Can you feel it!? There is definitely a buzz in the air around GrowConf that’s coming to Vancouver Aug 19, 20th, and 21st. I mean why wouldn’t there be; If you work on the Internet, then this event is NOT to be missed. Even the Mayor tweeted it out.
(Side note: I noticed that the mayor of San Francisco has 1,345,888 followers, and Gregor, Mayor of Vancouver, only has 6,440). Let’s all follow him and show him that we want to hear more from him via social media.
Inspired by Le Web, Debbie at DealMaker Media and I threw around the idea around of creating a new style tech event hosted in Vancouver, we instantly knew it would be huge – if we could pull it off that is. As Debbie says:
“Canada is coming out of Stealth mode”
Some of you may remember Debbie from LPV8, dubbed Under the Launch Party, named after DealMaker’s Under the Radar events that Debbie has been organizing in San Francisco for ever. Through those, and the other events that Dealmaker organizes, Debbie has become so well respected in Silicon Valley, that we knew should could pack the house with a some of the greatest minds on the Internet. Did she come through or what! Check out these speakers:
- Chris Albinson, Managing Director - Panorama Capital
- Jason Bailey, GM of Virtual Currencies - Adknowledge
- Lane Becker, Co-Founder & VP, Strategy - Get Satisfaction
- Paul Bernard, Head of Business Development, Business Services - Nokia
- Leonard Brody, President - Clarity Digital
- Michael Buhr, CEO of Travelport and former CEO of StumbleUpon - Travelport
- Wesley Chan, Investment Partner - Google Ventures
- Don Harrison, Deputy General Counsel - Google
- Rob Chaplinsky, Managing Director - Bridgescale Partners
- Jeff Clavier, Managing Director - SoftTech VC
- Tom Conrad, CTO - Pandora
- Robert Goldberg, SVP of Corporate Development - Zynga
- Rob Hayes, Managing Partner - First Round Capital
- Tony Hsieh, Author of Delivering Happiness and CEO - Zappos
- Debbie Landa, CEO and Founder - Dealmaker Media
- Stew Langille, VP Marketing - Mint
- Ellen Levy, Vice President Strategic Alliances - Linkedin
- Dan Martell, Co-Founder - Flowtown
- Andrew Mason, Founder and CEO - Groupon
- Dave McClure - 500 Hats LLC
- Mike Parker, President, Tribal DDB US - Tribal DDB
- Ariel Poler, CEO of TextMarks Inc. and Angel Investor - TextMarks
- Danny Robinson, Managing Director - Bootup Labs
- Rick Segal, Co-Founder - Fixmo
- Aydin Senkut, Founder and President - Felicis Ventures
- Dana Settle, Partner - Greycroft Partners
- Bill Tai, General Partner - Charles River Ventures
- Jeremy Toeman, Founder - Stage Two
- Steven Woods, Site Director, Waterloo - Google
And there are even more that we haven’t announced yet!
When I was starting my first internet company, I remember attending every conference I could. And I still do that today. Many people ask me, “how do you know so many people?” It’s because I get out there, and talk to people, who in-turn introduce me to other people. Entrepreneurs should never under estimate the importance of building your personal networks. If you attended the panel at VEF on investment trends, one of the questions asked of the panel was “Where do they source their deals from?” The unanimous answer was “Through introductions from people they know and trust” The same goes for doing bizDev. Don’t expect to walk in the front door and get a deal done. You have to get out there and build your network one person at a time. Build trust enough to be introduced and endorsed by a common connection.
Come to GrowConf. If you know me, ask me to introduce you to someone. If you don’t know me, introduce yourself to me, and let’s set up a time to grab a coffee.