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Ciao, tutti! I’m glad to report that I got safely back home from Turin.
WordCamp Europe 2024 was productive, fun, and insightful. I caught up with old friends and made many new connections. I was also super pleased to learn how positively Freemius’s software and services continue to be perceived by the community.
It was also encouraging to see that many companies were scouting for acquisition opportunities and that sponsorship packages for smaller businesses were well-priced.
Both of these factors indicate forward-looking prospects for solo makers and SMBs in the ecosystem. It means there are still plenty of opportunities for them to build useful products and that WordPress recognizes the importance of giving them a foot in the door to showcase their offerings and brands.
I’m going to be diving more into this later in the article. First things first — let’s do a play-by-play report of how each conference day looked for the Freemius team.
Avengers, Assemble!
I was joined on the trip by our Head of Video Content Zee Hazan and Head of Brand Hadas Golzaker, as well as two new members I didn’t have a chance to meet in person before the WordCamp:
- Chief Marketing Officer Goran Mirkovic. He brings a wealth of SEO and marketing experience to the team and has created content strategies for well-funded SaaS companies. He’s also a movie buff and full-blown sandwich fanatic (more on this later 🥪).
- Senior Full Stack Developer Daniele Alessandra. Not only does Daniele boast a wealth of coding knowledge, but he’s also Italian 🇮🇹 which means the team had a “molto bene” local guide in our group 😉
Are you also counting down the miles, minutes, and coffee stops to @WCEurope? We can’t wait to see everyone. Are you there yet?#WCEU #WCEU2024 pic.twitter.com/e3Z8UqEiUG
— Freemius (@freemius) June 7, 2024
As the above tweet shows, our (palpable) excitement for WordCamp Europe 2024 had been building well in advance. Without further ado, let’s turn the clock back to Wednesday, 12 June — one day before the event kicked off.
The Long and Rocky Trip to Turin!
Getting to Turin wasn’t easy for anyone on the Freemius team.
Hadas and I met up at the airport in Tel Aviv and caught our plane together.
Almost there! The journey to WordCamp Europe begins 🇮🇹 🛫 #wceu pic.twitter.com/Vjd4YWcgiC
— Vova Feldman 💙 Attending #WCEU (@vovafeldman) June 12, 2024
After landing in Milan, it was another two-hour bus trip + a train ride to Turin.
Fellow Israeli Zee had it comparatively easier. He’d arrived in Venice a few days earlier to attend the Venice International Film Festival and only had to undertake a short boat and train ride to reach our destination.
Ironically, Zee also had it easier than Daniele, who had to catch an early flight from Palermo down south to Turin in the north.
Daniele had been working in our hotel’s lounge when his roommate Zee arrived. The two of them hit it off immediately and Daniele joined Zee to go buy a pair of Vibram five-finger shoes.
Back in Serbia, poor Goran’s flight to Italy was delayed. After making it through customs, he caught his bus to Turin with literally one minute to spare and would only arrive at the hotel much later that night.
In the meantime, the rest of us were sitting down to our first Italian dinner together.
Day 1: Attending Contributor Day and Hosting Freemius Makers’ Meetup
WordCamps offer a golden opportunity to shoot testimonials and interviews + collect content for multiple video projects since many respected and experienced community members are in attendance. Our goal was to get industry-expert insights for educational pieces we’re building for our YouTube channel.
We booked interviews with folks like Patrick Posner (founder of Simply Static), Rytis Laurie (CEO of Omnisend), Anna Hurko (CEO of Crocoblock), Matt Cromwell (co-founder of GiveWP), Vito Peleg (founder of Atarim), and the guys from Blocksy, among others.
In addition to building valuable content for our audience, the interviews also presented a platform to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones. This fostered effective two-way communication that carried over to other WCEU 2024 events.
WordCamp Europe 2024 took place at the Lingotto Conference and Exhibition Centre, which used to be Fiat’s first major car factory. Zee left the hotel at 6:30 AM to find and secure a good filming location in the venue.
To merge with our “surroundings” and live our most authentic Italian life, the rest of the Freemius team drove from the hotel to the conference in nothing other than a blood-red Fiat 500.
Traveling to #WCEU in a Fiat 500 🚗 💨 – the @freemius team is 100% committed to making this Italian trip as authentic as possible. 😎 #wceu #wceu2024 #wordcampeurope pic.twitter.com/obGeSdzV6g
— Freemius (@freemius) June 13, 2024
Non ci sono limiti! 🚗 💨 🇮🇹
While Zee focused on shooting video interviews that averaged around the one-hour mark each, the rest of the team headed over to the Contributor Day site. Daniele joined a group of developers who were trying to resolve an issue with the WordPress Media window while Hadas, Goran, and I did some networking.
After meeting up with some old and new connections, shooting video footage, and doing our part for the WordPress Project, it was off to Freemius Makers’ Meetup Europe 2024. 🎉
Ciao, Makers! 👋 🇮🇹
Makers’ Meetup was — as always — an evening to remember.
We had great talks with our makers. Hadas found that some of the main reasons they chose and have stuck with us are:
- We handle tedious things like VAT on their behalf.
- They are super happy with our support — kudos to Developer Support Lead Leo 🙌
- They feel we genuinely care about them and are invested in their success.
Goran says he had many fruitful conversations with our partners, mostly about marketing and what we can do to help them grow their businesses. He was thrilled that so many makers came to him with ideas and explicitly indicated where they needed help.
We also had a competition where makers in attendance could tag us in a post on social media, scratch a card, and stand a chance to win an AirTag, Chipolo 2, or a pair of AirPods. The only person who ended up winning anything was Xaver Birsak. He won twice, in fact — both the Chipolo 2 and the AirTag!
I guess we need to rethink the format of our competition for the next Makers’ Meetup 🙈 but it was a huge success nonetheless and, as always, is one of my top highlights for any WordCamp.
Day 2: WordCamp Europe 2024 Day 1 and Various Company Parties
The first day of WordCamp panned out true to form:
The team is at WordCamp! 🙌🏻 Looking forward to catching up with all friends and meeting new ones! 🤝 🇮🇹 #wceu #wceu2024 pic.twitter.com/iR2U2MxAvy
— Freemius (@freemius) June 14, 2024
1. Catching up with old connections and forming bonds with new ones
Packed room for @learnwithmattc and @KatieKeithBarn2 🔥🙌🏻🇮🇹 – no room to squeeze in a cannoli.#wceu #wceu2024 #WordCampEurope pic.twitter.com/DJvEAeTLG2
— Freemius (@freemius) June 14, 2024
2. Attending packed, interesting talks
Hadas trying to figure out if all her swag will fit in the fiat. 🧐 pic.twitter.com/6GcBopLGR5
— Freemius (@freemius) June 14, 2024
3. Collecting SWAG (and figuring out where to put it all 😂)
While I’m dropping tweets 😅 I’d like to take a moment to share what Matt Cromwell had to say about Makers’ Meetup:
Preach, @learnwithmattc! PREACH! 🙌🏻🇮🇹#makermeetup #wceu #wceu2024 pic.twitter.com/9LBfXtJWlY
— Freemius (@freemius) June 14, 2024
It was refreshing to see the usual assortment of people who usually attend WordCamps:
- Both larger and smaller companies in the ecosystem
- Independent developers
- Younger people looking for job opportunities
This was more balanced than WordCamp Asia 2024 which had a commercial flavor and lacked WP users.
Goran also remarked that he was pleasantly surprised at how well people network at WordCamp. He’s been to lots of business conferences as both an attendee and speaker – in Serbia and abroad — but says that he’s never seen so many smooth interactions. He found that everyone was very approachable and open to having a chat on literally any topic.
Hadas says the biggest event of the day was attending four different parties after the conference proceedings. All in the same building where we hosted Makers’ Meetup. It was cool moving from one party to another and talking, dancing, and having fun with the WordPress community.
To be honest, I’m really glad we hosted Makers’ Meetup the night before because everyone was way more refreshed and open to having productive conversations. I think it also confirms my theory that companies saved money on open-invite parties during WordCamp Asia 2024 to allocate more budget to WCEU.
Day 3: WordCamp Europe 2024 Day 2 and the Official Afterparty
Everyone is usually quite beat by the final day of WordCamp and WCEU 2024 was no different 😅
We had some more video interviews and two meetings to attend to. A big highlight of the day was our lunch where we had some excellent pasta and pizza.
The afterparty wasn’t bad but nothing particularly special, either.
Hadas remarked that WordCamp needs to work on afterparties since they are always hot, the music is way too loud, and the drink finishes too quickly. It also seems like the same playlist is always repeated and could do with an upgrade.
However, this by no means deterred us from having as much fun as possible. The team left the festivities in the early hours of the morning for some well-deserved shuteye after three days of getting the most out of WCEU 2024.
Day 4 + 5: Packing Up and Traveling Back
Sunday was spent unwinding, sightseeing, and meeting up with other WordPressers who decided to spend some more time in Turin.
Zee, Hadas, and Goran visited the Cinema Museum while Daniele and I decided to stay at the hotel and rest up.
Later that day, Hadas caught a train to Rome for some exploring and to savor the city’s cuisine. The rest of the team took strolls exploring Turin and I joined a couple of friends from the WP community for lunch.
Tired and happy 😊 #wceu hanging with @raquel__karina @jamesgiroux @xaver_ @dcwhatwhat pic.twitter.com/TFkrDbQZx0
— Vova Feldman 💙 Attending #WCEU (@vovafeldman) June 16, 2024
On Monday, we all caught different flights back to our respective destinations. Being the last one with a plane to catch, Goran decided to head into Turin for one last time to get his sandwich fix at Mollica.
One of the biggest highlights of my visit to Turin was “Mollica”, an epic sandwich shop near the Porta Nuova train station. pic.twitter.com/860FPu9U5d
— Goran Mirkovic (@ClemmRusty) June 17, 2024
Sitting down and reminiscing on the experience, I have a few thoughts to share about WCEU 2024.
My Takeaways from WordCamp Europe 2024
Coming back to my initial points….
All in all, WCEU 2024 felt like a positive experience — for me, my teammates, and the WordPress community.
I noticed this year that more companies were scouting for acquisition opportunities. This is good news for WordPress makers as it means they’ll have more options to sell (if/when they want to, of course). More buyers in the market give more power to sellers.
Sponsorship for smaller makers — the audience that Freemius is focused on — was also really good value for money this year, priced at €2,500. It included good placement, a large desk, decent branding, and a big TV.
From a participant’s perspective, the fact that most of the parties were in the same building on different floors was also really cool. You could attend and switch between multiple parties to mingle with and meet more people and enjoy different vibes.
The only “negative” thing I heard from multiple non-US community members is that they are going to skip this year’s WordCamp US. These were their reasons:
- The location (Portland) is tricky to get to since there are no direct flights
- It’s kind of the same people in attendance over-and-over-again at WordCamp US — WordCamp Europe and Asia are much more diverse, interesting, and fun
I think we sometimes take WordCamps for granted and forget how much work it takes to organize and host them. Let’s not forget the administrative challenges of attending, either.
This WordCamp was a welcome reminder of why the community goes through the effort in the first place and I think it offers some valuable lessons for future events.
WordCamp Europe 2024: A Whole Lot of What Makes WordPress Tick
After the commercial flavor that surrounded WordCamp Asia, it was refreshing to experience an event that encapsulates everything a WordCamp should be about:
- A spirit of camaraderie created by things like open-invite parties
- Affordable sponsorship packages for solo makers and SMBs to get their names out there
- Potential acquisition opportunities that allow smaller players to showcase their offerings to investors and cash in on their hard work
Sure — some things need improving, like the format of the official WordCamp afterparty. But all in all, it was a well-planned event that paid dividends to anyone in attendance. I think other regional WordCamps would do well to take a leaf from WCEU’s book and offer attendees more of what makes both WordCamp and the ecosystem a welcoming, open space for all involved.
I look forward to seeing what lies in store for WordCamp US 2024. See y’all in Portland ✌️
C ya Torino 🇮🇹 #wceu pic.twitter.com/086jIBtpft
— Vova Feldman 💙 Attending #WCEU (@vovafeldman) June 17, 2024
