100 sats \ 1 reply \ @starbuilder OP 14 Oct 2023 \ parent \ on: Bitcoin Conferences Are for Losers bitcoin
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.
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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