and the seven hours of context you’ve already absorbed makes the conversation better than any cold-pitch could be.

I left Summit at Sea with the DOPE Drinks funding round secured.

A few notes for founders thinking about whether events like this are worth the cost:

Yes, if you go in with one specific ask. Mine was: meet two new strategic investors for DOPE. If you go in to “network” you’ll burn three days having forgettable conversations. Go in with a one-line ask.

No, if you can’t write the email afterwards. The only currency that matters at a conference is your follow-up. If you can’t sit down on Monday morning and write 30 specific emails to the 30 people who said “send me your deck”, the trip was a holiday, not a business expense.

The ROI is non-linear. I’ve been to events that returned nothing for two years and then turned into the introduction that closed a deal. I’ve been to events that returned a deal in week three. The variance is wide. The discipline is to keep showing up and keep writing the follow-up emails.

The DOPE round that closed off the back of Summit at Sea is now visible: SilverLeaf Investments led, Kweku Mandela came in as Global Partnership Advisor, and we hit our $1M crowdfund target on a $10M pre-money valuation. The trip paid for itself many times over.