skip to content

← back to the plays

independence2 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 3 claims against 1

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

4 claims · 4 articles · 4 receipts

window

2015-04-24 → 2024-12-20

2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Take the stage as an acquisition channel

Four builders worked the conference circuit and reached opposite conclusions about what it returns. One rates the effort to reach ratio above most alternatives and credits a hallway contact with an introduction inside a major platform that saved months; another estimates a fifteen minute talk captured almost everything the conference had to offer for a fraction of the effort, with people who ignored him the day before sending staff to arrange meetings. Against that, a third gave a meetup talk, a conference keynote in front of hundreds and a fireside chat and judged none of them good marketing for his product. The reliable version is narrow: speak at the event your buyers already attend, on the exact technology they came to learn.

Where this splits

Two builders treat speaking as a leading acquisition channel with an unmatched effort to reach ratio, while another found talks produced relationships and almost no product traction.

3 claims against 1

Dru Riley · Justin Jackson · Tyler Tringas

Treat speaking slots as an acquisition channel

  1. 01Use conference talks as a deliberate acquisition channel: the effort-to-reach ratio beats most alternatives and it buys credibility plus face time with buyers.
  2. 02Skip working the room at a conference and get yourself a speaking slot instead, then deliver something data-rich, mildly funny and mildly contentious.
the objection · 1 claimCory Zue

Talks buy relationships, not product traction

Conference talks and meetups are worth doing for the relationships, not as a distribution channel; expect large preparation costs and little product traction.

  1. 03Speak at the conference your buyers already attend, on the narrow technology they are there to learn about.

What it returned

  • 99%

    By the author's estimate a fifteen-minute talk captured 99% of what the whole conference had to offer, for 1% of the effort: people who had ignored him the previous day introduced themselves or sent staff to arrange meetings, and he was invited to the private after-parties where the useful data circulates

  • Graphics engineer Stephanie Hurlburt says speaking has been a major sales channel for Binomial; a conference contact put Transistor in touch with a person inside Spotify's head office and saved the team months of work.

  • SoftServe spoke on AI apps at NVIDIA's GTC, BairesDev on PHP at the Darkmira PHP event, and Kandasoft ran a biotech session at Bio-IT World.

  • Zue gave a Django Boston meetup talk, reused it as the PyCon South Africa keynote in front of hundreds, and did an Indie Hackers Cape Town fireside chat, concluding none were particularly good marketing for Pegasus.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.

More in pr

all pr plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.