Starting and Growing a Conference for Internet Entrepreneurs

What do you mean you never found funding? The conference is for self-funded entrepreneurs, not Angel/VC funded entrepreneurs. Also, MicroConf Starter Edition is aimed at people who are anywhere from "I need an idea" all the way through "launched but not yet full time". If you're anywhere in that region, you'd probably fit right in.

There are several but here are a few we discovered. Note that these are generalizations. The reality is that the generalization will vary a lot from country to country, so it's more like comparing the average of all the countries against the US. I'm also not saying any of this is good or bad, simply that it's different and we didn't account for it.

1. It's against the status quo to become an entrepreneur in both the US and in Europe, but it feels dramatically more so in Europe. In some countries, families will actively push you away from being an entrepreneur because having a job gives you a ton of flexibility. Lots of paid vacation, stable income, difficult to fire workers, great benefits, etc. To some families, being an entrepreneur is an insane decision. Why would you do that to yourself when you can have a fantastic life working for someone else? Long hours, little pay until the business if profitable, etc. In the US, it can still be that way, but the family structures tend to be more supportive because building a business falls directly in line with 'the American Dream'.

2. Europeans are much more laid back in their approach towards entrepreneurship. This difference is subtle and just thinking about it, I know it's going to be really hard to explain. Maybe the best way to describe it is that in the US, people will do things to promote their business at the risk of offending someone and ask for forgiveness vs Europe where they will ask for permission first.

3. Rules and regulations play a much larger role in Europe than in the US. There's a lot of things they need to deal with that we don't in the US. The biggest example is collecting VAT, but the new GDPR legislation is another example. Banking tends to be easier and currency conversion is pretty normal to them. That's not so much a culture thing, but demonstrates that the problems they have to deal with are much different than ours.

4. The first MicroConf ran from 8am-5pm each day. We tried that in Europe and people complained that it started too early. We moved it back to 9am and then later to 10am. Both of those changes went over really well. This was a change that made it over into the US and we start MicroConf Vegas at 10am as well. It makes it easier for us as well.

5. The pace of everything in Europe tends to be slower. Similar to #4, we started inserting additional breaks between speakers to slow down the pace of the conference, but it gives attendees more opportunities to talk and connect with one another. This creates better relationships and attendees learn just as much (if not more) from each other as from the main stage talks. We call it the 'hallway track'. Again, the extended breaks made it over to the US conferences.

6. The average European is more aware that there are markets outside of their own country and has a better sense of how to interact with them. The average US-based entrepreneur would have no idea how to get started selling directly to Germans, for example. They're accustomed to dealing with people from other countries, and this is reflected in what appears to be more careful consideration for other people and how they are perceived.

I think it's very easy to offend someone from another culture out of sheer ignorance rather than intentional malice. Europeans seem to recognize this and take more care to avoid things that might be confrontational or offensive.

There's probably more that I could come up with given enough time. Again, these are generalizations and absolutely don't hold true in every case. The closest analogy I can think of is that it's similar to going to a McDonalds in the US vs one in Germany. Things are generally the same, but also a little bit different. Not better or worse though.

I think that the first year would have been really hard no matter what. Our message didn't dramatically change from the first to the second year. It was more a matter of the fact that we generally attracted the right type of person to attend and those people chose to return the following year.

It feels like every year, at least one person will tell me before the end of the opening reception that what they've learned so far has already made the conference pay for itself. That's a really strong value statement and I feel it myself when I'm there.

There's a lot of things that have gone right to make MicroConf as successful as it has and it's the subtle combinations that have lead to its success. Encouraging the right type of people to attend is part of it. Discouraging the wrong types of people from attending also helps.

For example, we raised prices to help get rid of the people who attended because they had disposable income and wanted to feel like they were an entrepreneur and hang out with those people, but were never serious about it. You could tell who those people were because they'd never launched or even tried to launch a product. They loved the idea and end state of being an entrepreneur, but not the journey.

Our focus on finding the best speakers we could has helped a lot. We really listen to the attendees each year and deliberately look for ways to improve each year. You can't expect every year to be better than the last or you set yourself up for failure, but finding areas where we can experiment has been a gold mine for us, especially since the audience is receptive to those experiments.

When someone attends and they're a good fit for MicroConf, they immediately feel a sense of belonging. As in "I have found my people and they're right here".

In story form, here's why. The first MicroConf, we hadn't planned an evening event for Tuesday because we didn't have any money for it, but the hotel had comped us the Penthouse Suite. We'd given it to Andrew Warner and as we were leaving after the last session, people were sort of trying to figure out what was next.

Andrew said "Hey everyone, I've got this huge suite and it's just me. Let's hit the liquor/convenience store in the lobby, bring it up to my room and we'll have a party". Hiten, Noah, Marcus and a bunch of other people all bought a bunch of food, snacks, soda, beer, wine and a few bottles of liquor and that's exactly what we did.

For several hours, Marcus rocked out on the piano while everyone just talked business around the room. I had to fly out that evening and near the end of the evening, I ended up talking to Patrick McKenzie for a few minutes. This was the first I'd met him in person, but I'd seen him online and I already had a ton of respect for him. I'll never forget what he said to me.

"Mike, I just wanted to say thank you so much for inviting me. This has been the most amazing conference I've ever been to and barring the birth of a child or my wedding, I will be at every MicroConf I can from now on."

That was the moment I knew that MicroConf would probably succeed.

Little-known fact: MicroConf 2011 was the first week of June. We were going to have MicroConf in June of 2012 but somewhere along the way, Patrick told us he was getting married that month. We moved the date from June to April specifically so he could make it. I don't know if we ever told him that. :)