Boost your networking and be hosted for free with StartupStay

In Others by Sébastien FluryLeave a Comment

Are you often travelling to startup conferences and lacking the connection with local entrepreneurs? Then, StartupStay is there for you!

StartupStay is an accommodation online service, where you can request to stay by a fellow entrepreneur. For free. When you’re preparing a travel to a startup conference (like Dublin Web Summit, which I have the honor to attend as an official blogger), you’re always wasting time to find an available and affordable room. If you’ve found one, cool. But you’re missing something. How can you easily connect with the local startup community?

StartupStay is just that: you look for an entrepreneur who would be OK to host you for free. You can browse the entrepreneur’s profiles and find the ones who are the closer from your interests or your industry. What you provide for it is up to you. But you don’t pay anything. What you can really get from such a stay is building a relationship. And share knowledge. And be introduced in the local tech scene. In one word: AMAZING!

StartupStay

I was invited to the service a few days after this launch (the startup is from UK, but, well… with a good networking, you’re often just 1 or 2 relations away from the guys) and have just experienced it last week when looking for a couch in Dublin. Crazy how it really works: 3 requests, 2 responses (one OK, the other one was already booked) just 12 hours after my email. I’m excited to live this experience, as I am always enthousiastic to meet new people.

More than just a hosting service, you can also invite people from the community to meet for a coffee. Or, proactively invite entrepreneurs that will stay in your city to have a drink together.

StartupStay is a wonderful service that needs, in my opinion, to be hugely widespread. Everyone of the startup industry can really benefit to meet fellow entrepreneurs around the world in such a new way. Alongside initiatives like the coworking visa, StartupStay can play an interesting role in linking entrepreneurial communities around the world.

A few weeks ago, StartupStay already counted more than 3’000 people. But only 25 in Switzerland… Come on, Swiss guys, be part of the community!

The service is “invite only” and you can request an invite on their site. Or best, just ask me an invitation to StartupStay. I’ve managed to get 50 invitations for you!

And just tell me if you’d like to help Fred and Facundo, the founders of StartupStay, accomplish their mission… I’ll connect the dots!