Finding the signal, one side event at a time at EthCC

Hey! 👋Aartoo founder Sarah here for this week's blog.

I made a last-minute call to hop down to Cannes and represent Aartoo at EthCC.

It felt different this year: quieter halls, more side events and a flood of early AI startups introducing themselves as “experts.”

There was also a noticeable shift in male - female ratio. In one side event of roughly 120 people, I counted two women. Which I found both disappointing and concerning.

I decided to go specifically to talk about Pulse - the latest product we launched just 2 weeks ago.

Aartoo Pulse is a daily briefing for your community. It shows you what changed, what matters and what needs attention first, without reading everything yourself or opening yet another dashboard. It connects to Discord, Telegram, Reddit and X and delivers where you want it, when you want it.

In practice: Pulse turns chaos into a high-priority to‑do list so you start the day with clarity.

I spent most of the week bouncing from side event to side event, as you do. And noticed a pattern emerging:

• Founders, heads of marketing and team leads felt the strongest pull. They don’t want another analytics wall; they want a fast read on “what changed” and “what matters.”
• This is useful to Community managers, of course. But Pulse resonates beyond community teams.
• Configurability was a big win. People loved shaping Pulse around their own priorities, channels and workflow, not a generic feed; just their version of “signal.”

Some of the best chats and my favourite moments were with our friends from Aurora, Myosin, Avalanche, Co/Unity, CoinEasy and the Ethereum Foundation, plus plenty of new faces.

What felt different about EthCC this year

• Quieter overall. Fewer headline moments, more depth in the side events.
• A lot of newbie AI companies (energetic, ambitious and still finding product‑market truth). I met three people in their early 20s who introduced themselves as AI experts; the ‘enthusiasm’ is real.
• Fewer women, noticeably. One bright spot was the Sol Sisters breakfast: time with brilliant women who are building, shipping and leading. More of that, please.

This week helped tighten Pulse’s positioning:

• Decision support over dashboards: start with “what changed, what matters, what needs attention first.”
• Configurable by team priorities and channels, not one-size-fits-all reports.
• Built for Discord and Telegram realities (and beyond), with multilingual context.

That framing landed consistently, especially with leaders who need to steer, not scroll.

Try Pulse (50% off month one)

If your team starts the day by asking “what changed and what matters?”, Pulse is built for you.

We’re offering 50% off the first month.

Share it with your team lead and run it for a few weeks. You’ll know quickly whether it moves the needle.

Thank you to everyone who took the time in Cannes to share context and pressure-test ideas.

If we didn’t meet and this sounds like your daily headache, I’m happy to show you Pulse in action.