This was my first year going to Collision and my first ever conference attending in a business development capacity as a business owner (!).

Being the biggest tech conference in North America, I don’t think I knew what to expect. I thought it would be big - it was. I thought it would be overwhelming - it was. I thought it would be fun - it really was.

Now that I've had a few days to rest and process, I have some thoughts to share on how to do Collision (or any other big conference):

• Prep! Take the time to review the calendar and choose the events you’d like to attend (and the events you don’t want to miss) and build a schedule around it. Luckily Collision made this easy in the app, but if it doesn’t make a spreadsheet.
• Make connections ahead of time. Set up meetings, make connections before the event, and schedule them in. I feel like the actual day at the conference was mostly people wandering around and finding each other rather than meeting new people or attending sessions. If you don’t have stuff set up, you will spend time walking around with your mouth hanging open 🙋🏼
• Attend after hours events. I feel like you’ve heard this before but the after hours events are where the business actually happens. People are friendly, the events are smaller and there’s usually something bringing everyone together. I was amazed at how friendly, open and welcoming people were at the parties I went to. The connections felt authentic and the fun was real.
• Pace yourself. This conference is big. There were 6 stages, 40,000 attendees from 16 countries. Lights, sounds, names, people, ideas. It is A LOT. There were moments where I was moving my way through the crowd when I realized that my returns were diminishing. I was tired, I was grumpy, I needed to recharge. I did that and came back happy and ready to mingle again.
• People are happy to help. This was my first conference since launching Moonshot Associates and I was so pleasantly surprised by how generous people were with their time, energy, advice and networks. Most of the people in this environment have built something from nothing and that memory isn’t so far away that they don’t remember the feeling. Most people are so happy to help where they can and it gave me the energy and confidence boost I needed at the start of my business.

I am so grateful for the time I spent building business alongside Jeremy Thomas. I am so excited for all of the connections that I made this week and can’t wait to build on those relationships going forward.

Which events will I see you at next?