My life modified in a giant means twenty years in the past at the moment. It was the primary Affiliate Summit that I organized with Missy Ward and it passed off at Baruch School in New York Metropolis on November 3, 2003.
Pulling the entire thing collectively occurred fairly quick. We chatted on the telephone about attempting to begin a convention and registered AffiliateSummit.com on Could 19, 2003.
The unique aim was to placed on a convention on a cruise in 2004, however we determined to do a small occasion earlier than that to get the identify on the market and construct a listing.
I heard about a possibility at Baruch School, which was a number of blocks from the place I labored on the time, and I went over to talk with them. We had been in a position to get a room for 200 with chairs, tables, A/V, and many others. totally free in change for giving some passes to their advertising college students.
That was excellent since we didn’t have cash. If it wasn’t for that free spot from Baruch, the rise of Affiliate Summit could by no means have occurred.
Within the months we needed to arrange out first convention, we referred to as in favors from pals to workers the occasion, and did the whole lot very primitive. All gross sales went via my PayPal account and affirmation emails for individuals who registered had been manually pasted from a Phrase doc and despatched from our emails.
Trade pals volunteered to be audio system and we received a bunch of pals with corporations to “sponsor” it (we didn’t cost them, so we might have a bunch of “sponsors” out of the gate).
We scheduled it on the primary day of the advert:tech convention in New York, which was an enormous occasion on the time, so we may capitalize on individuals coming into city, and we set a low value level ($75 for all day and lunch).
Our solely bills had been lunch and printing for the day, and with ticket gross sales we broke even however grew to become wealthy in business repute for Affiliate Summit.
Affiliate Summit 2003 was a sell-out a handful of days earlier than. We had a dozen or so individuals present up hoping to attend, and we quietly liked that we couldn’t match them, as a result of it created a buzz and demand after we began selling our subsequent occasion.
So many issues labored out excellent and propelled us right into a dream that lasted almost 20 years.
Take a look at images from Affiliate Summit 2003.
