Jeremy's Twitter: https://x.com/jeremysmithco

Jeremy's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jeremysmith.co

Jeremy's Rails studio: https://hybrd.co/

I had a very inspiring talk with Jeremy and he gave me a lot to think about. A couple things that stood out to me:

On delegating tasks to other people when organizing a conference (or doing anything difficult really) he said, “I think that works really well when you know what the job is to do. But if you’ve never done the job and you haven’t seen it done well, how do you even know what needs to be done?” This is something that I have really been struggling with. I know I will need help but how to get that help and have it be effective is tough for me (a sign I need to build this skill obviously).

Make marketing materials for other conferences! He put out mailers with custom made stickers on them on tables at Railsconf (maybe) and people picked them up! This is something I can definitely do.

When talking about getting sponsors the first time, especially when you don’t have a network to tap into, he said the best advice he got was: “…brand or the conference itself is not what you are selling, you are selling you.” This is a great point. Because I don’t have a history of organizing conferences or a wide network or social media following, the sponsors are really taking a chance on me. I need to convince them that I am the one that will make the conference successful, not the other way around. Ask the sponsors, “What do you need from me to make this successful?”

One thing that he thinks made a big impact on him and the conference itself was the period at the very beginning where he gave people the chance to get on the mic and say something positive that happened to them in the Ruby community. That sounds so cool. I really want to steal this for my conference.

Transcript:

Travis Dockter: Alrighty sounds good. Well, welcome to this very unofficial, unprofessional off the cuff sort of

Travis Dockter: informational interview series. That I'm doing here. I've just been kind of

Travis Dockter: reaching out to different conference organizers for context here and

Travis Dockter: doing these recorded interviews in hopes that I can soak up a little bit of your knowledge, and also that I can put these out for other people who are looking to to organize conferences.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, that's cool.

Travis Dockter: And yeah. So you are the originator of Blue Ridge Ruby. Right?

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: And that start that was in 2023.

Jeremy Smith: That's right. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Okay, cool. Can you? Just on a high level? Just tell me

Travis Dockter: how that 1st experience was like, how did it 1st start? And then

Travis Dockter: how did it go? And just on a on a high level.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah. Okay.

Jeremy Smith: The that year before, I think 2022,

Jeremy Smith: was a really pivotal year for me

Jeremy Smith: professionally, and in being and even involvement in the ruby and rails. Community.

Jeremy Smith: I think, coming out of Covid

Jeremy Smith: and after having spent 10 years working remotely from home. I was feeling pretty disconnected from people in general, and had sort of, I think a lot of people had this like this renewed sense of like I need to be around other people, I need to.

Jeremy Smith: you know, pursue some things that I suddenly couldn't pursue and saw like a need for in my own life. So in 2022, I I kind of went all out and went to a bunch of conferences, and I work for myself. I've been doing that since 2013, and for many years it was just hard to justify the cost of conferences a lot of times to myself, thinking like, what am I going to get out of this like

Jeremy Smith: that's, gonna you know, make the

Jeremy Smith: anywhere from a thousand to 3,000, you know that I throw down on a conference like Worth. It.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: And I finally, in 2022 was like, you know what screw it? I I want to do this. This is just like. If this is my career. This is what I love doing. If I've been doing Rivian rail since 2,009, and I love this and can't see myself leaving like, why can't I just do this for myself? Cause this is what I'm doing, you know.

Jeremy Smith: Maybe for the rest of my life. So

Jeremy Smith: I ended up going to several conferences. One was Sin City Ruby.

Jeremy Smith: and then I went to my 1st railsconf in Portland, and then there was Rubyconf Mini in Providence.

Jeremy Smith: and rail sas in La. And 3 of those conferences were. It was the 1st time those conferences had happened.

Jeremy Smith: So Sin City was Jason's first, st

Jeremy Smith: and then ruby cough, Mini, I mean, you could argue there's ruby cough, but Rubicoff Mini was like a a 1 off and has slightly different format, and it was put together

Jeremy Smith: by people who had hadn't done a conference before. And and then rail. Sas was Andrew Culver's project in La. And so, although I got to see like the 1st time something had happened.

Jeremy Smith: and with all of this kind of in rapid succession. I guess not rapid, but over the course of the year it gave me a lot of context for what I liked or didn't like in conferences and kind could kind of compare like.

Jeremy Smith: oh, what did I get out a lot out of? And what did other people seem to enjoy? And oh, I really like this piece from this and that, you know, like this piece, I would steal that from that one.

Jeremy Smith: and by the time I was coming home from rail. Sas, I think it was

Jeremy Smith: I just like randomly tweeted out like man. I'd love to put on a ruby conference. You know, like.

Jeremy Smith: And I'd had this idea of like, okay, I live in Greenville, South Carolina. Most people have not heard of Greenville, or you know, they only know Charleston and South Carolina usually, but I know a lot of people liked Asheville and North Carolina. I used to live there for a slight, a small period of time, and

Jeremy Smith: it's 1 1 of the favorite places I've ever been spent time in, and had it. They have great, you know, food, beer, music, scenes. People come there for their weddings. People come there to, you know, for travel and for outdoor adventures and things like that. But that would be a cool town to have a conference in

Jeremy Smith: and so I just like tweeted out like, hey? What if

Jeremy Smith: what you know? What if I put on like a

Jeremy Smith: a ruby conference? Would anyone come to Blue Ridge Ruby in Asheville, and had all these people like I didn't have a big twitter following. Had all these people like responding like, Heck, yeah, do it like, I would love that like, please. And it was like

Jeremy Smith: one of the 1st times I'd put something out, even in just tweet form that was like.

Jeremy Smith: Felt like it had something to it, you know, like. Had some traction behind it, like, Oh.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: This isn't just me, like other people would seem like they would be up for this, too, and if that was any indication like, maybe I could sell some tickets to this

Jeremy Smith: and

Jeremy Smith: and then that year also was like a year. I was really pushing myself to do kind of new things and adventurous things. And so by the end of 2022 after that tweet, and

Jeremy Smith: the experience of just really great experiences at all these conferences.

Jeremy Smith: I thought, like maybe I should give this a shot like

Jeremy Smith: so by one of the things that really helped, though, was, I was really nervous about doing this myself. But one of the people that responded, was my Co. Organizer, Mark, and he's like I live in Nashville. I'll help you out.

Jeremy Smith: And that was just like, Oh, okay, I've got somebody that would.

Jeremy Smith: you know, be there with me through like what could be a heck of a ride, you know, like might go badly, and I would need somebody there if things did. You know. I'm a pretty like

Jeremy Smith: emotional person, so big highs, big lows. And

Jeremy Smith: I knew that it would be helpful if things went badly to have somebody that could provide some stability like, remove

Jeremy Smith: gonna be okay. We'll get through this and

Jeremy Smith: and but we we decided to pull the trigger on it. And the thing that that kind of the 1st thing was like figuring out like the the venue. And that's really like

Jeremy Smith: it feels like it all comes together when you decide like a venue. Because if you. You can't set dates or really do anything until you know where it's gonna be and can like get a

Jeremy Smith: get, get an agreement in place. And so

Jeremy Smith: I'd been to Asheville is like an hour north of us, and I've been to one or 2

Jeremy Smith: show like music shows that like at this really cool theater. In a Masonic temple of all places like like this, really old Masonic Temple, they had a beautiful theater like for stage productions and stuff on the 3rd floor, but sometimes it was used for weddings, and sometimes you know, like singer songwriters would come through and and play sets there.

Jeremy Smith: and I was like this is, this would be such a cool place to do

Jeremy Smith: do a do a conference, and for me, like the setting and the aesthetic is like matters a lot. And so we we checked this place out and decided to go for it, and as soon as I had money down. Then then you're off to the races. So that was in November of 2022 December, I think, when we finally

Jeremy Smith: sign the agreement, and then it was kind of a mad dash until May. To get everything done to make make that happen.

Jeremy Smith: And

Jeremy Smith: you know, building a brand from scratch starting social media trying to get some kind of presence like built, you know, marketing. figuring out how a Cfp works. Actually, when I started I was like

Jeremy Smith: people were like, Oh, where's the Cfp. And I was like, Oh, maybe I guess maybe I should do a Cfp. It's like that, you know. So like figuring out a lot of that stuff as I went. Oh, how do I do? Registration? Okay, I guess I'll use stripe or like, you know, all this stuff like.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Jeremy Smith: and it was just kind of. I see my pants in a lot of ways, but I put a lot of time, you know, like I made up for my naivety by just putting in a lot of time

Jeremy Smith: and a lot of time over the over those 5 or 6 months, and that, and talking to a bunch of organizers, I talked to 7 different conference organizers so kind of like you just like new. I didn't know what I was getting into. I needed to get like the wisdom of other people that had done this, and every person I talked to was super gracious, encouraging, and told me something that I didn't know, that I needed to know, and that was really helpful.

Travis Dockter: Gosh!

Jeremy Smith: Yeah. And and then, yeah, the the days arrived. And

Jeremy Smith: we had, I think, 100 1,020 people total and

Jeremy Smith: a lot of people had really good things to say. There were. There were some hard things, but mostly some like it was. It was just amazing like, people really enjoyed it had a lot of good things to say about it. It felt like people really had a good time together. And that was super rewarding and fulfilling. So yeah.

Travis Dockter: Cool.

Travis Dockter: So so that was you said it was like 5 to 6 months. Total time.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, I wouldn't want to do it in less than 5. I know that now.

Travis Dockter: Yeah. But that was.

Jeremy Smith: Doable.

Travis Dockter: So I listened to your indie rails. Last episode where you and Jason.

Jeremy Smith: And Adrian, yeah.

Travis Dockter: Who's the friend?

Travis Dockter: Yeah. So a couple organizers all just kind of talked about your conference organizing experiences. So that was super helpful. But you mentioned, I think

Travis Dockter: you estimated it at like 250 h of work.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Was that just for you? Or was that you and your Co. Organizer.

Jeremy Smith: That was just me that was not including the other volunteers who were also doing things. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Okay, how did you guys kind of split up work? Cause I've

Travis Dockter: originally, I was like, Oh, I'll just do it myself. And everybody that I've talked to has said, you should have

Travis Dockter: core co-organizers, you know. Some help if you can. And my

Travis Dockter: thought was like, Okay, but then like, how do you split up work? And am I like making it more complex by bringing other people in? And

Travis Dockter: that's what people don't.

Jeremy Smith: Understand that.

Travis Dockter: To help with this? Yeah, the.

Jeremy Smith: Thing everyone says is, that's too much work. You need to like build a team. And but like

Jeremy Smith: either, they're already good delegators and know how to build teams, or they don't understand

Jeremy Smith: that that is a job in itself.

Travis Dockter: Right, right.

Jeremy Smith: Like it really is. I'm

Jeremy Smith: I've spent most of my career like working

Jeremy Smith: like as a rails developer, you know, solo, or on very small teams, not usually running a team and doing almost everything myself.

Jeremy Smith: So I've like optimized myself professionally to do things on my own. This was a venture into like stepping out of that, and not just like doing the same thing. But in many ways like, I don't have the skills to

Jeremy Smith: delegate. Well, like I, I have not worked on those skills a lot. So this was a good experience of

Jeremy Smith: stepping more into that and trying to delegate and but one of the one of the big challenges despite that like, even if you were really good at like building a team and like handing out responsibilities.

Jeremy Smith: I think that works really well when you know what the job is to do.

Travis Dockter: Hmm.

Jeremy Smith: But if you've never done the job and you haven't seen it done well, how do you even know what needs to be done?

Jeremy Smith: Responsive abilities.

Jeremy Smith: And so that was like, I guess I would push back a little on that and just say, like.

Jeremy Smith: you do need people in your corner, and you do need people who are willing to do stuff I don't know.

Jeremy Smith: I don't like.

Jeremy Smith: I'm sure they're like, I know, Adrian. He had a team, and they they all split up the work and found a way to make that work for me. It's like it was hard to know what I could hand off and know like.

Jeremy Smith: how? How will that have gone like? Did that go? Will that have gone the way I needed to? Will, I know, will I get the information back? Then I needed to make the next decision. That was just really challenging. And so I had great volunteer team. I probably didn't delegate very well to them. And I think I could do that better a second time. But

Jeremy Smith: it's still hard when I'm also kind of a control freak, and a perfectionist. And like the last thing I want to do is bring in people who are willing to give their time and attention, and and you know their free time, and then be like, Oh, that's not good enough, or I don't like what you did about that like. That's really hard to figure out, too, is like.

Jeremy Smith: How do you?

Jeremy Smith: How do you hit the quality level that you want?

Jeremy Smith: But not like

Jeremy Smith: not be a jerk to people that are just given their free time and like showing like when they didn't need to. So there's so many things about that that are just like really challenging, and I don't know exactly how to manage that.

Jeremy Smith: So but the volunteers were just a great team. We met up weekly and kind of talked about what we, what we were doing. I think I did the bulk of the work for for most things, but did hand off some things to them. But having the a team that was

Jeremy Smith: we had already spent time together before the event was really important, because the day of the event.

Jeremy Smith: You really do need multiple people kind of in different areas. You need someone that's in charge of food. And Bev, you need someone that's in charge of registration. You need someone that's in charge of the speakers, making sure they have what they need. And you have someone in charge of AV

Jeremy Smith: All of that set up, you know, making sure that's working well and and maybe even just venue or something.

Jeremy Smith: And you can't do it all that day, and you don't want everyone just showing up and saying, shaking hands for the 1st time like, Hey, hello! It's nice to meet you. Yes, you're in charge over here. You really want to like, be have spent time with those people before? So I do think it's important to build a team. I do think it's valuable if you can delegate, but especially you need people that day, and I would recommend like hanging out with them like, go get beer like.

Jeremy Smith: you know, have have a few meals together, do some activities together like, so that you know how to communicate well together. And are ready. So that that 1st day you're not like having difficulties communicating because you've never talked to each other. You don't know each other's personalities like if someone looks stressed, do they just always look that way, or.

Travis Dockter: Hey!

Jeremy Smith: Are they communicating, you know, like, you need to know, like what's going on with with their personalities, and how they communicate

Jeremy Smith: stuff.

Travis Dockter: Cool.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Was there one thing that was hardest for you like? Do you think there's 1 part of

Travis Dockter: making a conference? That's the hardest part.

Jeremy Smith: The hardest part for me was dealing with people who were upset

Jeremy Smith: and I had a few situations like that. There weren't that many, but they stand out really clearly in my mind.

Jeremy Smith: and yeah, I I don't necessarily want to get into the details on that but

Jeremy Smith: the thing about conferences is you have all these different people who

Jeremy Smith: and I think I mentioned this in the podcast.

Jeremy Smith: All these different types of people that have like have expectations on you like. So you make deals with your vendors, and they have expectations for you. Then you're like selling tickets to attendees, so now they have expectations. You've invited speakers in. Now they have expectations. You've got some sponsorships now they have expectations.

Jeremy Smith: and

Jeremy Smith: trying to manage all of those, and figure out what people's expectations are, and if they're reasonable, and then figuring out where you, if you fail at something,

Jeremy Smith: is really hard to manage. And then for me, I'm just like anxious about that kind of stuff. And then I just had a few situations where

Jeremy Smith: people got mad because they felt like I'd done something the wrong way, and that.

Travis Dockter: A certain expectation, and you didn't know that or didn't meet that. For some reason.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah. And I think in each situation it did work out, but it was also in the moment like high anxiety for me, like just found like like I'd really messed up and not knowing what to do with myself.

Jeremy Smith: And that's again we're having someone like Mark, who was pretty steady and like, you know what? We're gonna be. Okay. You know that kind of person like not as phased by some of those things like really helped. But for me, that's like that is a that can be a really real emotional roller coaster.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Jeremy Smith: And I don't know that you can get around that. I think that's just that's just like the game, like I could probably have prepared everything, and something else could have happened or would have happened. It's like it feels like it's inevitable.

Jeremy Smith: And I need to like.

Jeremy Smith: I think maybe in the past I would have looked at those negative things, and it would have painted everything as like, oh, I messed up those 2 things, you know, 2 or 3 things. It was terrible. And the reality is, that's not true. Like.

Jeremy Smith: there were 2 or 3 things that were really hard in the moment.

Jeremy Smith: They're not that big of a deal in the long term.

Travis Dockter: Convey.

Jeremy Smith: Takeaway was like over a hundred people had a really good time at this event.

Jeremy Smith: and that's what I should take away, not those like minor things.

Jeremy Smith: but that can be hard thing. I like just depending on your personality. How how you handle those kind of things like I hate messing up and messing up with clients or messing up on projects, whatever it is. I just hate that. And

Jeremy Smith: especially when there's money involved, too, like that's.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Makes it harder.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I definitely get that definitely relate to that.

Travis Dockter: Okay, what's what was? Or

Travis Dockter: so I when I met you at Sin city ruby in 2023, I think.

Jeremy Smith: Okay,

Travis Dockter: You were a speaker there. Did you have some sort of like

Travis Dockter: network that you had gotten from speaking that that helped a little bit like, what was your network like when you were starting this.

Jeremy Smith: Almost nonexistent.

Jeremy Smith: Okay, that's where I'm starting.

Jeremy Smith: It's really

Jeremy Smith: yeah. People assume if you're starting a conference that you've been around like, I guess. In a way, I've been around in the ruby rails community for a long time, but mostly as a lurker, you know, like

Jeremy Smith: going on in the community.

Jeremy Smith: I read a lot. I've been to southeast Ruby Jason Charn's conference a few times, and

Jeremy Smith: but I'd never been to a ruby cough. Never been to a railsconf.

Jeremy Smith: It was not a big conference attender. Had young kids, you know, like wasn't just wasn't leaving and going to conferences, you know, not spending a lot of money going to conferences and stuff and not.

Jeremy Smith: I'd spoken at a conference here in Greenville one time, but never at a Ruby or Rails conference. So 2022 at Ruby Conf Mini was the 1st time I'd spoken at a at a ruby event.

Travis Dockter: Hmm.

Jeremy Smith: And then in 2023, like.

Jeremy Smith: yeah. The just hoping like for the 1st time, I guess. And then or sorry. Yeah. 2023.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: What's the timeline of Sin City? I guess.

Travis Dockter: Was it like in March? And then was your 1st Blue Ridge in like the in May?

Jeremy Smith: Yeah. Sin City was. Yeah. So I did speak at in 2024 at Sin City. That was a talk that I gave at friendly Rv. That was 8.

Travis Dockter: 2024 right.

Jeremy Smith: So in 2023. So yeah, starting to blur together. But yeah, like, I, I really did not have much network at all.

Jeremy Smith: It was something that I was working actively, working on on improving

Jeremy Smith: Both on like through Twitter, but also by by being involved at conferences and stuff like that. But I was starting with kind of very little, I think.

Travis Dockter: No.

Jeremy Smith: Looking back now like I don't.

Jeremy Smith: That may have been somewhat of an anomaly, because I think

Jeremy Smith: One impact of Covid was that everyone came back and had sort of a level of attention to community things.

Jeremy Smith: That was not typical.

Travis Dockter: All right.

Jeremy Smith: And so it was like I just happened to hit, partly hit that at the right time, just like be in the right place at the right time, when

Jeremy Smith: lots of people were trying to get back and being really intentional about reconnecting, and just happened to like I

Jeremy Smith: I I was also thinking that, too. But I think I got lucky in some ways to make friends with a bunch of people that ended up really helping me, you know, along the way. But running a conference is a good way of building a network, too, like I can say that like you

Jeremy Smith: you play the host to a bunch of people that you look up to, or people that you know about, or people that you know, like have been in the community a long time, and

Jeremy Smith: that means that they all have an experience with you now that matters to them. And it's not like I got to spend time with every single attendee, but I probably got to meet most of them. And now that something's that's another thing I noticed about

Jeremy Smith: Sin City especially, but also rail. Sas was, you know, you have someone like Jason or someone like Andrew putting on an event. And now I have like something that they've done for me that's really special. And I now care about them as people even more than I did before, even more than the content. Maybe, that I got from them previously, like

Jeremy Smith: being able to show up to an event that's hosted. It's it's almost like a house party where, you know, like you've been to somebody's house, and they, you know, they served you and, like entertained you. And and you have. You had this really good experience because of them. And that is.

Jeremy Smith: it's kind of a valuable way of building a network, you know, like that helps. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: How many people were at. How big was your first.st

Jeremy Smith: It was.

Jeremy Smith: I think, in total we had maybe 100 1,020 something in that range that include that included, like.

Jeremy Smith: you know the attendees, the speakers. All the volunteers.

Travis Dockter: You said a hundred 10, a hundred 20.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: And how did you? How did you market like? Did you have a marketing strategy? Was there anything that like really worked well, and anything that was useless, and you wouldn't do again

Travis Dockter: anything that stood out there.

Jeremy Smith: I think marketing is often underappreciated by developers especially, and

Jeremy Smith: I knew that going in like that, I had my work cut out for me there and then. I had to push that

Jeremy Smith: both because

Jeremy Smith: I failed at building my own products around marketing a lot but also because putting on something new like this like I just, I needed to go from 0 to 60, you know, like, in 5 months I needed to find a way to hit my numbers and sell tickets. And how would people know if I didn't do like if I like? There was no way they were just gonna

Jeremy Smith: magically find out.

Travis Dockter: Fine. Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Like if I just trusted that

Jeremy Smith: people went to rubyconferences.org, we're gonna happen to see it. And like, certainly some people. But that's a very small number, you know, like it's that's not gonna be enough. So I was pulling out all the tricks that I that I knew and I've done marketing efforts like, for you know, I built used to build marketing landing pages. I used to help do marketing for various companies clients that I had. But I

Jeremy Smith: So I was using whatever tactics I I could think of. But I didn't know what would work for. Sure, I think partly I got lucky because of the timing that I mentioned like people. Suddenly there was a surge of interest, and I was able to ride that wave a little bit.

Jeremy Smith: I think there is a benefit to novelty. People like a new thing, people like seeing something new coming online. And and that is a big benefit.

Jeremy Smith: so. But then, also, like I knew, I needed to convey a level of quality through the stuff I put out as best I could. So that meant spending a lot of time building the the marketing site.

Jeremy Smith: doing like.

Jeremy Smith: you know, doing a lot of social media stuff as much as I could think. I made like

Jeremy Smith: trailer Video, like where I drove around. I had my wife drive around Asheville. I was taking, you know, taking video with my phone and like various places and put it together like to make a video trailer, just like because I needed, I needed stuff. I needed.

Travis Dockter: Putting stuff together.

Jeremy Smith: Together and put things out there.

Jeremy Smith: That would get people interested. I built like a city guide of

Jeremy Smith: all my favorite places to go or eat, or drink, or whatever it was. So people, when they came to town would know what to.

Jeremy Smith: You know what to experience, what they would want to get cause I knew like

Jeremy Smith: that. Partly there was a benefit of the destination like it's not just some random town somewhere that no one wants to hang out in. And you just like in this you know, in like a conference hall, and then go back to your hotel like people want to come here and experience it. So I want to make sure it was able to check all the boxes on that for people, too, and that's a way to get people to come, because I know that happens like people wanted to visit. And so it was like, it was like, even easier for them to buy a ticket.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: So all, all of those things.

Jeremy Smith: I'm trying to think what else?

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, we I mean, we did some email as well like we, we definitely had an email list. And we're sending out things that way.

Jeremy Smith: I'm trying to think if there's any other major strategy, not I can't think of any now. I would go like if I was

Jeremy Smith: In some ways it'd be easier, you know, being able to have like something established already. It might be easier to come out the second wave, but

Travis Dockter: Go ahead!

Jeremy Smith: I might reach out more to other conferences. I've seen conferences do this like conferences supporting each other like, Hey.

Travis Dockter: Oh, yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Just want to like highlight. This actually this oh, I I totally forgot about this. I wonder if I go to?

Jeremy Smith: Went to?

Jeremy Smith: I think it was

Jeremy Smith: Railsconf, Atlanta, no, where. I can't remember the conference, but I went to a conference where I

Jeremy Smith: made these postcards mailers that had like look. They look like a mailer that had all the details about Blue Ridge. I put a discount code on it, and then I like got these custom stickers made with the the logo

Jeremy Smith: and

Jeremy Smith: and I like attached it with like the this little sticky thing like. So it like kind of like, sat out in front of the

Jeremy Smith: of the card. And then people had something to put on their computer later. And people really seem to like that. So like I would lay those out in the at tables that must have been rails. Comp. Can't remember

Jeremy Smith: forgetting what the conference was, but all I was just pulling out all the tricks like that. To try to get people to

Jeremy Smith: check it out or look at it. Oh! And then, as soon as like with the other thing about like you're trying to figure out things to share or things that entice people like. One is the the place they're going like, what? What's the space going to be like? What is before you even know who the speakers are? What am I going to experience in this place.

Jeremy Smith: So it's like figuring out like, Oh, there's cool, you know, cool breweries in this town, and there's really good restaurants, and the venue looks really nice right? And then it's like, then you do the Cfp, and then you get this. Then you announced speakers, and then they're like, Oh, well, on top of that like, I want to hear from this person this person, this but that'd be really oh, I'd like the sound of that talk. So you're trying to hype that as well. And then

Jeremy Smith: I mean, sometimes people even do like.

Jeremy Smith: you know, sharing the the attendees that are going to be there as well. So

Jeremy Smith: you're doing all those things to kind of like check all the boxes of the reasons people come to conferences, which is a combination of things. It's like I want to be, you know, experience a new place. I want to learn new things I want to hear from these speakers, or, you know, here on these topics. I wanna hang out with this these kind of people. I want to do these kind of activities. So.

Jeremy Smith: and every and people come for different reasons. But you're trying to do as many of like show as many of those things as possible to kind of entice people like, you're going to get this and this. You're going to enjoy this and this as much as possible.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Did you do anything special to another

Travis Dockter: thing that I foresee being difficult because I don't have a network is getting speakers to come to this, do you? Did you do anything special to get speakers.

Jeremy Smith: That. Actually, I don't know how much. This was

Jeremy Smith: a post Covid thing, but that actually was not hard. We ended up having like 55 talk proposals.

Travis Dockter: Oh, nice!

Jeremy Smith: And I only had 10 slots. I had 2 days.

Jeremy Smith: 5 talks a day.

Jeremy Smith: So it was 30 min talk 30 min break, 30 min talk 30 min. That was kind of like I saw that stole that from Jason.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Because I just love that.

Jeremy Smith: So that was just not hard.

Travis Dockter: Cool.

Jeremy Smith: It was hard to decide, but it was not hard to get people. Now I've heard other conferences had have had fewer

Jeremy Smith: talk, so again. It might be an anomaly I don't know, but

Jeremy Smith: still, even at half that you you can get 10 talks, I think.

Jeremy Smith: And I think you can also ask people. I think that was something I didn't realize that I could do is like

Jeremy Smith: you can do a mix of you. You can do whatever you want like. That's the thing like you can be like Andy Kroll, who, I think, handpicks almost everybody.

Jeremy Smith: You can do a rails Comp. Style like, we have a very specific way that we do like the double blind, or, you know, like talk, proposal, review, or whatever you like. You can have a whole process that you show people, or you cannot do that too. And people will have some expectations around that, like some people will be like, why don't you do it this way? That's not fair like.

Jeremy Smith: It's your conference. You like people you're allowed to like. Pick how you want to do it. I think there are ways to do it better than others like, you know, ways to sort of

Jeremy Smith: respect some traditions, or, you know, community values. But like, if you kind of express your values about about that, like what you're trying to do and and and then find a way to honor that through Cfp process. I think you can. You can make that work. But ultimately it is your call on that.

Jeremy Smith: And I, yeah, so I think you can. Also you can do. Cfp. You can also reach out to people and say, Would you be willing? I'd love to hear you. I loved hearing this talk. Would you come, you know, deliver here, love that so that that is manageable. Part of that, too, is like

Jeremy Smith: It may be. I know. I knew I had talked to several organizers and said, like, what do you do about like

Jeremy Smith: compensation for speakers? And what I heard a few times was like, okay, around $500 for us ruby conferences, regional ruby conferences. Okay.

Jeremy Smith: I think I can manage that. That was another thing that was in my head like, okay, if I've got a hard cost on the venue.

Jeremy Smith: it's 7 grand. I gotta put 3,500 down to begin with, and then I've got 10 speakers, $500 each. That's 5 grand. There. I don't know if I can pull off video, but like I'm starting to put in these fixed costs, you know, and then, building a budget out of that and new

Jeremy Smith: based on that, I could work back into how many tickets I'd have to sell to break even.

Travis Dockter: Gotcha. Yeah. So speaking of money, the the big 3 things right now in my mind

Travis Dockter: are getting selling tickets via, you know, marketing, getting speakers to come and getting sponsors. So

Travis Dockter: how was it for you getting sponsors that 1st year? Yeah, I didn't pick.

Jeremy Smith: This was, yeah, this was a

Jeremy Smith: again. I probably got lucky and cause I didn't have a network, and I didn't know who to reach out to.

Jeremy Smith: And I didn't know some of the some of the ways companies work.

Jeremy Smith: a lot of times they've decided budgets for Spot like for Conference sponsorships

Jeremy Smith: months back, or the previous year, they allocate funds. And so, even if you get a sympathetic ear, you may not. You may have been too late. So some of that is around the planning and the timing, and I think for a 1st time conference is probably hard to pull off, because you're kind of an anomaly, and

Jeremy Smith: that's 1 of the things that I really appreciated. That 1st time we had 3 sponsors and they were all

Jeremy Smith: really trusting me.

Jeremy Smith: to put something on that that worked that didn't flop. Because I think that can happen, you know, like you could

Jeremy Smith: not do things well, and then those people's names are on it. You know those companies are on it that that would suck for them.

Jeremy Smith: So I really appreciated the the trust that they gave me. It was mostly

Jeremy Smith: he luck, or I think one had reached out to us like, Hey, Hey, we'd love to sponsor you. And I thought like, Wow, that's

Jeremy Smith: super generous. I just met them like, you know, a few months ago, and would not have guessed that. And another one

Jeremy Smith: trying to think another big one that how did that sponsorship happen? It might have been through

Jeremy Smith: a mutual connection or something. It helps to have

Jeremy Smith: direct connections to sponsorships. I think the 1st time, especially.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: People that you know. That's probably where network matters even more is the sponsorships, because attendees

Jeremy Smith: don't necessarily need a personal relationship with you to show up

Jeremy Smith: if they can trust that. The speakers look good, and it seems like legit, although I did have. I did have a guy that was like is this Conference legit?

Jeremy Smith: Because I was using my stripe account for registration, and it was under my Llc. Which was not Blue Ridge Ruby, because I didn't set up a you know, like a separate like Llc.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Conference, and he saw, like the stripe, you know, on stripe, like you get to the checkout page, and it shows like your the company like, not like product, or whatever that you're selling. And he's like, is this actually like.

Travis Dockter: Are you just siphoning this money off and not

Travis Dockter: yeah, exactly. So like you. You do have to deal with like.

Jeremy Smith: That kind of situation, because PE people legitimately don't know you from like you're not a ruby cough or rails cough, or whatever like

Jeremy Smith: right.

Jeremy Smith: People don't know who you are.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: and it. But it it worked out. And it, yeah. So the bigger, bigger thing on the sponsorships, I think it helps to have those personal connections. One of the things one of the best pieces of advice I got from another organizer, he said. Like, especially when you're starting out.

Jeremy Smith: every. Your your brand, or the conference itself is not what you're selling. You're selling you to sponsorships, particularly sponsors, but also attendees and speakers.

Jeremy Smith: You have to convince them that you are going to pull this off. Not that your Blue Ridge ruby thing. They don't know that they've never heard you just made that up right? So it's you. It's you saying I'm going to be the one respond. I'm going to be on the hook

Jeremy Smith: to make sure that this event goes. Well, you know, I'm going to be the one that's responsible I'm gonna want. I'm the one that's looking you in the eye, saying I'm going to do everything in my power to make this a really great event that you're going to be happy with. What do you need from me?

Jeremy Smith: What can make this successful for you, and they're making an agreement with you, and that really helps clarify for me like the approach that I needed to take to win people's trust cause. That's what you're doing is building trust with everybody like.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Jeremy Smith: Speakers. Can they trust you? Attendees? Can they trust you? Vendors? Can they trust you sponsors? Can they trust you?

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Travis Dockter: It's good advice, because I was thinking of it, of like from the point of like, how do I convince these people that

Travis Dockter: this is going to be a conference worth sponsoring or worth attending, or whatever, because I have no following. I have no experience in doing this, so everybody's taking a huge risk on you.

Travis Dockter: but that does help. Instead of going to people and saying like, Look, there's gonna you know, I'm I'm hoping to sell this many tickets. And you know, it's gonna be like this kind of demographic. So you'll really get your money's worth because you're gonna get in front of these people.

Travis Dockter: It's pro. It's probably better to to sell yourself, because that's

Travis Dockter: probably the more valuable thing in this situation. It's the only thing of value that you have really.

Jeremy Smith: You don't. You don't have any hard numbers to show them. Here's what we did in the past. Here's what we're going to do. Here's our project, you know.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Oh, no, yeah. So

Jeremy Smith: it is people having to trust you. And so you have to find sponsors that are.

Jeremy Smith: or hope that sponsors come to you that will embrace that, too, will be.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Jeremy Smith: And I don't think most sponsors are like that, you know, for for good reasons. Cause they're they've got certain number, you know, certain amount of dollars they can do spend, and they've got to make bets on where you know. Place those bets on the conferences that are gonna make the most sense for them. And so when they do come to a brand new conference, that's just a real sign of trust. And

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: And I probably wouldn't rely too much on that. I think it's worth having the conversations worth spending time on and connecting with people, but

Jeremy Smith: maybe not counting on it as much.

Jeremy Smith: For that 1st time, and I think

Jeremy Smith: if you especially if you can

Jeremy Smith: maybe focus more on sale on sale. Attendee tickets. but in in my case, like.

Jeremy Smith: I'm looking at the numbers again. Here it was like.

Jeremy Smith: yeah, like 20,000 in tickets and 10,000 in sponsorship.

Travis Dockter: Okay, so 1, 3, rd 2 thirds. And did you break even.

Jeremy Smith: I did. Yeah, I had

Jeremy Smith: The way I approached it was I had a base

Jeremy Smith: budget that I knew I had to hit, make, or break. It was like, I've got these hard costs. We're doing this conference. That means I need to sell this many tickets. I don't know it might have been like, I need to sell 65 tickets or something like that. And we can have the bare minimum conference, you know, like, got the venue we've got like

Jeremy Smith: you know, we've got some minimal drinks and snacks we've got like, I'm paying the speaker honorarium

Jeremy Smith: and then I had like, okay, if I surpass that, then I'll just spend more. I'll do t-shirts. I'll do better drinks and snacks. I'll make banners, I'll you know like do prizes. We'll do like giveaways, and I'll have like local, you know.

Jeremy Smith: souvenirs that I can give away as prizes and stuff like that. And so I was able to do all of it thankfully, and so broke even. It was about 30,000 total

Jeremy Smith: for all of it.

Travis Dockter: Nice.

Jeremy Smith: But yeah, you you can do it cheaper by sort of setting, almost like stretch goals. And and I let people know that like, don't know if video is gonna happen because people will ask a lot of common questions like, Are you providing meals? Are you doing video? Are you doing that, you know. Like, are you doing a hotel? Block rate?

Jeremy Smith: I would say 2 things right now that I'm really happy. I didn't do one was I didn't do catered meals, and I didn't do hotel block rate, and I would recommend that to every 1st time conference, and maybe for

Jeremy Smith: most conferences. I just don't think like you're just.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: On the hook on the hotel block rate. I think I mentioned that before, but also food is really hard. I've noticed this like, it's hard to get this right. People get really crabby about like the food situation. So if you have an option to have a conference in a place where people can walk out, and then 5 or 10 min be at a restaurant sitting down, eating, and then they come back, and you just make a nice long lunch break for people.

Jeremy Smith: that's way better. And then people can get what they want, and they don't have to come to you saying like, why didn't you have this on the menu? Or, yeah, this was cold by the time we got there through there in line. And you know it's just a whole class of issues. You don't have to deal with.

Travis Dockter: Yep, yeah.

Travis Dockter: Okay,

Travis Dockter: we talked about all the details. Now, I want to get like a little bit more, maybe philosophical or just more about like experience.

Travis Dockter: Was there anything that you did at Blue Ridge Ruby that maybe at the time you like? It was something small that you just kind of threw in there, and it had an unexpected impact, like people were coming up to you afterwards. They're like, I love this part, and you're like, well, I didn't think that anyone would care about that. Was there anything like that?

Jeremy Smith: Yes, yeah.

Jeremy Smith: One of the things that really mattered to me about this event was,

Jeremy Smith: There are rare times that you get a lot of people in a community together.

Jeremy Smith: It's a it's a rare time for people to have face to face, interaction in build

Jeremy Smith: health and deeper connection together, and I don't think that happens necessarily through technical content.

Jeremy Smith: You need the technical content, because that's what we're all like.

Jeremy Smith: That's that's the affinity that draws us together. But that's not how you build relationships. And on the

Jeremy Smith: 1st day I gave like an intro that people really liked where I talked a lot about

Jeremy Smith: what I've what I've learned about ecosystem health, and how that the implications for that in the ruby community. But on the second day after, like

Jeremy Smith: like right before the 1st speaker, I had like a

Jeremy Smith: a 20 to 30 min time slot that I didn't know what to do with, and leading up to the conference. I was like, I don't know what to do with this thing, this weird

Jeremy Smith: spot and time like. And so I kept thinking about it. And and a couple of days before I had this idea that made me like

Jeremy Smith: interested, but also nervous. And

Jeremy Smith: I decided to go for it. And that day I got up and said, like

Jeremy Smith: trying to put myself back in the frame to remember how I said it. But basically, like

Jeremy Smith: we've had a few years where?

Jeremy Smith: It's been really tough in the world and in the ruby community for a number of different reasons.

Jeremy Smith: But 1 1 thing that I think helps communities grow and

Jeremy Smith: strengthen is by sharing what we're grateful for and things that have impacted us positively.

Jeremy Smith: And so I said, like, I want to give everyone a chance to like, share what they've gotten from people in the ruby community, from companies, things that have happened for them that have been really positive.

Jeremy Smith: And let me start like I named a couple like I talked about the influence of

Jeremy Smith: thought Bot and and

Jeremy Smith: in my own growth trajectory, all the content that I learned back in the day from their blog and how that shaped a lot of what I did and what I cared about even running a solo agency like looking at them, and like the things they did working as consultancy and they had just hit their 20th anniversary.

Jeremy Smith: And then I also mentioned, like, we just started the Indie rails podcast and even though he was not a Rubius, like our editor, had been so encouraging, getting off the ground, and like that mattered to me.

Jeremy Smith: And then, when I finish that, I waited to see like

Jeremy Smith: if anybody would want to share, and then hand start going up around this room.

Jeremy Smith: And so I'm

Jeremy Smith: passing the mic to all these people who are just sharing like this person got me into Ruby, and and people be like, I know that guy, you know, like

Jeremy Smith: that's pretty good

Jeremy Smith: like this helped me personally help me get a job. And I really valued this thing, and it just went on and on and on, and probably 2030 min I had to stop it.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah time we're done like I've got tears in my eyes like this is like

Jeremy Smith: one of the most magical things that I'd ever experienced and like, how would you?

Jeremy Smith: You couldn't get that online. You can't get that at a big conference. It was like, only at a small conference. Could you have an experience like that.

Jeremy Smith: But it was like deeply impactful for me. And it seemed like for everybody else, too. And so I just like I love that.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, that sounds amazing. I really.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, it's just like, a memory I cherish. Yeah.

Travis Dockter: Awesome.

Travis Dockter: That's really cool.

Travis Dockter: Okay, do you? Have a favorite conference that you've been to, or favorite conference experience at somebody else's conference.

Jeremy Smith: I've enjoyed almost every conference I've gone to. When I finally unlocked that, I'm there to make friends and

Jeremy Smith: and and connect with people, and not there, because I need to

Jeremy Smith: get a sale, or, you know, find a new client, or learn a new time, you know. Learn it when I could like, disconnect the economic benefit that I need the Roi that I needed to get, you know, like from the experience and could relax into, I love these people. I love this place. I wanna be around these folks and

Jeremy Smith: so I've I've really enjoyed conferences since figuring that piece out for myself, but

Jeremy Smith: maybe one that stands out right now is going to friendly Rb, in Bucharest, and I got to speak there. But

Jeremy Smith: Adrian is is a fantastic host. For conferences. It was his 1st time as well.

Jeremy Smith: I have really enjoyed

Jeremy Smith: I I never traveled very much, but it's been something on my that I've really wanted to

Jeremy Smith: lately, and going there and meeting a bunch of European rubies from all over. So they're not like. But they're all coming there, and they have to all speak English, because that's this one shared language. But I'm getting to like experience being with like the Germans and the the Polish people and the people from Spain, and, like you, just kind of like getting the vibe of like, and the and the people from Romania there, too, like, Oh, these people are like, here's what they're like.

Travis Dockter: This is a global thing. It's not just the.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, yeah. And we're all together at this little conference. But the day after the conference, Adrian, took us, we all met at the train station in the morning we took a 2 h train ride up into the Transylvanian Mountains, and we spent all day hiking. We visited a really cool castle. We hiked to this mountain peak. We came down into the mountain town after that, and they were having a festival that night, and we ate street food. It was a magical day.

Travis Dockter: Wow!

Jeremy Smith: It was like I spent all day walking and talking with 20 to 30 Rubius, and we're all like together doing these. We had things that we were doing. But we're just walking and talking

Jeremy Smith: about technical things, about our lives like it was just a fantastic experience.

Travis Dockter: That was the 1st that was like pre to the conference. The 1st day.

Jeremy Smith: This was the the day after the conference.

Travis Dockter: Oh, the day after. Okay, gotcha.

Jeremy Smith: And that works really well, because you've spent.

Travis Dockter: And everybody kind of knows each other.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, you've got topics. You've you've had a few chances to go out to, you know, lunch and dinner, together with various group members. But then, that last day, after the you know, after the technical talks are done, you're relaxing and enjoying each other, and like that's when it really the free, flowing conversation happens, I feel like, and and the chance to really solidify friendships.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, that was that was really special.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, I like that one, too.

Travis Dockter: Okay, cool.

Travis Dockter: Trying to. Yeah. I'm I'm like trying to find ideas to to steal from other conferences.

Jeremy Smith: Well, I did something like this at Blue Ridge the day after the conference. Can't remember why I had this idea, but I knew, like for me that the relationships was really what mattered like. Once I'd fit that once I'd hit that, it really helped me unlock like why, conferences are valuable what you can get out of a conference rather than just watching the talks on Youtube if you can. Just if it's all about the technical talks you need them. But if I can just watch them on Youtube and probably

Jeremy Smith: retain the information better, then conferences are about something else. They're about like getting these people together and helping strengthen the bonds between people, which means creating opportunities for people to connect around meals around content.

Jeremy Smith: And anything else that you can think of that will facilitate that. And a lot of people a lot of us are just. We're introverts. So we don't naturally just start networking and talking and like, Hey, everybody, let's what if we went down the street and went here and did? Let's go to this cool Arcade Museum together like

Jeremy Smith: you have to. You have to make those things happen for people because they don't. Naturally, most people don't naturally take leadership to be like, I'm gonna bring this group of people. And we're gonna go do this

Jeremy Smith: so creating that

Jeremy Smith: ahead of time creating structures for that, that is the kind of stuff that ends up being gold, I think. And so the day after the conference at Blue Ridge I gave people the options of going on a hike into the off of the Blue Ridge Parkway into the mountains of western North Carolina. Really beautiful. They could visit Biltmore, which is kind of like a

Jeremy Smith: America's closest thing to a castle, I guess, built by the Vanderbilt family and out of outside of Asheville, and nobody ended up picking that one. It's funny because I love that place. But then the thing that every like most people picked was, I was like we should do tubing. There's a river that runs right down through through Asheville, and this is such a like Southern. You know us thing to do like.

Jeremy Smith: Dubing on the river, and

Jeremy Smith: That ended up being great. We had like a bunch of people, and we

Jeremy Smith: the I was able to organize it so that the they took. You know they use this like old school buses to do tubing like. I don't know if they do that where you are but a lot of times around here they'll like, take old decommissioned school buses, and that's how like all the people get on the school bus. They drive you upriver.

Jeremy Smith: and then, like you float down to the headquarters or whatever. So they picked us up from the hotel in in the old school bus.

Jeremy Smith: It took us

Jeremy Smith: down to the river got us all outfitted and like nice quality tubes, you know, like with the bottom on it, and clips like we could all clip to each other. I had all the extra snacks from the conference that I brought with me, and a cooler, and then we got on the river, and like we'd be like, Hey, can you pass me? And you know one of the extra beers like, pass that down, and just like down the chain, you know, like

Jeremy Smith: we're just like

Jeremy Smith: 2 or 3 h, just like hanging out on this river, talking together like having a good time it was. It was awesome. It was another one of those things like.

Jeremy Smith: it's a thing that you don't normally do. Most people would not have thought to do like, but having created the structure for it, a bunch of people, all they had to do was say yes, and pay like 10 bucks, or 15 bucks, or whatever it was easy. And then we had a great time together, and it was just

Jeremy Smith: getting getting something like that where you. It's a thing that allows for more conversation and more interaction.

Jeremy Smith: it's just great.

Jeremy Smith: So yeah, I would totally do that kind of stuff again.

Travis Dockter: Awesome.

Travis Dockter: Okay? Well, we're coming up on an hour here. I feel like I have so many more questions. But maybe we can save it for another time.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, you're welcome.

Travis Dockter: Anytime.

Travis Dockter: Yeah, man, thank you so much for taking the time. I definitely got a lot of good stuff out of this. I'm have to watch it again and take take some notes. But yeah, are you? Are you going to rails? Comp. This year?

Jeremy Smith: I was planning. No, it's possible that I might be able to go. We'll see.

Travis Dockter: Okay.

Jeremy Smith: So I've been really bummed about it for months like can't believe I'm missing this

Jeremy Smith: But there's a possibility that I could go so we'll we'll see.

Travis Dockter: Okay. Cool.

Jeremy Smith: I've had to come back a little bit on conferences this year, like I went all out last year, especially.

Travis Dockter: Right.

Jeremy Smith: It is expensive, like it is like.

Travis Dockter: Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: Go to a lot, and I have been going to a lot

Travis Dockter: Yeah, his.

Jeremy Smith: It's been one of the most rewarding parts of my life. But it's also one of those things is like when I've had to cut expenses or something that's like one thing, that sort of feels somewhat optional, you know.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, I understand.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, so hopefully, that's temporary. And hopefully, I can make it to rails cough. I do hope to make this something else this year. After that, too, probably more into the fall, so.

Travis Dockter: Cool. Yeah. Well, let me know if you're going to rails. Comp, I'll I'll be there.

Travis Dockter: Yeah. And and yeah, thank you again for your time, and we'll be in touch.

Jeremy Smith: Thanks for having me. Travis.

Travis Dockter: Alrighty! Thanks, man, take care!

Jeremy Smith: See you.