How to Run Packed Events: The Secret Sauce

This week is one of those weeks that remind me why I love building ecosystems. From Monday-Friday, we ran:

• Stockholm Demo Day 2025 at Connect Sverige Region Öst — a two-part signature pitch event with 25+ top Nordic startups. Morning live-streamed pitches to investors and experts, followed by an evening in-person pitch AW in Stockholm.
• Nordic Startup Festival 2025 at Nutty Ventures — a unifying annual Nordic summit that highlighted the 4 I’s (Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, and AI), bringing founders, investors, and community leaders together.
• Science-First Investing fireside chat with Planet A Ventures — hosted by Startup Grind Nordics and Brim - Brands for Impact on how science and venture capital must collaborate to fund a regenerative future.

This was on top of 20+ founder coaching sessions for the Stockholm Demo Day 2025, two extended board strategy meetings, about 14 ecosystem conversations, and at least 60 micro-tasks. How is that even possible?

Every one of us is a superhuman. Stretch your wings and fly. The power is already within you. Stop doubting others. Unlock your own superhuman power.

The Secret Sauce of Running Flawless Events

1. Start Early

Nothing beats early preparation. Yes, I run 150+ events (summits, fireside chats, panels, afterworks, workshops etc.) per year. Yes, you heard that right. This does make me sloppy at times - mea culpa! But whenever I start planning an event early, the results are undeniable. Attendance skyrockets because people rarely have time for last-minute notices.

2. Aim Big

Play small and your event will stay small. Aim big and even if you fall short, you land in a much better place. Stockholm Demo Day 2025 is a good example. I designed it last year at Connect as a dual-format event - a live-streamed morning pitch session plus an evening pitch AW. It is now one of Connect’s most exciting showcases - almost impossible to start, but 100% possible to deliver when you have started.

3. Adapt Playbooks

Reinventing the wheel is a waste of time, in many cases. I build events on proven Nutty Ventures playbooks as an ecosystem acceleration organization. We have benefited from it tremendously in building Connect Sverige Region Öst and SweBAN - Swedish Business Angel Networks ecosystems. Stockholm Demo Day is shaped by our Nordic Pitch Battle playbook from 2022. Nordic Funding Day was inspired by the Nordic Startup Festival playbook from 2022. I maintain a 50+ step playbook for summits in one single line. No to do lists, no worksheets, one single line of text. Within it, there are about 5 critical steps that can make or break an event. Example for a digital summit critical step is: remember to hit record in multipe formats before going live! One missed hit could mean a missed summit post event video sharing.

What Makes Events Truly Successful?

1. End Value: Start with value in mind. High-value events naturally attract strong partners, speakers, and participants.
2. Eloquent Speakers: Events are a stage. The best speakers don’t just present, they share deeply human, knowledge-building perspectives. That stage chemistry creates memorable experiences.
3. Engaged Audiences: Digital events often create more engagement than physical ones. That is counter to logic for many. Why? Because digital events allow networking, live chat, and inclusivity at scale and live. New people are lifeblood of expanding communities. Physical events often end up filled with the same repeat audiences, while new audiences struggle to get in because main tickers are booked by repeat attendees. We see this trend more and more in big in-person tech events where people just float for a couple of hours and come out disconnected without any derived value. Look out for our 2026 conference coming up, in person, without the normal useless trappings of lost big conferences.

The Future of Events

The future is not physical or digital. It is both. Each format has strengths. The real opportunity lies in blending them to create extraordinary experiences that are inclusive, engaging, and transformative. Stockholm Demo Day 2025 is an example. Same day delivered in two formats.

REMEMBER: When you build with value, clarity, and ambition, your events will not just be packed, they will be unforgettable.

Naimul Abd — Helping entrepreneurs scale and get funded, investors discover big ideas, and ecosystems grow and thrive.