How to Follow Up After Disrupt and LA Tech Week, and Why Your Email Needs a Video

Quick answer: Send your follow-up email within 48 hours, mention something specific from your conversation, and include a link to a short video about your company. Follow-up emails on their own raise reply rates a lot, and adding video raises them further while helping investors and buyers trust you faster.

It's a busy week. TechCrunch Disrupt is happening at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13 to 15, with more than 10,000 founders and investors expected. Down the coast, LA Tech Week is running from October 12 to 18, with close to 800 events on a16z's calendar, from investor lunches to rooftop founder dinners.

We have teams in both cities, and we talk to a lot of founders the week after events like these. Almost all of them have the same problem. They met great people, had a few conversations that felt promising, and now they're staring at a list of names trying to figure out what to send.

Here's how we'd approach it.

Why following up matters so much

Following up sounds obvious, but a surprising number of founders don't do it, or wait so long that the other person has moved on.

The data makes a good case for doing it quickly. Backlinko looked at 12 million outreach emails and found that sending just one follow-up raised reply rates by 65.8 percent. Yesware found that emails sent within 24 hours get about a 25 percent reply rate, which drops the longer you wait.

So if you're short on time this week, start there. A quick, specific note to everyone you had a real conversation with will already put you ahead of most of the people they met.

Why adding a video to your follow-up email works

A text email jogs someone's memory, but a video lets them actually see you and your product again, and that shows up in the numbers. Salesloft analyzed more than 134 million sales emails and found that emails with a video got 26 percent more replies. When the B2B marketing company Terminus started adding video to its outreach, its open rate went up 40 percent and its response rate went up 216 percent, more than three times what it had been. The team also noticed their emails were getting forwarded around to more people at the companies they were selling to, including the people who actually make the decisions.

Fundraising research shows the same thing. Ethan Mollick at Wharton studied more than 48,000 Kickstarter projects and found the ones with videos were more likely to hit their funding goals, partly because a video shows a founder has put real work in. In a study of more than 1,100 pitch videos submitted to a startup accelerator, Allen Hu and Song Ma found that how founders came across on camera had a real effect on whether they got funded. Kolbe, Mansouri, and Momtaz found that companies in token offerings that published a pitch video raised money at valuations 133 percent higher on average.

Put simply, investors and buyers are trying to decide whether to trust you, and video gives them much more to go on than text does.

Why a brand film beats a quick webcam video

A lot of the sales data above comes from quick webcam recordings, the kind you'd make with Loom. Those are great for a personal hello, and you can absolutely use one.

A professionally made brand film works on a different level, though. It shows your team, your product working, and why the company exists, and the quality of it tells people you take what you're building seriously. When an investor is deciding whether to back you, or a buyer is deciding whether to bring your product into their company, they're also wondering if you'll still be around in a couple of years. A well-made film helps answer that.

A 2025 study in Scientific Reports backs this up. It found that video that's useful, clear, and engaging makes viewers trust a company more, and that trust is what pushes them toward a decision.

We've seen this with our own clients. Speakology AI started sending their brand film to investors during their raise, and their reply rate went up 86 percent. They closed the round 120 percent above their original ask. Fuse AI used their launch film in investor outreach during their $3 million seed round.

How to write a follow-up email after a conference

Keep it short. Four or five sentences is plenty, and research from Yesware suggests emails between 50 and 125 words get the most replies.

Here's a simple example you can adapt:

Subject: Great talking at LA Tech Week (video inside)

Hi Sarah,

Really enjoyed our conversation at the Santa Monica dinner on Tuesday, especially your take on how agents will change insurance claims. Here's a 45-second look at what we're building: [video link]

Would you be open to a 20-minute call next week?

Best, Alex

A few things that make it work:

• Mention something specific. "Great meeting you at Disrupt" could have been sent to anyone. A detail from your actual conversation is what makes them remember you.

• Put the video link near the top. Salesloft found that videos placed after a short opening line, but before the second half of the email, got the best reply rates. A thumbnail image that links to the video works well.

• Use a short cut. Keep the video in your email between 30 and 60 seconds, and save the full brand film for your homepage.

• Make one clear ask. A short call next week is easy to say yes to. "Let's stay in touch" is easy to ignore.

• Check it on your phone. Most of these emails get opened between sessions or in a car on the way back to the hotel.

Following up after Disrupt vs. LA Tech Week

The two events feel pretty different, so your follow-up should too.

At Disrupt, thousands of people are packed into one building and most conversations are quick, often on the expo floor or in a hallway. The person you met may only remember your company name. That's exactly when a video helps most, because it brings back everything they forgot.

LA Tech Week is spread out across the city in smaller rooms, at dinners, coffee meetups, and panels with a few dozen people. You probably had longer, more personal conversations, so your email can be warmer and pick up where you left off. The video gives them something easy to pass along to a partner who wasn't there.

One tip for both: after every conversation that matters, record a quick voice memo with the person's name and what they cared about. It makes writing specific follow-ups on Friday a lot easier.

What our clients' films have done

Our films have helped clients with launches too, not just fundraising. Our launch film for Polaris, an AI creative companion, reached 2.4 million views across YouTube and X. Flowy AI's launch brought in more than 350,000 organic views and over 45,000 signups without any paid ads. After Auxos launched with our film, they got more than 800 reactions and 340 comments, and their client base started doubling every week.

If you want to read more, check out our posts on what the research says about video and fundraising and how founders can be good on camera.

Frequently asked questions

Should I include a video in my follow-up email after a conference? Yes. Salesloft found that sales emails with video get 26 percent more replies, and research on fundraising shows video helps investors trust founders and decide to fund them.

How soon should I follow up after a networking event? Within 48 hours for your most important conversations. Emails sent within 24 hours tend to get the highest reply rates.

How long should a follow-up email be? Short. Aim for 50 to 125 words, with one specific detail from your conversation and one clear ask.

How long should a video in a follow-up email be? Between 30 and 60 seconds. Link to your full brand film on your homepage for anyone who wants to see more.

When is LA Tech Week 2026? October 12 to 18, 2026, at venues all over Los Angeles. It's presented by a16z and most events are free.

When is TechCrunch Disrupt 2026? October 13 to 15, 2026, at Moscone West in San Francisco.

Thinking about a film for your next raise or launch?

If you're heading into this week without a film, don't worry about it. Send a great follow-up email now, and start planning a film so you have one ready for your next raise, launch, or event.

Horizon Studios makes brand and launch films for AI and tech companies, with teams in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We'd love to hear what you're building. Get in touch.

Sources

1. TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 event page. https://techcrunch.com/events/techcrunch-disrupt/

2. LA Tech Week 2026 calendar, presented by a16z. https://luma.com/latw

3. Backlinko analysis of 12 million outreach emails and Yesware follow-up timing and email length data, compiled by Outsales (2026).

4. Salesloft, "Video in Sales Emails Increases Reply Rate 26%." https://www.salesloft.com/resources/blog/video-sales-emails-increases-reply-rate

5. Vidyard, Terminus case study. https://www.vidyard.com/case-studies/terminus-abm-platform-video-for-sales-advice/

6. Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding. Journal of Business Venturing.

7. Kolbe, M., Mansouri, S., & Momtaz, P. (2022). Why do video pitches matter in crowdfunding? Journal of Economics and Business.

8. Hu, A., & Ma, S. (2021). Persuading investors: A video-based study. NBER Working Paper 29048.

9. Luo, C., Mohd Hasan, N. A., Ahmad, A. M. Z., & Lei, G. (2025). Scientific Reports, 15, 16605.

Horizon Studios is a brand film and cinematic video studio for technology companies, based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Recent work includes Polaris, Speakology AI, Flowy AI, and Fuse AI. See the full portfolio at horizonstudios.us/projects.