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Timeline: Starting Referly Took Me Three Years
On Monday we launched Referly, and announced we will be participating in YCombinator this summer. While this is only my second full-time week as a founder, I thought it would be fun to rummage around in my email and Github to grab a timeline of how Referly went from idea to actual company.
As Kim-Mai Cutler of TechCrunch reported, I haven’t been particularly secretive about the idea. I’ve gone through period of active and passive engagement with this idea since October 2009, and got really serious about just this past February.
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April 2009
Just a few weeks after starting at Twilio I was still working out of Founder’s Fund and coffee shops and living in the Travelodge in the Presidio for $49/night (I hadn’t yet moved to San Francisco from Seattle, and Kevin was still based in Beijing with Microsoft). I met my future Referly cofounder Al Abut for the first time, at the first Startup Weekend in San Francisco. We vowed we would work together someday and stayed in touch.October 2009 – Women 2.0 Startup Weekend SF
In October of 2009 San Francisco hosted Women 2.0 Startup Weekend (read my recap blog post of the event). I was invited to join a panel with Dan Martell, Jessica Livingston, Xochi Birch, and Shanna Tellerman. Quite frankly, I was pretty starstruck – these people had built companies, written books, and launched Y Combinator — what had I done to deserve to sit next to them? But I knew what I had done… I had participated in more Startup Weekend events than anyone there.
As panelists our job was to walk the audience of about 150 people through the process of forming an idea, making plans, and answering some questions from the audience. As we convened to figure out what to pitch I threw out an idea that had stuck in my mind for a month or so – affiliate for everyone. We were down to the wire on time, no one else had another idea (and knowing myself I was probably pretty forcefully determined to my idea: Obsession) so we pitched it. The audience had a few questions, but I’d say the reaction was a collective yawn.
We went on to build something completely different on my team, launching Escape My Date and winning the People’s Choice award (Foodspotting was created won the event!) and even getting a little press. I pushed the idea for Referly to the back of my mind.
February 2010 – Leadscon Conference
Went to support our customers and had heard a little about the lead generation industry from the year before (enough to form an idea of it and the idea for Referly) but my eyes were really opened fully for the first time. I was surprised people weren’t doing something similar to Refer.ly and shocked by how little Social Media was part of the conversation for generating business in this channel. It was surprising that it made me wonder if there way some big barrier to entry that I just didn’t know enough to see.
June 2010 – Registered Refer.ly
I signed up for the refer.ly domain name on Libyan Spider:
And another chat that night with a friend from a previous startup, on the idea. Its amazing how little it has changed, and I’m actually surprised to see how confident I was that this was my future company even then!
February 2011 – Shared First Version with Friends
I got the first version of Referly built and shipped to about 50 friends for feedback. In fact, I just found a screenshot of some bug reports from the lovely Liza Sperling, who has been so supportive! This might be the only image I have of the old site. Edit: And yes I do own fuckyeahitscales.com and used to host a lot of my side projects there.
November 2011 – Meeting Alicia at Skimlinks
At first I thought Skimlinks was going to be a huge competitor (I was bummed for about a week, because they are clearly kicking butt and would have been a formidable competitor), but then I realized what I wanted to build was in the consumer space and that they could be a potential partner instead. Meeting her tipped me off — maybe the time was right for this idea.
February 2012 – Refactoring & Redesigning Referly + Alpha Launch
At first I just wanted to reskin Referly using Twitter Bootstrap, but my PHP skills had evolved a lot since I first wrote the app, and reviewing my previous code I found tons of bugs I couldn’t have spotted before. I decided to completely re-write it and move it from my Dreamhost box to its own instance on EC2.
Once it was working, I got good feedback from friends and decided to start talking about it a bit more and to launch to a bigger audience. We added about 500 people through invites at this point. People told me about Gumroad, Pinterest had drama with Skimlinks, and Facebook announced it would re-launch Beacon. The market seemed right.
March 2012 – Applying to YCombinator
I hadn’t really planned to apply to YCombinator when I started coding in February. I felt like I might not be a fit as a solo founder who already had some funding commitments. As the deadline approached I started to fill out the application – at first just on a whim and then more seriously. The morning of the deadline I woke up early and quickly recorded my application video at a friend’s office. I only had time for 30 minutes of practice, then it was just cut it and send it and head off to work.
I also made a ton of last minute edits to my YC application (which I was never very happy with) and sadly I didn’t save the text or I’d share it as well.
April 2012 – Interviewing with & Getting Into YC
I was very surprised to get the invitation to interview. The process of prepping for interviews and interviewing with YC is a total blur to me now, probably because I didn’t sleep much during that time – doing Twilio by day and Referly by night. Byt the time I interviewed I had two employees on board: Alexandra Harris (who I went to middle school and high school with on Bainbridge Island) and Hudson Kelly (who I met while he was visit Silicon Valley with his college class).I am indebted to many YC founders who agreed to meet with me, and gave their brutally honest feedback on the product and pitch. The more skeptical they were, the better they made me – and I’d often fall asleep feeling raw but wake up feeling like I had grown thicker skin and greater wisdom overnight. I met with one every day between submitting my application and going to my interview. I think Referly developed faster in this period than at any other point.
April 2012 – Wrapping Up at Twilio
I love Twilio, and after spending over 3 years there building the marketing team from the ground up to 18 people, I was very passionate about making a solid transition. We brought in two great hires: Lynda Smith from Jive to head things up as our CMO, and James Parton from Telefonica to take the reins in Europe as Director of Marketing in London.
May 2012 – Launch
On Monday, we launched Referly to the world on TechCrunch, AllThingsD, PandoDaily and Geekwire. Next week, the team will be full time and June 1st we move into our house in Mountain View. So in some ways, this is all brand new, but in other ways it is a continuation of something that has been an obsession of mine for quite awhile. I used to think 3 years was forever, but sometime in the last few I’ve learned a bit of patience.
We now are a team of 5, as Kevin Morrill (my husband) agreed to join as cofounder and CTO and Al agreed to join as cofounder heading up all things design. We’ll be moving into our house in Mountain View the first week of June.
Onward!
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“Faking the Books” by Lali Puna
We’ve been done before
And now we try to forge ourselves
We’ve been done before
And now we try to forge ourselvesI’ll be true again
But until then i fake the books
‘cause everybody knows
This ain’t heaven
Until everybody knowsWe’ve been wrong before
There is a lot that we survived
We’ve been wrong before
There is a lot that we survivedI’ll be true again
But until then i fake the books
‘cause everybody knows
This ain’t heaven
Until everybody knows -
“Gold Guns Girls” by Metric
All the gold and the guns in the world couldn’t get you off
All the gold and the guns and the girls couldn’t get you off
All the boys, All the choices in the worldI remember when we were gambling to win
Everybody else said better luck next time
I don’t wanna bend, Let the bad girls bend
I just wanna be your friend
Is it ever gonna be enoughIs it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enoughIs it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enoughAll the lace and the skin in the shop couldn’t get you off
All the toys and the tools in the box couldn’t get you off
All the noise, all the voices never stopI remember when we were gambling to win
Everybody else said better luck next time
I don’t wanna bend, Let the bad girls bend
I just wanna be your friend
Why you givin’ me a hard time
I remember when we were gambling to win
Everybody else said HA HA HA HA HA HA HAIs it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enoughIs it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enough
Is it ever gonna be enoughMore and more, more and more, more and more,
More and more and more and more, more and more, -
My Favorite Drink: The Kir Impérial
Editors Note: A lot of you mentioned that I had a very strange glass for a champagne drink and you’re right – but usually I am drinking and working at my desk on the weekends when I have this… so the Bodum double walled tumbler is perfect. It keeps your drink cold much longer without ice. YMMV
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Want to know the fastest way to make my day? Â Order me my favorite drink, or know how to make it.What’s in a Kir Imperial?
- 6 parts Champagne or sparkling wine
- 1 part liqueur framboise (raspberry)
It’s really simple actually, and this picture should give you a sense of how pink it should be. Â It should still taste like champagne, just with a nice juicy splash of fruit.
Ingredients: Champagne
This drink shouldn’t be pricey to make at home, but it is a treat so pick good ingredients.
First, I like to select a good California or Washington State sparkling wine. Â Mumm Napa Brut Prestige is great, and you can get it on Wine.com for $20. Â Let me tell you a few important things about champagne/cava/sparkling wine. Â Don’t just buy the “good stuff” for other people. Â If you are going to bother, spend at least $20 when you buy it for yourself. Â Don’t buy Korbel. Â You’re ruining the whole point. Â Think what the French would say. Â Actually, they’d probably say go for the Korbel! Â Such confusing people… (Benoit!)
But in all seriousness, I love this sparkling wine because it is primary pinot noir grapes (did you know pinot noir is white until they add the grape skins in?!) and it has some good acidity which you’ll want to cut through the sweetness of the liqueur. Â If you pick a syrupy sweet champagne, this will be an entirely different drink.
Ingredients: Fruit Liqueur
Next is the liqueur.
For people looking to make the class Kir Royale you should get the classic creme de cassis, which is black currant liquer, is a bar staple and you can get it in Bev Mo or any liquor store.  Extra points if it is actually from the Dijon region of France (see below on history). If you are committing to make this drink part of your repertoire, then stock your home bar with a presentable bottle (read: NOT Monin or anything cheaper than that, and yes I am judging you).  But seriously, if you are going to bother with a bar please put some thought into it because this is a bottle that will last a couple years.
Personally, I have experimented quite a bit and prefer raspberry liqeuer for my Kir, which is why it is an Imperial and not a Royale). Â I am loving Alfred Schladerer’s Himbeer Liqueur – actually a German producer (natch! — see history again). Â And yes, I just linked to an Amazon product that is out of stock, but you really should wishlist it. Â I got mine at Bev Mo for $30, so I imagine it is in other liquor stores too.
FAQ: History & Name
This is a French cocktail that got popular after World War II by the mayor of Dijon, named Felix Kir, who served it to international delegations as he worked to rebuild his region. Â Creme de cassis was a local product, and he let local producers use his name. Â Wikipedia tells us:
According to Rolland (2004), the reinvention of blanc-cassis (post 1945) was necessitated by the German Army’s confiscation of all the local red Burgundy during the war. Faced with an excess of white wine, Kir renovated a drink that previously was made primarily with the red.
Pretty damn scrappy if you ask me.
FAQ: What’s the difference between a kir and a kir royale?
A kir is made with white wine, and a kir royal is made with champagne.
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River
River – by LIGHTS
Out across cities I see buildings burn into piles
And watch the world in wonder as mountains turn into tiles
And trees losing their leaves, and our faces becoming tired
I wish I could discover something that doesn’t expire
Come and stumble meTake me river, carry me far
Lead me river, like a mother
Take me over, to some other unknown
Pull me in the undertowSuch are the things that make a kingdom rumble and shatter
The same dynamic that another day would never matter
It really just depends on who’s giving and who’s receiving
And things that don’t make sense are always a little deceiving
Come and stumble meTake me river, carry me far
Lead me river, like a mother
Take me over, to some other unknown
Pull me in the undertowI want to go where you’re going, a follower following
Changing but never changed, claiming but never claimed -
500 Details: The Process of Mentoring Startups
This morning I posted a link on Twitter & Facebook to How I Mentor Startups & Entrepreneurs. Â After it went out, I realized it doesn’t tell the full story. Â Where are the details of how this whole thing works. Â I knew I’d written it down at some point, so I dug up this email I wrote to the 500 Startups list. Â New personal rule: emails longer than 4 paragraphs might need to be blog posts. Â Enjoy!
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As a mentor who has gotten involved in ~12 companies and ended up writing checks to 3, so far, I want to share a little about how I think about the whole process. First of all, I love mentoring and it is one of the most rewarding things I’ve done with my free time. Its teaching me a ton about myself, things I’m interested in that I don’t always get to think about in my day-to-day work, and I get paid back with data — either the advice I give helps the startup or it doesn’t.
However, I don’t work with every start that approaches me. For other startups/mentors here’s my process:
0:  I get an inbound request/intro from a founder/startup/investor/etc. — my first question is, “can I help these folks?”. If they have a startup in an industry or problem space that I don’t know anything about, or can’t find excitement for, or think is a dumb idea then I tactfully decline. Those things make it impossible to become a “true believer” and every time I have gone against this I have regretted it.
1:  I agree to meet up for coffee and find out my about the team, their vision, their execution so far, and how they think I can help them. Usually they come to me for my broadly advertised skills in marketing, but often they find Ican help with a bunch of other stuff too.  I can usually tell if I am likely to invest in them after my first meeting, and this sets how much time I want to commit.
2: Usually I find that there is a period at the beginning where the startup needs a lot of time and attention, and has a specific use for me as a mentor.  I like to commit to meeting a few times over the next 3 months for 2-3 hour working sessions, and if things are going well then I’ll usually write a check in the next 8-12 weeks. If not, then I’ll usually wrap things up after the 3 month period and move on. Some startups just stop using me, whether its because they’re busy or because I’m not helping I don’t know, but I am laissez faire about it. If you keep asking me for my time you will get it… but don’t expect me to pursue you too much.
3: Writing the check. Usually $5k and really I don’t worry about the valuation or think I’m going to get the money back (or care) - I’m paying to be at the table for the long term. Its a way to have skin in the game.  I also have companies where I have a small % equity in return for my time… which is usually only something the really early stage ones can offer. And yes, if one of these companies had a moderate return I would super happy — but the reality is that I’d probably just invest it in more companies (or maybe my own one day).
4: The ongoing relationship - I block out time for my investments/mentorships on my calendar. Sunday is my 500workday :)  I host an office hours at a local coffee shop doing 20 minute lightening mentor sessions, and I meet withstartups at their offices or at my house if they don’t have an office yet.  I work on them even when I don’t meet with them, doing research or catching up on their news. They probably don’t even know how much I stalk them.
And that’s how it works for me, I spend about 6 hours a week on it… so it will take me about 32 years to hit my 10,000 hours of mastery. That’s cool, because my 58 year old self will be a really quirky and fabulous angel investor. Here’s hoping 🙂
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Close the Loop on Your SXSW Campaign & Leads in 5 Steps
This is a followup to my post last week How to Hustle SXSW for Fun & Profit, which is part of my sporadically ongoing Lessons in Startup Marketing blog post series and its focused on what to do post-SXSW to make the most of all the hustling you’ve been doing.
Please let me know what other followup tips you have for event marketing, and thank you for reading!
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Hello 500!  I hope your hangovers aren’t too brutal.I wanted to followup on my post about “How to Hustle SXSW for Fun & Profit” and make sure I also told you how I think about closing the loop on the leads and communicating internally about results, ROI, learnings, and expectations for next year. Just sat down in the airport (headed back to SF) and jotted this down, please let me know if I left out any important follow up steps that work well for you.
Who Needs to Do This
If you used more than $5,000 of your company’s money at SXSW you *need* to do this and be accountable for what went down.
Why This Process Matters
This is crucial for a bunch of reasons: it builds trust for the marketing function in your company, it recognizes the marketing team’s version of “shipping”, it increases the chances of opportunities resulting from the leads you worked so hard to collect, it sets you up to justify SXSW next year and understand the value you are getting from this event and events like it company-wide.
Day 0 – Sleep
After epic trips like this one, which involve getting up early, being “on†all day, and staying out late — you are going to be tired.  Rest.  Getting sick after this trip is likely, because if you hustled hard [link: ] you shook over 1,000 hands.
Day 1 – Schedule a Post-Mortem
This should only take 30 minutes, and should include the people who attended and those who were directly involved in planning/execution.  The post mortem with the events team can be a more private opportunity to talk through things that went wrong, and make sure to air any lingering frustrations so that you don’t bring them to the office permanently.  This isn’t a group therapy session though.  If individuals exhibited any inappropriate behavior, it is better to talk with them 1-on-1 about this.  Instead, focus on the goals of the event as a whole and the execution of each piece.
Walk through each piece of the plan, and ask different people on your team to describe how it went, what they liked and the value they feel your company got, as well as what could have gone better. Â Make a list of learnings for next year and a list of achievements to include in your email blast to the company.
Day 2 – Distribute an Event Recap (Internally)
While its still fresh on your mind write a recap for yourself, and then send it to your team (or entire company).  Make sure to show through stories how high impact the event was and also how much work it was – for those who stayed home and might resent not getting to go.  Make sure to thank people by name individually and call them out for specific contributions.  Remember, they worked extremely hard for you 14-16 hours each day and you want them to feel valued.  They’re also likely to be the same people who will attend SXSW with you next year.
Its also helpful to be transparent and to share learnings company-wide, but don’t turn it into a laundry list of things that went wrong.  Inevitably things went wrong (I definitely have a list from our trip this year) but focus on just one or two keys things that had valuable lessons attached to them.
Make sure to call out conversations you had that have a lot of value, opportunities that arose spontaneously, unexpected wins, and how your brand was received. Â Had people heard of you before? Â Did they have a positive impression? Â What were the most common questions? Â What was the elevator pitch that worked best? Â How did you change your interpersonal style to adapt throughout the event? Â Who did you feel you connected best with? Â Encourage your team to reflect on the same.
Day 3 – Send a Followup Marketing Email (Externally)
Take all the email addresses on every business card, all the emails from your party RSVP list, and any other contacts you made and send a big email blast thanking them for spending their time with you and giving your company some of their precious attention at SXSW. Â If you are getting a high volume of leads I hope you are using a CRM like Saleforce, or even a marketing automation and lead scoring tool like Pardot (we use both at Twilio) to capture and organize leads and associate them with a source. Â It will be amazing to see exactly the $ amount in opportunities and revenue these leads have accumulated 6 months from now, and this is ultimately the most objective way to justify the trip.
This email can be pretty HTML or just plain text – the most important thing is SEND IT WHILE SXSW IS STILL FRESH IN PEOPLE’S MINDS.  I know you are tired, but if you wait 2 or 3 weeks to send it then you are losing permission to contact these people.  Ideally, you should be ready to send this email by Thursday March 15th… and probably actually send it the following Monday morning at 8am PST.
What should be in this email? Keep it simple, include some pictures if you have anything extraordinary to share, and focus on the person you met and how they can continue to build a relationship with your brand. Â Provide only ONE link / call to action for them to click on. Â This could be something like claiming a promotional code, viewing a more in depth blog post, entering a contest, whatever. Â The key is to have just one and keep it focused around that.
Day 4 – Finalize Your Accounting
Invariably you spent additional money on food and booze, and this year things like ponchos and umbrellas were definitely on our list. Â Take an account of all costs and finalize your total into a single Keynote slide, breaking out the line items.
Day 5 – Be Accountable
Make a 4 slide deck which includes:
- Overview of activities and their total reach (# leads collected)
- Accomplishments & Learnings
- Final Budget slide
- Callouts for each person in the team and their contributions
This is how you will start the conversation next year about SXSW and whether you should go, what you should do, how much you should spend, etc.  You’ll be able to update these slides with ROI information as the leads you generated start converting into opportunities and revenue.  Send it to your senior management team (at least CEO & CTO if not more).
You’re done.  Next big event for me is Salesforce’s Cloudstock on March 15th in San Francisco – hope to see you there along with 3000 developers!
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How to Hustle SXSW for Fun & Profit
This is a copy/paste of an email I sent to 500 Startups Founders & Mentors email distros. Â Another reason why you should join our program – I will fill your inbox with swear words and unsolicited advice. Â Enjoy!Thank you so much to everyone who voted this up on Hacker News, where it spent 3 hours in the #1 position and more than 12 hours on the front page. Â This post has now officially beat out How I Built a Multi-User Door Buzzer for our Apartment, with over 8,000 unique pageviews in the last 12 hours.
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This is the email where you all find out I am a hyper-socially sensitive (if you didn’t already notice) and have an incredibly intense meta level dialogue going on in my brain during every social interaction.  Basically, it is my super power.
SXSW is upon us I want to share with you some tactics and strategies for having fun and hustling hardcore at this event. Â This is a jumping off point for conversation, because I have spoken to several entrepreneurs with various fears/concerns/questions about SXSW. Â This does not cover everything, it got really long and I wanted to get off my soapbox and have a beer.
Before I forget
Save my number in your cell 425-698-7497 DANIELLE MORRILL (I know, a lot of double letters) —- TEXT me when you are at SXSW and we can hang out!  I roll in the Twiliomobile (like “Batmobile”, not the mobile version of Twilio, see pics a the end of this post) version 3 (although I will not be hand painting it this year) and I love breakfast
burritostacos. Â I also have access to a lot of interesting activities off the beaten path, so if you happen to find me you might consider saying, “hey Danielle, where are you going next? Â Can I come?” Â If the car is not full, the answer is YES.Prepping your calendar
Don’t fucking do it.  At least not in the way everyone else seems to.  Here is what is going to happen.  You are going to think you are being a front of the class kind of kid and spend PRECIOUS HOURS carefully picking through events, judiciously adding what you perceive to be highest value to your calendar and RSVPing for those event.  And guess what — BOOOOM! — the magical serendipity of SXSW is going to screw it all up.
Instead, put EVERYTHING on your calendar so you know what ALL your options are, RSVP for EVERYTHING (yes I use an intern to do this — get one athttp://www.internmatch.com #500strong) or use getwillcall.com/sxsw also #500strong. Â If there is something you absolutely have to be at, like an event your company is hosting/sponsoring then make it a different color. Â But if you are the CEO/most senior person going and you have a team there then *tell them you will not be there every moment*. Â They will live, and if you are less stressed about getting there in time you will hustle better.
Prepare like a soccer mom on crack
So you aren’t going to plan your calendar beyond knowing all the options, but that doesn’t mean you can throw all planning out the window.  You need to treat yourself and the team like athletes.  Anything that could keep them from finishing the game/series/season is a problem.  I rent an SUV (getting 2 this year – covering them with vinyl decal branded stuff) and fill it with supplies for me and for the people in the Twilio community.  This includes bottled water, granola bars and other fast snacks (don’t do chocolate bars or candy – it melts in the Texas heat), and First Aid kits.
First Aid is REALLY REALLY REALLY important (you can buy a standard kit at Walmart)!  I took an attendee of one of our events to the hospital, he sliced his foot open climbing off the bus and needed 10 stitches!  Did it ruin the event/day/trip?  Hell NO!  I got to spend an hour with one of our newest community members stuck in Austin traffic, trying to come up with things to distract him from how much blood he’d lost — we keep in touch, and I can’t wait to spend time with him this year.
Your game face
Okay fast forward and we’re in Austin now.  Repeat after me, “I am more hardcore than you†– hold this in your mind for a minute and feel a little competivie adrenaline rush.  This is the web marketing Olympics and its time to play ball.
If you have ever played sports, team or otherwise, or crushed nerd face in StarCraft II like I do every Sunday then I want you to imagine getting and keeping your game face on for 5-7 days. Â For those of you without these experiences, imagine how you feel trying to get out of San Francisco after a Giants game win.
You have 3 game faces you will need to master:
- Company Figurehead (external facing) – You are repping your company 24/7, so whatever public persona you have or are developing needs to be in top form. Â My recommendation: set the bar low. Â For me, this means rarely wearing makeup, speak in plain English, and share exactly what I think without (too much) self-editing. Â Again YMMV, but you are going to get stuck with this persona you created so think about it.
- Mercenary for the Leads / Missionary for the Brand – why the hell are you even going to SXSW (I probably should have started this email out with this) — to GET SOME leads. Â Make this fun if you can, what I did last year with a team of 6 was to make a competition with daily prizes and overall prizes for most business cards, most Twitter engagement, and other *measure-able* things. Â Measureable is key. Â I gave out the prizes and announced the new challenge at breakfast each day, and each person gave a recap on cool people they met. Â The order of magnitude for the challenge: MINIMUM 100 business cards per day (usually you’ll get 20 – 30% high quality leads). Â This is totally DOABLE, don’t let anyone tell you it is not.
- Fearless Leader (internal facing) – your team is looking to you both for guidance and approval (always), don’t forget how important this is in an exhausting and stressful situation.  Make sure to praise things they are doing well but also to give quick, straightforward, helpful feedback if you see things that are slipping.
If you need supplies, get to the grocery on day one with the team and make it happen.  Go to Walmart like we did last year (its on the way from the airport to downtown Austin) and buy up all the chalk, bubbles, glitter, and other fun cheap awesomeness you can.  Not sure how you’ll use it yet?  You’ll find a way.  Then take your team to eat a solid meal, probably the best one they will get and the one they will enjoy the most because they won’t be ready to fall asleep with their face in their plates.  Have a toast, make it count, this is an exciting moment.
Mind like water
Stress.  It’s going to happen because you’ll wake up Thursday and plans will constantly fall through, and you will be forced to be “on†24/7 in person (which is much harder than online) for several days back to back.  You need to at least try to have a mind like water.  I am a Type A on a level that generates panic attacks so let me tell you other type As out there – forget the fucking details.  This is going to be a shit show organizationally — this about it like you are planning for a natural disaster and embrace the chaos, or you will be miserable.
Mind like water = “oh cool, there’s another party down the street? let’s check it outâ€
Mind like water = “looks like the wifi here is making our product demo impossible, lets get a beer and try again laterâ€
Mind NOT like water = “oh shit this is a nightmare, who forgot to ship the tshirts, you are all firedâ€
Mind NOT like water = “why are you drinking, its 10pm on a Saturday but you are supposed to be WORKING!!!!!!!!!111111â€You get the idea…
You need a mind like water to work a room, to put up with the constant change, to understand that everyone else is also trying to adapt to this strange environment.  You need a mind like water so that you won’t be totally burned out at the end of the trip, or damage relationships.  But mostly you need a mind like water because once you let go a little bit it is extremely FUN.
Okay, I hear everyone gets drunk at SXSW
If you are going to get ridiculously drunk, and especially if you are considering using substances that the United States considers illegal, PLEASE DON’T WEAR YOUR COMPANY TSHIRT.  It is every PR person’s nightmare.  Please just no.
Getting drunk at SXSW is deceptively easy, because if you are hitting nonstop events from noon to 2am and having 1 drink per 90 minutes (and are a lightweight like me) you are going to feel like shit by 10pm.  YMMV, but I did SXSW on a 2 drink per day rule last year and felt massively better.  One exception: if you are the host/MC of an event take 1-2 shots of tequila/vodka right before things kick off.  I do this with my team, and it really does help chill out the nerves around a massive event.  We hosted 800 people at Pure Volume house, with 2 VIP rooms and 2 signed bands on stage — to say I was freaking out abou the line wrapped about the building and the angry requests re: “the list†(from Type A people who planned ahead no doubt!) — so I needed it.
Designated drivers = do it, take it seriously. Â Love your team and protect them. Â Make sure they drink water. Â Even if that means sitting together on the curb til 4am because no one is sober. Â Do it together, life is too short.
Sleep & Hangovers
You best be getting out of bed by 9am and taking your team to breakfast every day chief, this is your army – feed them, cloth them, inspire them. Â If you still have the hangover shakes at 1pm you are doing it wrong. Â (See: substances)
Doing Deals at SXSW
Pick a single day, pick an expensive bar, camp out at a table, make friends with the staff.  Don’t spread your stuff all over or it will be obvious you’ve been there all day.  You’re just the guy who happened to get there early for every single meeting, as far as the person meeting with you knows.  Expensive is relative if you are not drinking much, but it keeps the place from being loud or crowded.  The nice bar in the Hilton right across from the Convention Center always has tables because they charge $15 for a glass of wine — its PERFECT.
Tell your team what day is your deal day (I pick Sunday – because you will have time to fill the funnel) and cherry pick people from their business cards that you want to meet and call/text them to introduce yourself and set up a time. Â You invite, you pay.
It’s going to cost maybe $300 for the day if you have a table from 11am – 6pm and take 10 meetings — ~45 min apeice — at $30 each.  If you can’t afford this (you probably should have stayed home: “I am more hardcore than youâ€) then invite people to meet you at other events OR invite them to the VIP section of your own events.  However, events are not where you close deals (unless you are Dave McClure).  Events are for lead gen.
If you spend $300 and have a 10% success rate from those 10 meetings then I am guessing you will recoup your cost. Â Have > 10% success rate!!!
—– end email
Twiliomobile 2010
Twiliomobile 2011
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California
When I’m not angsting about being a citizen of the world sometimes I feel like this…
video thanks to the guys at IndieRockReviews.com. Now if only someone could get a reliable set of lyrics…
When all the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
We won’t just dream the Californian Dream
We’ll live the Californian WayDatarock – “California” from stereogum on Vimeo.
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Homesick
I realized on my last trip back to Seattle, that I’m not really homesick for being there anymore. But I’m kind of homesick everywhere, always missing a place I’m not. So I’ve stopped traveling for awhile, and maybe that will make me feel better. This song captures it.
I’ll lose some sales and my boss won’t be happy,
but I can’t stop listening to the sound
of two soft voices
blended in perfection
from the reels of this record that I’ve found.Every day there’s a boy in the mirror asking me…
What are you doing here?
Finding all my previous motives
growing increasingly unclear.I’ve traveled far and I’ve burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
all the other options held before me,
would wither in the light of my plan.So I’ll lose some sales and my boss won’t be happy,
but there’s only one thing on my mind
searching boxes underneath the counter,
on a chance that on a tape I’d find…
a song for someone who needs somewhere to long for.Homesick.
Because I no longer know where home is.