My take on Less Conf 09!

I want to be clear that this post is not intended to be a comprehensive review of Less Conf, not at all.  I just wanted to share my experience and shed some light on the conference, especially for the local development community in Puerto Rico that wasn’t able to attend.  For more details, speaker quotes and pictures follow the #lessconf hashtag on Twitter or the official account @lessconf.

I had plans to attend Web 2.0 Expo in November at NYC but recently realized that missing four or five work days would be hard for the business and was leaning towards not attending.  During that time I received an email from the guys at Less Everything (through a Less Accounting account) and immediately was drawn to the event.  The line up was great, the event was only one day and the cost, in comparison with other events, was incredibly attractive. Quickly I wrote my friend and business partner Javier and registered for the event.  Great decision, Less Conf was great, an amazing experience to hear some of the most successful internet entrepreneurs today and meet excellent programmers and designers from Florida and the southeast of the US.

So here are my top ten Less Conf moments (in no particular order):

Allan and Steve

Allan Branch and Steven Bristol from Less Everything organized the event and they did an amazing job.  The idea of running this conference came to them and they just ran with it in a creative, informal and very fun fashion.  The guys are funny, cool, larger than life (no pun intended) and they seem like honest good people.  Steven’s participation as the MC and interviewer of the speakers was fun but professional, his direct way of asking questions but fun personality made the speakers open up about business and personal topics.

Conventions and Differentiation

The first speakers were Eoghan McCabe and Des Traynor, owners of the Dublin-based Contrast.  This talk was a great way to set the mood for the day as they spoke about conventions in web design and the way following conventions reduce friction with users. Also, they were very clear on the need to balance the use of conventions in order to achieve differentiation.  If you are a designer or developer you need to follow the guys at Contrast, both on Twitter and their blog: http://www.contrast.ie/blog/

Lunch with the Irish Boys

Javier and me were able to sit at lunch with Eoghan and Des, along with other developers from Jacksonville and Tampa. It was a great idea from Allan and Steve to set this one-on-one talks with the speakers and encourage networking during the conference. The conversation during lunch focused on the balance between doing client work and developing in-house projects.  It was clear that all the developers at the conference were leaning towards creating apps and online businesses to, in Des words: “make money while we sleep,” but we had to continue doing client work. The Constrast guys had great advice on achieving a good balance in work.  We also talked about Kevin Hale’s presentation.

Chocolate-covered Grasshoppers

Of all the speakers and their businesses I probably knew less about David Hauser and Grasshopper.com, but now that I heard DH speak about Grasshoppers re-branding and marketing campaigns I definitely want to know more.  For all of you that aren’t familiar with the company, Grasshopper offers Virtual Phone Systems for entrepreneurs, they have been in operation for 6 years (I think) and they have revenues exceeding 10 million dollars.  Really impressive numbers and their marketing campaign was equally impressive.  You can read more about it here http://grasshopper.com/5000casestudy/ and watch the campaign’s video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0.  The takeaways: be creative in your marketing, focus on your customers and focus on your core product.  On this last issue David was very clear that they are focused on entrepreneurs and that sometimes their clients outgrow Grasshopper’s solutions.  They are ok with that because they are very focused on entrepreneurs and customers with simpler needs.

Jason Fried’s Video Q&A

This was probably my favorite part of Less Conf because I played a small part of making this happen.  No, seriously, I did! This is a testament to the power of Twitter.  I follow Jason Fried, 37signals, Allan, Steve and the Less Conf account so last week I was able to read a series of replies that Allan and Jason were having through Twitter.  Apparently Jason decided to answer user-submitted questions via Twitter and Allan quickly jumped in and started asking questions.  Jason was answering everyone of them so I jumped in and replied to both of them asking if Jason could come to Less Conf for a live Q&A.  Jason replied, saying it was impossible to come to Jacksonville but asking if a Vide Q&A was possible.  So, I sent that message to Allan they coordinated the Video Q&A session with Fried during Less Conf. The real transcripts below!:

@edgardojimenez: “@lessallan @jasonfried Jason, how about a Q&A live this weekend at @LessConf? It will be warmer than Chicago.”
@jasonfried: “@edgardojimenez It will be warmer, this is true, but I can’t make it down there. Maybe a video Q&A?”
@lessallan: “@edgardojimenez the ball is rolling, you get a super high five on saturday!”

The Q&A session was longer than I expected so kudos to Jason for participating.  I think that Steven’s questions and the informal nature of the conference led Jason to open up more than usual for the benefit of the crowd.  When asked how he could make 37signals better he answered that getting a telephone would do it.  He is planning to get in the phone and speak directly to customers, really nice.  Jason also announced Haystack.com, a new product from 37signals that aims to connect designers and developers with clients.  That should go live in a week or so.

Kevin Hale talking relationships

Kevin is the founder of Wufoo.com, one of my favorite internet applications and one that we use on a constant basis.  He talked about studies on successful realtionships and marriages and how those principles applied to the relationships they try to build with Wufoo users.  It was quite impressive.  One of the things that draw my attention was that all of Wufoo’s employees answer customer support emails and they do so in less than 15 minutes on average, sometimes in 7 minutes.  That’s simply amazing. Another issue with Kevin and Wufoo.com is the attention to detail. There is no aspect of the app that hasn’t been though of, from text, images, design, illustration.  Nothing inside Wufoo is unremarkable.

Will you answer if I call you at 3am?

Michael McDerment of Freshbooks.com talked about finding business partners and he mentioned the 3AM Test.  Basically, you want to call your business partner at 3 in the morning and see if he answers the phone, if he doesn’t maybe he shouldn’t be your partner. What most impressed me about Freshbooks and Mike was that he takes customers to dinner when he is traveling on business.  Talk about relationships!

Inspired by CD Baby

Derek Sivers offered a presentation about profitability and different business models.  However, it was during his Q&A session that he talked about his experience founding and selling CD Baby.  The part that I like the most was when he realized all of his employees were asking him to make decisions constantly and his day was dedicated to asking questions.  He solved the problem by answering and educating all employees, so good that he was able to ‘disappear’ for long periods of time while his employees ran the company.

Derek went on to sell CD Baby and now is working on a new project for the music industry.  All and all he just looks like a honest, nice, peaceful guy.

Crush it! Dickface!

Ok, I’ll dedicate a separate blog entry to Gary Vee because I was able to read his book on the return flight from Jacksonville to San Juan.  Stay tuned.

In summary

Less Conf was great!  I can’t wait for next year.  Allan and Steve rock and they should offer a special price for Less Conf 09 attendees!