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324 sats \ 4 replies \ @jimmysong 14 Oct 2023 \ on: Bitcoin Conferences Are for Losers bitcoin
I'm probably going to sound very contrarian, but if you want a Bitcoin job, going to conferences is how you get leads.
Yea, you can spam apply to whatever is available on bitcoinerjobs.com or the jobs forum here, but there's nothing like meeting people face-to-face to make an impression. I agree that for devs, this isn't as necessary since there's open source contributions and such, but every company looking to hire wants to reduce risk. They want to know if they can work with you and that you show up on time to meetings and such. Meeting people in these places is how you make that impression.
How do I know this? I used to be attend these things as a pleb back in 2015-2016. And it worked out for me. I put myself out there and I made an impression with some people. And when it came time for me to look for a job, those connections and impressions made a difference.
Of course, I no longer work for a company and I wish I had started my own business earlier, but even then, you need to know people and scope out what people are doing. I know a lot of people that met their co-founders at these things.
The problem is a lot of people think it's a waste of money because the tickets are expensive. But you have to think of these things as an investment. You pay to start or continue some relationships. Meetups are great, and if you have a local one, by all means, attend and do the same things. But if you want a wider audience for your product, or more people to connect with conferences are really good for that.
This is just good life and career advice. There are many good engineers that are terrible to work with. As someone who has been on hiring committees and managed devs you want to know that you can work with someone and meeting in person is way faster and more clear than digital connection. This is true outside of bitcoin. Conferences are very effective ways of making connections. You have a concentration of people around a single area of expertise.
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Thanks, Jimmy, for your reply. I agree that back in 2015-2016, there weren't many Bitcoin projects, companies, and conferences were the only way to meet people and build a career. Crypto Twitter did not exist, and many Bitcoin celebrities did not exist either. Things are much different now. There are so many open-source projects to contribute to, opportunities to learn, a community on Nostr to showcase your work, and direct messages (DMs) to establish one-on-one connections.
Based on your experience, it is mainly one-on-one conversations or small group discussions that lead to meaningful next steps, rather than the conferences themselves.
I religiously read your weekly newsletters and am learning how to identify rent-seekers or middlemen who don't add any value, and I see these big conferences as falling into that category.
To clarify, here's how I see it:
winning strategy is to have a clear target person to meet, introduce yourself to, or talk to at the conference. Contact them via DMs to arrange a meetup or look for side meetups that you know other like-minded people will attend. or you get invited to speak at these conferences.
Losing strategy is thinking that you can wing it by meeting many speakers, celebrities, and hoping to land your dream job by paying for a full-price conference pass or a whale-pass.
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Yep. And Twitter's a decent way to make first contact, but there's nothing quite like f2f meeting. Also, be friendly to lots of people. You never know when one of them can introduce you to the right person or invite you to the right dinner where your target might be.
Also, nice little hack if you want to go but can't afford it. Volunteer at the conference! Most of these things need a lot of staff and as a bonus, you'll often get to interact with the people you wanted to target backstage and so on. It's really not that different than open source work, though obviously, it helps the people putting on the conference. But honestly, I don't see them as middle men. They take a lot of risk and many of these conferences lose money. It's an entrepreneurial endeavor that requires a lot of blood, sweat and tears. They're far from rent-seeking in my mind.
Particularly dev conferences, there's a lot of good connections and things you can learn, and the people running it have good motivations to help the community. I would really try to be more empathetic toward them.
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