We spent $1200 on a booth at HITEX 2026. Here's what we got

I had a booth for Message24 at HITEX 2026, a tech expo run annually in Erbil where local companies and startups show their products to businesses and the public.

Message24 gives a business one inbox for all its social media messages, plus an AI agent that answers customers in multiple languages, so nobody is left waiting for a reply.

If you’re thinking about exhibiting at an expo like this, here is what we set out to do, what it cost, what worked and what we got.

When I decided to join HITEX, I wrote a one pager on the goals of Message24 at HITEX 2026:

1. Collect leads for potential customers

   • Designed flyers, rollups, business cards to give leads and explain the product
   • Wrote a simple app so that people can easily try out the product quickly: try.message24.net
   • Created a simple google form we used to record some basic information about the leads

2. Brand Exposure / Instagram Followers

   • I designed some cute vinyl stickers of our brand mascot to give away in exchange for instagram followers
   • Participated in a podcast that was introducing the startups participating at HITEX

3. Do some market research

Costs

Some of y’all may be interested in knowing how much it usually costs for a small company to participate. We’re a scrappy startup and need to be strategic about our spending. Costs vary a lot depending on booth size, your marketing material, goals, etc… but here are ours:

1. Booth: $500 (we got the smallest booth size: 3m x 3m)
2. Printing / Props: $385
   • 2 rollups
   • 3600 vinyl stickers (they were fire! people love stickers)
   • 1000 flyers (2 sides)
   • 400 paper bags (we actually only used ~40 bags)
   • 200 business cards
   • 1 Podium rented for 4 days
   • 1 All-in-one PC rented for 4 days
3. Staff: $280
   • 2 university students. They did a great job.

So in total we spent about $1200 for the 4 days at HITEX. We got about 40 leads, so that’s about $29/lead, not too bad.

What worked and what didn’t

1. Before HITEX I asked for testimonials from current customers and printed them on one of the rollups. Made a huge difference.
2. The demo website was a good idea. Several leads tried it out right there at the booth.
3. I wish we had a QR code for our instagram account next to the stickers. We would have gotten more followers that way.
4. On pricing: some leads were concerned about the price, but a lot of people actually found it very affordable (some found it too affordable).
5. Don’t just stay at your booth. I visited the other businesses’ booths and some of our leads came from there.
6. It pays to have lots of friends. A LOT of my friends visited and it both made the experience much better and attracted more attention (crowded booths are interesting!)
7. Don’t let your ego blind you, only pay for stuff that will give you a clear advantage. Don’t book a booth larger than what you need, don’t spend on stuff that won’t help you!

Results

Against our original goals, I am pretty happy with the results we got:

1. About 40 leads, from businesses of various sizes
2. We gained about 150 instagram followers. We gave away lots of stickers and flyers, so followers are still trickling in after the event
3. I am more convinced that we’re solving a real problem and businesses are hungry for a solution

For the next few weeks I will have to follow up with each lead and try to convert them, so the work hasn’t ended yet.