Date: Jan 20, 2016 Author: Stacy Cowley Source: New York Times (
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DEAL-MAKING at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, typically happens at lavish private dinners and carefully orchestrated hotel room meetings. For the entrepreneurs who attend the conference, hoping to build connections with the global elite, it sometimes requires a more forthright approach.
"I saw the guy in a hallway, so I ran him down and pulled a sample out from my bag," said Eben Bayer, describing how he homed in on an executive from Sealed Air, a packaging company that he hoped would be interested in the environmentally friendly shipping materials made by Ecovative Design, his small business in Green Island, N.Y.
Boldness worked. The two companies soon signed a deal, and four years later, Sealed Air remains one of Ecovative's marquee partners.
To attend the World Economic Forum, one typically has to be an influential celebrity, a wealthy financier or a top leader of a large institution - a country, perhaps, or at least a multinational corporation. But every year, a few dozen start-up founders receive one of the coveted 2,500 invitations, and with it, a chance for some stratospheric networking.
The experience can be surreal.
"I got invited to a dinner with the Irish prime minister," recalled Matthew Prince, who still sounds slightly boggled about it. "You have crazy experiences, like being with a group of world leaders riding down a hill after dinner in these ridiculous sleds, in pitch blackness."
Mr. Prince, a co-founder and the chief executive of a web security company called CloudFlare, went to Davos twice as part of the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers program, one of the conference's on-ramps for early-stage companies.
This year, 49 companies were chosen, including EpiBone, a fledgling biotech company in Brooklyn with a staff of eight. Nina Tandon, the company's chief executive and one of its founders, is giddy about the opportunities the designation has already created for her start-up. At a September gathering in Dalian, China - informally known as Summer Davos - she had a packed schedule of high-level meetings, including a half-hour discussion with Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health.
"I took a selfie with him! Which is something I never do," she said. "He's a celebrity in my world. To get the opportunity to talk with someone who is so influential and thoughtful was pretty amazing."
As with everything at the World Economic Forum, there are hierarchies of elite to the paths that bring entrepreneurs there. The oldest and most prestigious way in is the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a peer network of those under 40 who are deemed to be future global powerhouses. Alumni include several current chief executives like Tony Hsieh of Zappos; Marissa Mayer of Yahoo; Larry Page of Google's parent, Alphabet; and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Around 180 new members are tapped each year.
A newer and larger offshoot, the Global Shapers Community, brings together those under 30 to network and organize local projects in 450 hub cities around the world. Each year, a handful of the participants are invited to the conference. Two other programs, the Technology Pioneers and the Schwab Foundation's Social Entrepreneurs of the Year awards, accept public nominations and involve their winners in World Economic Forum programming and events.
One of this year's Young Global Leader inductees, Alfa Demmellash of Rising Tide Capital, is not headed to Davos - she has a 5-month-old baby at home - but she is already taking advantage of the forum's networking opportunities.
"The program coordinator flew out from Switzerland to come visit us in New Jersey and spent a long time getting to know our staff and mission," she said. "They actively network you and look to connect people who may be aligned on certain projects."
Ms. Demmellash's nonprofit organization works to build entrepreneurship and strengthen small businesses in economically struggling communities. Based in Jersey City, it is planning a national expansion and is talking with the Blackstone Group and others in the World Economic Forum universe about working together on various initiatives.
This annual gathering in Davos is intended to create serendipitous collisions. Jane Chen, a founder of Embrace, a maker of portable infant warmers, met Marc Benioff, the billionaire founder of Salesforce.com, at one of the conference's morning meditation sessions two years ago. Mr. Benioff later invested $1 million in her business.
"You need to spend a half a day before you get there figuring out what your goal is and how to achieve it - Who do you want to meet? What do you want to learn? - but then, when you're there, you need to be flexible and fluid," said Ntiedo Etuk, a 2012 attendee and a founder of two companies, the educational game maker DimensionU and the fitness class marketplace YourGuru.
Such opportunities do not come cheap. The World Economic Forum charges most corporate participants membership fees that can top $100,000. For social entrepreneurs, the fee is often waived, and Technology Pioneers generally pay a sliding-scale fee based on their revenue. Several of this year's participants said they paid no fee at all.
But Davos is an expensive place to travel to and stay. Mr. Etuk estimates that his trip, including a discounted forum membership, cost around $30,000 - a number that gave him pause.
"That's a lot to spend on one event when you're not certain what the outcome will be," he said. "But my investors were supportive, and it paid off in networking and education."
Mr. Prince sends a "Davos advice" email to friends who are attending for the first time. Some of his tips: Stay in Davos itself, not the nearby town of Klosters, no matter what. Hang out at the Hotel Europe piano bar, which becomes a gathering spot each night for the tech crowd. Bring snow boots and a very warm coat.
And his most important tip: Go to the sessions on topics you know nothing about. Years later, one of the memories he values most from his time in Davos is a talk King Abdullah II of Jordan gave in 2013 about conditions in the Middle East.
"He spoke about the Syria refugee crisis, and I can't count the number of times I've come back to that conversation and thought about how all the things we're seeing now, in the mainstream news, he was warning about then," Mr. Prince said. "We all get so siloed into our industries. This is a chance to break down those silos, learn about new things and hang out with people who are experts in all kinds of different fields. It's an experience most people probably haven't had since college."
