Business of Software Conference USA 2017. I don't want to be pushy but

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#1

Picking up on an earlier thread, someone commented they didn’t know where we did our marketing. To be honest we try not to do it in places like this as it doesn’t ‘feel’ right. Business of Software Conference tries to help people who want to build great software and great software companies. We try to avoid talks that exhort the latest growth hacks and that type of thing as they seem to attract the ‘wrong’ type of people. I want to hear your thoughts on what is acceptable and what is not in terms of how we go about letting people know about BoS.

Want to see the talks that have been given at the previous 14 Business of Software Conferences, you can access them all, for free, here.

Want to keep up to date on what we are doing, hear about latest speakers, program etc? You can join the mailing list here.

Thinking about coming? I hope this will give you an idea of what you can expect.

Business of Software Conference USA Speakers

A short video with guest narration, (1 minute 27 seconds).

I would be very interested to hear from this group about what, in your opinion, is and isn’t OK in terms of marketing tactics? Thanks.

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#2

I definitely, definitely recommend Mark’s BoS conferences, based on my experience at this year’s BoS Europe.

You can also wisely spend some hours by watching the videos of talks from past conferences that Mark linked to. When I was thinking through the type of business I wanted Feature Upvote to be, I watched most of these videos at the rate of two or three a week. A good starting point is anything by Jason Cohen (founder of WP Engine).

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#3

Thank Steve! Funny you should mention Jason Cohen, who is coming back this year.

#4

Picking up on an earlier thread, someone commented they didn’t know where we did our marketing. To be honest we try not to do it in places like this as it doesn’t ‘feel’ right.

I think there is a distinction between marketing/advertising and informing.

Personally, I would like to be informed about conferences and events relevant to small/self-funded businesses, but would prefer not to be advertised to. Neutral posts stating the the existence, topic, dates, place and price of a conference I think could be useful.

I want to hear your thoughts on what is acceptable and what is not in terms of how we go about letting people know about BoS.

I don’t percieve your post as overly “markety”, but it does not answer the most basic questions I have about your conference, like:

  • What is it? (ok, you do provide some information about this, but not an objective description of what the event actually is)
  • Where is it? (USA is a rather large country)
  • When is it?
  • How much does it cost?

I know this information can be found by following the links you provided, but it would be way more convenient if it was simply stated in the post, which would probably make it more likely that I would click the links to find out more.

Also, maybe slightly off-topic, but why do you have separate web sites for USA and Europe, and why are they not cross-linked?

I have noticed many conferences do this, which I personally find somewhat confusing and annoying. When researching conferences, I do not always know if I want to attend in location X, Y or Z (or even that the conference exists in multiple locations). To me, the topics, quality, dates and price are more relevant than geographical location, but I may just be atypical in this regard.

#5

Anders,

Thanks for the comments. All good points, some being addressed even as we speak.

BoS USA is in Boston, 18-20th September.
It is a conference that is designed to help software folk grow great software businesses.
Ticket prices range from $1,500 up to $2,500 on the door. Includes meals etc. I think uniquely, we also offer a money back guarantee for attendees - attend, don’t feel you got value, refund. Keeps us focused! We offer some scholarships to deserving causes too.

The separate website thing is an artifact of history. We ran the US conference first. We are in the process of redesigning the site so that there is a single place people can go for content - previous talks, hangouts with speakers, white papers etc, all of which are a bit hidden at the moment - then simple event sites.

#6

Ha ha. Look what I just got from our marketing team…! :grinning: This was from BoS Europe.

Steve McLeod

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