#73 How to Fill a Room With 2,000 People on Zero Budget

\# How to Fill a Room With 2,000 People on Zero Budget## Guest IntroductionI'm joined by Vasily Alekseenko, Founder of Rare Founders. He started Rare Founders when his own fundraise stalled, has welcomed more than 25,000 founders and investors through its doors, and is now building SoPhy to help people keep the relationships that matter.## Episode SummaryLondon has 200+ startup events in a single ten-day window, and many of them promise investors who never show up. This episode is a playbook for filling a room with zero budget: free venues earned through partnerships, 60-second pitches, and formats built so nobody gets stuck in a dead conversation. Then it goes further: why 1,000 real relationships beat 13,000 LinkedIn connections, and what it takes to measure the difference.## Key Points- 🍺 How a zero-budget founder booked a free venue for 250 people in two minutes- 💦 Why founders get 60 seconds on stage, and a water gun if they go over- 🚪 The format trick that lets you leave any awkward networking conversation- 💸 Why family offices avoid founders, and the event that got them into the room anyway- 🤝 The partnership rule that gets venues, catering and speakers without paying- 📉 Why a big LinkedIn network can hurt you when you ask for an intro- 🤖 How AI raised user expectations so high that a manual MVP no longer works## Important Links- You can reach Vasily Alekseenko at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alekseenkovv/- Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space- Check out Rare Founders at https://www.rarefounders.com- Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev## Chapters0:00 - Introduction0:58 - What Rare Founders is: 25,000+ founders and investors in two and a half years1:47 - The failed fundraise that started it all3:28 - Why paid pitch slots with no investors in the room felt like a scam4:22 - The pub with a no-show organiser and a free venue for 250 people6:37 - Going full-time and launching London's Largest Demo Day8:52 - Why events are hard to monetise, and the 40+ media partners behind them11:35 - Inside open mic pitching: one minute, raised hands and water guns14:57 - Breaks that let you exit an awkward conversation16:28 - When a volunteer copied the whole format17:28 - What San Francisco events get wrong, and right18:23 - Why UK investors avoid founder events23:49 - Family offices vs VCs: who wants to meet whom25:36 - Moving from open mics to technical and sector events28:42 - How the events business pays the bills, and why it is not the moonshot30:52 - The channels that drive traffic: partnerships, content and word of mouth34:08 - The pub lesson: what a real partnership looks like38:23 - The LinkedIn problem: 13,000 connections, 95% strangers40:57 - Social physics: why well-connected founders reach Series B43:07 - SoPhy's AI agent for your inbox, calendar and WhatsApp49:00 - Can you measure trust between two people?55:32 - Where SoPhy is now, and why launch is limited57:14 - SoPhy vs Boardy and Instinct59:31 - How AI raised user expectations and killed the manual MVP1:03:47 - Using Rare Founders events as SoPhy's go-to-market1:05:14 - SoPhy's one-minute pitchTopic: Startup Community Building