Agency growth stories: Techdept's Tech Off event on 'overrated professionalism'

DK: Our PR agency recommended that we do an event. But we’d never done anything like it before and were intimidated by the idea. Four years in, you’d think that we're rock solid at putting on events and think how confident I am at public speaking, but that’s not how it began. Through these experiences, I’ve learnt the breadth of our capabilities at Techdept. On a personal level, it’s been pretty incredible.

TFF: The Tech Off events are a series of short five-minute talks and debates with experts, right?

DK: Rather than follow the standard agency insights event model, we decided to drop the intro and the outro. And just feature the interesting bit. I don’t want to be that guy talking about his agency so we decided to do a series of short talks in which the crowd could chose the winner. For the first event, the prize ended up being a wrestling belt. I genuinely can’t remember why; I’m not into WWE.

TFF: Where did the name Tech Off come from?

DK: It was a joke-y term we’d used for years to describe when we were faced with antagonistic people in tech. It would often result in a tech standoff. Our first event was held in the basement of a Soho pub; so there was a bit of a Rocky or Fight Club vibe going on. We had about 30 people there; some employees, PR contacts, clients and trusty mates. And about three or four speakers for the evening, but not really much of a plan. To our surprise, there was such a buzz from the night and the format just worked. I was convinced it was going to be a catastrophe as it was more of a spasm of activity rather than a strategic investment. The CTO of concert app Songkick won the first Tech Off.

TFF: How did the events get to the scale and madness that they’re at today?

DK: Every time we did another event, we pushed the concept a bit further. It was like a dare with us testing how much we could get away with. With the answer being pretty much everything! It’s been an amazing experiment. It blurred the line for me in terms of personal and professionalism, but it acted as a great jumping off point for my midlife middle crisis.

TFF: Before long, your midlife crisis was on stage at Eurobest...

DK: After our first event, our PR agency introduced us to Eurobest who wanted us to run a Tech Off event in Helsinki. So Rick and I, plus three speakers headed over. One of the guests had just returned from Mexico City and brought a lot of Mexican wrestling gear back with him so I thought it could be funny if we dressed up. I brought a grey tracksuit, inspired by Rocky. Cut to Helsinki. It’s lunchtime. In a theatre with 350 people. Sober. I’m dressed as Rocky. With three industry leaders in Mexican wrestling masks. It seemed like a good idea when we were in England, but suddenly it had all become a bit too real and I started to freak out. I wondered if this would be the end of my career. But as we walked through the crowd to a video of Rocky doing the same, music on full blast, we could see that we’d captivated the audience’s attention.

TFF: What’s been your biggest Tech Off yet?

DK: Probably the event we held with Glug, which drew in an audience of 600. It was packed, night club-volume music was playing, people were sweating. It was a visceral experience but you also got a lot of information, quickly.

TFF: Can you attribute any new business wins to the events?

DK: Yes. In our first year, we made £150k gross profit from wins pointed to us from the events. Subsequent years have become hazy. It’s definitely an unbelievable brand building and networking device. In some ways, the more chaotic and successful the nights became, the harder it was to network, because it would be too noisy and difficult to speak to people. It definitely changed people’s perceptions of us. I would bring a marketing director client into one of our events at London’s Cargo nightclub and they couldn’t believe that the queue of 200 people were there, waiting to see us. As if we were some sort of cultural phenomenon.

TFF: Was this the culture and perception you had in mind for the agency?

DK: Being professional is overrated. Nobody cares. In fact, the converse is true. You stand out for being outrageous. People think: this guy is swearing on stage, with a team of wrestlers and bodyguards, for lols, he must be so self-confident and his company must be amazing, otherwise why would he do this? It’s insane.

TFF: You were invited to SXSW, Retail Week Innovation conference, Festival of Marketing, Cannes Lions, DMX Dublin, Leeds International Festival and more. Why do you think Tech Offs were so successful?

DK: Because my sense of humour trumps my sense of responsibility? Those conferences knew what we were doing. Our events were different. Not boring. Everyone else looks the same, sounds the same and does the same thing, while talking about innovation, disruption and creativity. The irony is not lost on me. And doing something genuinely different (by accident) worked!

TFF: Where next??

DK: We’ve actually just done the last Tech Off! I’m really passionate about workplace wellbeing and mental health, so last year we launched a concept called Getahead Festival. It’s a 24 hour, not for profit event, which 1000 people attended in June last year. We’ve made a 25-year commitment and want to help a billion people learn how to get ahead without feeling burned out. I never would have dreamed of doing this had I not gained the confidence through running those early Tech Off events. And we're back on Friday 14 June 2019 during London Tech Week. Find out more here.