Royal Dublin Society is the venue for more than 20,000 people attending Web Summit.

I wish I were at Dublin's Web Summit this week. Founded by Paddy Cosgrave, it has become one of Europe's top startup conferences, along with Loic Le Meur's LeWeb in Paris next month.

I had a fabulous time two years ago and made many new friends and contacts and came away very impressed with the local startups and the serial entrepreneurs.

Usually, Web Summit and LeWeb is full of speakers that I know well because they fly in from Silicon Valley and New York. But I'm not the target market, I'm interested in hearing from local entrepreneurs and startups.

Telling a great story is very important for startups to master and the Irish love telling great stories so it is not surprising they are doing well.

Dublin has a very vibrant scene and a lot of freshly minted multi-millionaire entrepreneurs who have been bit by the startup bug and want to try their luck and their skills again, and again, and again. It is this willingness to try and fail that lies at the heart of Silicon Valley's success but culture is difficult to export.

Flounders...

Failure is the theme of my favorite event at Web Summit, the Flounders dinner (above) organized by Paul Hayes, a master connector based in the Bay Area.

Flounders is a group of serial entrepreneurs meeting at the same time as the F.ounders event -- an exclusive group of top founders (Elon Musk etc,) dining on their stories of success. The Flounders event was hilarious, with people sharing their stories amid much ribbing and much drinking of the black stuff.

I'd go back just for Flounders!

Please see:

Big Exits Make Ireland's Serial Entrepreneurs - Pride In Irish Teams -SVW

Irish Entrepreneurs: Serial Founders And Flounders... -SVW

Dublin Web Summit - Some Notes And Images From Ireland's Tech Community -SVW