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7 Ways To “Hack” Yourself Into Conferences For Free
When Timothy Ferriss came on Mixergy, he said meeting bloggers in person at conferences helped make his book a New York Times Best Seller. When Craig heard that, he brought up a good point. What if you’re a startup and can’t pay for a ticket? Or what if you work for a company that doesn’t see the value in buying you a ticket?
Here are some techniques for getting in for free, based on what I heard in my interviews and events.
Borrow a badge - Writer Sarah Lacy borrowed a speaker’s badge for the Web 2.0 conference from Marc Andreessen. She wrote about it in Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good, the book she talked about at this Mixergy event.
Copy a badge - I promised not to reveal his name, but a guest I met at a Mixergy event told me that he gets into top conferences by photocopying his friends’ badges.
Volunteer - Even if you’re willing to pay, TED is a notoriously hard conference to get into. When I interviewed Douglas Campbell, he told me that he got in by volunteering to help, which is how he met people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Offer to write - When she was out of work and couldn’t pay for a conference, Olivia Kuhn-Lloyd wrote to the organizer and offered to blog about the event. She ended up becoming good friends with the organizer.
Work the parties - When I interviewed Rick Calvert, founder of Blog World, he told me about the hard work he put into getting superstar speakers to his conference. The one place where you could see them all together was at the pre-conference party–which was free. Conferences always have parties.
Use someone else’s name - A friend (who I can’t name) told me that he gets into internet events in SoCal by telling people at the door that he’s me. He figures organizers often comp me a ticket for helping them, so he uses my name. I’m not condemning or condoning this method. Just reporting.
Offer to speak - My friend Tim Street gets paid to go to conferences because he speaks about online video, an especially hot topic right now.
Do you know other ways for ambitious people to get into conferences? Add them to the comments or email me.
5 Reasons Why Zappos Is Doing A Billion Dollars In Sales.
I wasn’t allowed to record the talk that Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, gave on Sunday. The group that invited him to speak wanted to keep the conversion intimate and private. In fact, I’m not sure I’m allowed to even tell you the group’s name. But we all took notes, and I’m happy to share mine.
They created missionaries.
A turning point for Zappos was when the company decided to be about more than selling shoes. Shoes was a sensible business, but creating a “wow” customer service experience became a mission. And once Zappos took on that mission, everyone from their suppliers to employees to customers became missionaries for the brand.
They pay new hires to quit.
Tony told us that he sold his previous company, LinkExchange, because he stopped enjoying going to work. As the company grew, no one paid attention to the culture and it stopped being a meaningful place to work. Now he’s relentless about hiring people who fit the Zappos culture. To ensure that the people he hired want to be a part of the Zappos culture, he offers every new hire $2,000 to quit. Hardly anyone takes the money.
They don’t write up elaborate rules.
Tony told us about a customer who forgot to take out her $150 before returning a wallet to Zappos. An employee found the money and sent it back. Tony explained the conventional way of avoiding employee theft is to write up rules or search employees as they leave work, but all of that is too cumbersome. Because Zappos nurtures its company culture, it doesn’t have to do any of that.
They spend less time looking for new customers.
Tony told us about a woman who bought shoes for her husband. While she waited for her husband to come home so she could surprise him with the shoes, he got into an accident. After she called Zappos for help returning the shoes, the rep she talked to sent her flowers. The way Zappos treats its existing customers ensures that they’ll recommend them to new customers.
They pursue a passion.
Someone in the audience asked Tony if he had any productivity tips for us. Tony’s answer was that if you’re passionate about your work, productivity will come naturally. You won’t be able to stop yourself from working. When I interviewed John King, he told me that he studied Zappos and watched people who loved their jobs so much that they were dancing at work.
If you’ve ever bought anything from Zappos, I’d love to hear your experience. Send me an email or add it to the comments.
Want to learn directly from Tony? Here’s an interview I recently did with him:
“Right click” here to download Mixergy interview
MySpace App Developer Teaches How To Build A Social Network Application. The Jason Kiesel Interview
If you want to grow your company’s audience by adding a social media app (on MySpace, Facebook and similar sites), listen to this interview first.
I interviewed Jason Kiesel because MySpace believed in him enough to hire his company to build IMe, an instant messenger app that lets users message their friends. Here’s some of what he taught me:
Define your purpose - Before you hire someone to develop your app have a focused goal for it. Jason could have added lots of features to IMe, but it would have complicated the app and confused users. Instead, had it do one thing well: make it easy for users to send messages.
Keep your purpose in mind - Jason told me about a client that hired him to build a recommendation app. As he was working on it, the client kept added more features. By the time he was done, the app did so much that it was like a MySpace app that duplicated all of MySpaces features.
Do your due diligence - Before hiring a developer to build out your app, research them. Ask them how many apps they built before and talk to their past clients. Jason suggests that you hire someone based on a recommendation from someone you trust instead of using an online referral service.
Get your mother to try it - The interview I did with Eric Stephens will teach you how to do formal user experience tests. But Jason recommends a simpler solution. Have your mother use your app and see what she has trouble with.
Market it - The best way to market an online product is to build the marketing into the product. For example, at Freedom Speaks, a company that Jason launched, after a user sends a letter to her congressperson, she’s encouraged to ask her friends to do it too. (For more on viral marketing, listen to Hiten Shah.)
Got any tips for building social media apps? Tell me by email or in the comments.
“Right click” to download the FULL interview!
Simple Tips For Networking Into Your Dream Job - The Sloane Berrent Interview
Sloane Berrent has a job most people would kill for. She helps design her company’s future. She throws the hot parties. And she even gets to do good by helping her company support causes.
You don’t get jobs like this by reading the help wanted section. Sloane became Director of Business Development at Causecast.org by networking. I asked her to teach us how she did it. Here are a few of her tips.
Try new events - If you want to meet new people, you have to try doing new things. She’s not someone that most people would consider a “geek” but she tried tech events and ended up meeting her future boss at one.
Set an intention - On her way to an event, instead of listening to the radio or talking on the phone, she spends some quiet time setting an intention for the event. It helps her become more aware of opportunities at the event.
Keep a free hand - Events aren’t about the food & drink. If you have food in one hand and a drink in the other, you won’t be able to shake hands with new people.
Find focal points - I love this idea. Sloane told me that when she gets to an event, she looks for focal points like the bar. She then slowly makes her way from one point to the other. That helps her circulate throughout the event and keeps her from standing in one place or being in one conversation for too long.
Get personal - You build connections with people by finding commonality, not by pushing a business agenda. (Tim Ferriss said the same thing in this interview.) So even at business events, Sloane talks about her personal interests.
Invite people - An easy way to stay in touch with people is to invite them to events. Sloane told me that when she first met Ryan, she invited him to a Heal the Bay event. He couldn’t make it to the event, but he made a her a job offer soon after the invitation.
More - This is only a partial list of what we talked about. Listen to the interview for more.
Do you have any networking tips? Tell me in the comments or by email.
“Right click” here to download Sloane’s interview
Do You Want To Be Donald Trump Or Steve Jobs? - The John King Interview
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be great and achieve great things. When I interviewed him, John King told me that’s not enough. He’s the co-author of Tribal Leadership, a book that says we have 5 stages of development–and “I’m great” is only stage 3.
Tribal Leadership’s 5 stages:
Stage 1: Life Sucks - In this stage, a person thinks life itself is terrible and nothing can be done about it.
Example: People in in prison
Stage 2: My Life Sucks - In this stage, an employee knows that life can be better, feels frustrated because he can’t get the better life–usually because of a stage 3 boss.
Example: Dilbert.
Stage 3: I’m Great - At this stage, the person feels that he achieved excellence–but also thinks that everyone else is less than great. Stage 3 bosses end up having stage 2 employees.
Example: Donald Trump
Stage 4: We’re Great - People at this stage work together within an organization and put the good of the whole above the individual. They work together against a common outside foe.
Example: Steve Jobs
Stage 5: Life is Great - At this stage, there is no outside foe. Everyone works together for the improvement of mankind.
Example: The Wikipedia project
(You can also download the full audio book of Tribal Leadership from Zappos.)
“Right click” here to download the interview
Why Do People Join Online Communities? An Interview With 2 Top Hacker News Members
I didn’t get what I was looking for from this interview, but I think what I learned is even better.
I called up Kevin Fischer and Ed Weissman because they’re two of the top users of a site that was sending Mixergy a lot of traffic, and I wanted to learn how to get more. The site is Y Combinator’s social news site, Hacker News.
As I talked to them, I felt that they loved Hacker News so much that asking them how I can get traffic from the site would feel dirty. So I switch direction. I asked them questions to learn how you & I can build such passionate communities in our businesses. Here’s what I learned.
Being different
The Hacker News community is a bit different. For example, even though just about every other online community encourages user profile pictures, Hacker News doesn’t allow them. Ed & Kevin didn’t even want their pictures in this post. Paul Graham, Y Combinators’ founder, explains why there are no pictures: “I think it’s better if people make their own portraits with their ideas.”
It seems that communities need to go against convention as a way of attracting members. Seth Godin said it was a key element of communities in his Tribes presentation.
Working alone/together
As more people work independently, talking with peers online seems to be a bigger need. Ed told me something that I’m increasingly hearing from others, “I literally sit from 12-16 hours a day 5-7 a week programming in a cubicle alone…. These people are my peers, so it’s almost like a virtual water cooler.”
Meeting in person
Even though most of their conversations happen online, Ed, Kevin and other Hacker News members have met in person at a Y Combinator event. It seems that in-person meetings help built tighter connections for online communities.
Sanjay Sabnani, who runs some of the biggest online forums, told me that he often brings his online members together for in person events at his house.
Getting Bribes Rewards
Online community organizers talk about their communities as if they were hippie communes where members participate because they only care about a greater good. But in the interviews that I’ve done, I’ve noticed that there’s a good deal of quid pro quo.
At Hacker News, the top members are invited to Y Combinator’s Startup School. AJ Vaynerchuk said he gives people who join the PleaseDress.Me community free tshirts. Ethan Bauley of M90 said that his agency encourages clients to give active members products. And at the Mixergy Viral Forum, Jason Nazar of docstoc did an experiment to show us how giving away a document can grow a Twitter community.
I’m not criticizing any of these tactics. I think we need to understand how communities are really built so we can grow ours intelligently.
Do you have any other ideas for how to grow online communities? Add your ideas in the comments or email them to me.
(And check out Hacker News. I’ve become a huge fan.)
Right click to save this interview!
Pictures From Magento Meets Mixergy
Mixergy celebrated the growth of Magento last night–their ecommerce platform has been downloaded over 500,000 times. I think these guys are going to do for ecommerce what Wordpress did for blogging.
If you don’t know about them, go see how they’re helping web sites sell.
And if you didn’t make it to this event, here are some pictures to show you what you missed.
What He Did After He Sold His Company - The Ryan Scott Interview
What would you do if you built a tremendously successful internet company and sold it?
I interviewed Ryan Scott to find out what he did after he sold Netcreations, the email list management company that he co-founded. (Curious about how Netcreations was built? Listen to this this interview.)
Ryan is now an angel investor and the CEO of Causecast, an interactive community for people and brands that want to leave a positive impact on the world. Here’s some of what I learned about his post-sale journey:
“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”
Isn’t this the part most people dream of: throwing great parties, buying fun toys, hobnobbing with celebrities? Ryan got to enjoy it all. There was a part of him that did that to overcome some lingering insecurities from when he was a nerdy kid.
Eventually, he says, the “Rich and Famous” lifestyle wasn’t for him because most of the people it attracted were either after something or just wanted to be around that environment.
Igniting the entrepreneurial need
After being disenchanted with the easy life, Ryan refocused on what got him started: the need to build something. I think there are two kinds of entrepreneurs: The “wannabes,” who try to build companies so they never have to work again. And the “real” entrepreneurs, who build companies even when they don’t have to work.
If you download my interview with Ryan to learn how to build your own success, notice how many times he repeats that he wants to build something that lasts.
Angel investing
He also started investing in companies like Tesla Motors, Mahalo, and Intent.com.
I asked Ryan how he made his investment decisions. He said he looked for ideas that have legs and can leave an impact on the world.
H also said that he considers the personality and reputation of the entrepreneur behind the company. Will s/he crumble in a crisis? Do people think s/he is a jerk? Is s/he someone Ryan would want to work with? (Peter Pham has more on that.)
The power of celebrities
The “aha moment” that led Ryan to create his newest startup, Causecast, came when he realized that celebrities are powerful attention magnets. They make it easier to draw traffic to a web site. I always forget about the power of celebrities because I’m much more interested in business stars than movie stars, but the rest of the world doesn’t think that way. Ryan realized that there was an opportunity to work with celebrities to pull together a big community that supports causes.
(Thank you Sloane Berrent for putting this interview together.)
Right click to download the full interview
How Is This Guy Getting So Many Hits To His Site?
Chiropractor Michael Dorausch is growing his site’s traffic today, election day, by using one of the techniques he told us about when I interviewed him a few months ago, so I’m reposting the interview.
Basically, Michael anticipated that one of the hot search terms on election day would be “what time do the polls close.” So he created this page on his site, listing the opening and closing times for polls across the country.
As he expected, that phrase became a hot search on Google. (Here’s a graph.) That’s why his page kept showing up in people’s search results. (Here’s a screenshot that I took earlier today on Google.)
This is just one technique that Michael taught us in his interview. Download it to hear many others.
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