Siilo at Web Summit 2019

Last week, three of the Siilo team made their way from rainy Amsterdam to Sunny Lisbon to participate in Web Summit, the largest tech conference in the world. As if the sun wasn’t enough of a draw, the unique opportunities to meet people from a variety of businesses and categories easily closed the deal, as did the variety of ideas and concepts on show at the event. Often referred to as the place ​“where tech meets the world”, Web Summit is also where the world meets the drivers behind the tech. Over 70,000 attendees and speakers converge on the sunny city for a chance to learn or explain why their idea will make an impact in a world facing global crisis.

When our CEO, Joost Bruggeman, received an invitation to present the Siilo story on the Growth Stage, we jumped at the opportunity. As a result, we were able to reach beyond our size and share our story with people outside of our usual audience in healthcare. We have big ideas about what can be done to affect change in one of the most inert industries in the world, and we were ready to share them with people from around the world.

But no more, the time is right for us to launch Siilo onto the world, and share our vision and aspirations for both the future of healthcare, and ourselves.

Our mission is to liberate healthcare professionals, and it is a multifaceted challenge that needs to be tackled from all sides. Building a user base from the ground up and growing organically within our own market of the Netherlands has proven that what we’re trying to achieve is desired, even celebrated, by our target audience. Through this success, we have been able to put top-level industry administrators at ease, and pique their interest enough to engage them at an enterprise level. After all, if professionals are adopting Siilo of their own volition, it stands to reason that an institution-wide, systematic roll out would increase both employee and patient satisfaction. Healthcare leaders are aware of the problems orbiting outdated software, as well as the insecure solutions used to get around those issues. They see Siilo as a proven solution that is already favoured by many employees in a category that is notoriously resistant to change. It’s a no-brainer, right?

Our success in the Netherlands has allowed us to organically grow beyond our home market into Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom. This growth has been driven by both professionals and organisations, and now we’re working hard to capture the momentum and further our foothold in these new markets. This is where events like Web Summit come in. 

It can’t be stressed enough how massively important these kinds of conferences can be for small brands like ours. Over the four days our team spent in Lisbon, they were given the opportunity to share our story on the Growth Stage, but also to meet with investors and entrepreneurs, and learn from presenters and booth-holders from multiple industries. It was an opportunity to further establish ourselves as a company and reinforce our credibility on the world stage, with a strong vision of where we want to go and what we want to achieve. 

Being apart of events like Web Summit offer infinite benefits for a startup like us, but of them all, two stand proud of the rest: credibility and confidence. By being given a stage at such a prestigious event to share our story, we gain credibility in the eyes of our listeners and give confidence to present and future investors and users that what we’re doing is both real and viable. Siilo is solving a problem, and opportunities such as this give us a place and platform in which to share it.

Exposure is not the only benefit, though. Attending other talks, manning a booth with other startups, and speaking with people outside our own industry is a huge learning opportunity when it comes to building and scaling our business. The primary function of a conference is to share knowledge. Giant conglomerates stand to gain much from adopting just a little of the brassy boldness of startups with nothing to lose, and the lessons a startup can glean from a legacy company – and other young businesses – are invaluable. We are all there for the same purpose, and we all have something to teach from our own experiences. 

Our time at Web Summit 2019 was one of phenomenal learning and inspiring conversation. We loved sharing the Siilo story with people we might never have met otherwise, and we like to believe that our story will spread farther in the world because of our attendance. Without a doubt we’ll be present at Web Summit 2020, and other conferences besides! 

If you were unable to attend Web Summit this year, check out CEO Joost Bruggeman’s talk on Siilo’s growth strategies here: