On 2017-12-01 03:27, Vijay Kumar wrote:

On Thu, November 30, 2017 6:12 pm, Anand Chitipothu wrote:

I believe the role of sponsorship is more than fund raising. It is a
great way to connect python companies with the community. In the best
interest of python community, we should try to maximize the number of
companies that get connected in addition to making sure we raise enough
sponsorship to meet e expenses.

+1 for this. One approach is the "Contributor Ticket" model. Something
along the lines of https://2016.pycon-au.org/sponsors/contributo

This is nice for people who just want to support the event but I don't think it adds much value for the startups themselves. A logo on stage and a link from the website is not much. I'm not sure if that will pull in any business or potential hires (which is usually what these companies are interested in).

I think Anand's thrust was that we should make a package that attracts tiny underfunded startups. This is my opinion anyway. They'd willingly throw the money at the conference just to be part of it. This involves two things.

1. Low cost (definitely less than 50k. Preferable less than 25k). This makes the barrier of entry low and there will be people who say "I don't know if it's worth it but what the heck, let's try
   it anyway. It doesn't cost much."

2. A tangible gain from coming. We cannot piss off the high paying sponsors who will have booth and other things at the event. However, just paying 10k or something and having a link on the website
   doesn't do much. A startup row which will be active from (say) 14:00 to 17:00 on the first day where the startups can all be in one room with a row of tables. They can pitch their wares, organise
   little contests or whatever during that time. It won't be exclusive but will be along with other talks.

If both these things are there, there will be no reason for them to say no and we can attract a lot of them. This means, more job offers, more people etc.

Companies are a huge part of the "community" and given how much effort we're putting in to attract newbie speakers, we should do atleast that much to attract small companies. Not for the money but just to get the companies there.

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