Meet&Deal vol2 is behind us. After vol1 and the feedback I received, I knew I had to repeat it. Now I know that Meet&Deal has found its rightful place in this market among dozens of other event organizers. I am therefore pleased to announce that the next edition (or deal?) will be on June 25 in the form of a Summer Edition at Mesto More. Why the sudden change in name and not the classic vol3? And how did vol2 turn out?

First to the terminology. Meet&Deal is a brand, and vol1 and vol2 are its products. These products or events can be attended by 150 to (so far) 200 people and take place from afternoon until late evening hours. Summer Edition and probably other similar intermediate steps will be smaller events. They will start a little later and will not be as demanding to prepare as the big ones. You don’t need to mark June 25 if you’re subscribed to the E-commerce Calendar. If not, fix that – it’s free.

Back to vol2. This time, a record number of people showed up and I’m thrilled about it. Meet&Deal is having an impact and there is interest in it! Nearly 200 people gathered in the event space of Vaclavak 22 from 3 pm to 11 pm to get to know each other, deal, and most importantly, have fun. Because that’s what business is about, having fun, having fun together, having fun about it, and growing together. The CZ and SK e-commerce community has a great community of people and they definitely want to grow together.

The panel discussion I moderated was attended by Zdravko Krstanov, editor-in-chief of online Forbes, distiller Martin Žufánek, and Ondřej Křivka, managing director of the Media:list agency. The panelists, including the topic of personal branding and PR in e-commerce, definitely also attracted more participants. The panel was a bit shorter than last time, but all the more nourishing. Despite the occasional disturbance of the audience, who were still networking at full speed (strange at a networking event), we covered PR and personal branding from various perspectives.

Did any deals close? It’s not entirely clear yet. It’s not that simple, although I can personally say that thanks to Meet&Deal vol2, 4camping will be using Ecomail. Yes, you read that right, even though I’ve left Ecomail, I’m still selling it. But if it was at least half as good for the others as it was for me, a whole series of deals were made.

This time, Meet&Deal vol2 participants also helped. We decided with the organizing team to organize a raffle with valuable prizes from our partners Alkohol.cz, Alensa, Trenýrkárna, or za5dvanáct. I also personally contributed with my own t-shirts or tickets to the next Meet&Deal or a subscription to my HeroHero. All the proceeds from the raffle went to a boy named Tommy, who needs to finance expensive rehabilitation due to his disability.

The event was personally attended by the founder of the Srdce na Pravém místě association, Jakub Kohoutek, through whose transparent account we collected money for the raffle tickets. Tommy’s mother even came, and we had the honor of talking to her personally. Through the joint effort thanks to the raffle (and the tireless support of Ruslan Skopala – thank you for that!) and the spontaneous auction of one of the paintings by David Čáp, which was auctioned by Martin Kůs (for 17,000 CZK!), we managed to raise more than 55,000 CZK, which has already been sent to Tommy. I would like to thank all those who contributed and participated in this good deed.

Meet&Deal vol2 could really not have taken place without partners. Vaclavak22 provided us with a great event space, Alkohol.cz almost wore out its (super)bartender, who mixed over 600 great drinks for the participants (at vol1 it was about 400), Ecomail took care of the beer and non-alcoholic drinks, Vinařství Svoboda took care of the wine, and Cook For Life took care of the food, which was completely eaten. The media partner for vol2 was the Slovak portal Startitup.sk, thanks to which Meet&Deal was also written about in Slovakia.

I would also like to thank Radim Madarász and David Gregor aka Czekid for the great photos and videos from the whole day. Follow the Instagram @mitdyl, where we will be constantly adding content from our stocks.

To not just be about impressions and feelings, let’s also look at some numbers. I mentioned the number of participants several times, there were almost 200 of you and it was sold out. I typically promoted the event on my blog, on social media, and in the newsletter.

Starting from the end. The open rate of emails to participants was over 76% and the click rate was over 21%. I also mentioned Meet&Deal to subscribers of the E-commerce Calendar. From Thursday to Sunday, over 60 stories with the tag @mitdyl appeared on Instagram. On Instagram, @mitdyl gained 38,000 impressions and reached 12,000 accounts. On the website, I had 1,500 unique visitors, and I haven’t even looked at the reach on my LinkedIn yet.

After the upgrades and feedback from the first edition, we also have what to improve after vol2. Before the next one, we need to better resolve the acoustics of the space for the panel discussion – this applies more to vol3 than the Summer Edition. Due to the ongoing networking and lack of feedback, unfortunately we couldn’t hear the panelists very well. Or could we separate the space with the panel discussion from the networking people? Some would apparently welcome more refreshments and perhaps another bar. It’s clear that networking with good drinks and food goes a little better.

There were of course more minor shortcomings. On the other hand, positive impressions prevail not only for me, but also according to feedback from participants. Once again, thank you all for coming to the most rewarding networking event in the Czech Republic, and I’m already looking forward to what will be next.

I remind you that on June 25 we will meet at Mesto More for the Meet&Deal Summer Edition. This will shorten the wait for vol3, which will take place in September or October. When exactly? Follow the E-commerce Calendar to be the first to know.