Let’s face it, most conferences suck.
DreamForce, Oracle World, or my favorite Lab Quality Con Fab (Go look it up) are usually held in some circa 1970’s conference space with movable fabric walls, stale donuts, bad coffee (now some have espresso bars), and conference venues that double as Amway recruiting meetups.
That’s why I’m excited to attend Con Con on Nov 4th. Yeah, the name is stupid but the content looks amazing. You can save 15% if you use the discount code: daily15.
Con Con is put on by one of my favorite newsletter providers, The Hustle. Don’t know about The Hustle? Well, let me get you up to speed.
A Hipper Version of TED
The Hustle was founded by Sam Parr and John Havel in August of 2015. Before forming The Hustle, Sam put on Hustle Con, an event centered around startup founders, way back in 2014. The first Hustle Con was a huge success and included speakers Chubbies, Polyvore, Vinyl Me Please, Art of Manliness. The second Hustle Con included speakers from Pandora, NerdWallet, General Assembly, Sprig. The 3rd (most recent) Hustle Con included speakers from Indiegogo, Bonobos, Headspace, Casper. As you can see, all great companies that are crushing it.
The way I think of Hustle Con is that it finds some of the most interesting and successful startup founders, throws them on stage to share how they grow their startups. The best thing — you don’t have to be a techie like some other startup conferences. It’s a hipper version of TED from a millennial point of few set in a theater so it has a rock concert feel. Kinda like an anti-conference.
To promote Hustle Con, Sam would send out frequent emails that people loved with all sorts of updates and commentary. Think Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential with a sprig of Hunter S. Thompson, a dash of Jersey Shore and a pinch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — kinda bro-ish but with intellectual honesty and some well formed opinions.
The Hustle: If Your Bestie Surfed the Internet All Day
All this great feedback led Sam and company to form The Hustle to feature original long form content and throw events like Hustle Con and Pizza & 40s. Fun fact, George Zimmer of Men’s Wearhouse fame, showed up and talked (sans drinking the 40) about how he got fired from The Men’s Warehouse. I remember those “you’ll like the way you look” commercials as a young man. Love that guy.
Throughout this whole time, the guys would put out periodic emails about what was going on and some random thoughts on the startup scene. The feedback was great and fans were clamouring for more. Enter The Hustle daily newsletter
So in April of 2016, The Hustle started its daily newsletter, which now has close to 150,000 people subscribed. Sam expanded the team to include writer Kendall “wearing Eau de Uber” Baker, editor John Havel, and a rotating list of staff like new intern Luke Bizzy, attractive surgeon Grayson Atomie, holiday enthusiast Chris Misteim, and kleptomaniac Heidi Silver. Very creative, John.
Getting 150,000 people to subscribe to anything in less than 6 months is pretty amazing. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s 25,000 people per month or about 833 people a day. Lots and lots of brand would kill to know how to achieve that kind of growth and that’s what prompted Con Con.
So What’s This Con Con Thing Anyway?
Con Con is a one day conference focused on teaching startups how to create and then use content to get new users and customers. It came about because lots and lots of people were asking, hey, how can we create good content to grow our business like you’re doing at The Hustle? Well, gentle reader, we’ll throw a conference and teach you.
Boom! Con Con was born.
The lineup for the first Con Con looks pretty awesome. Speakers like Grant Marek of Chubbies, Dave Finocchio of Bleacher Report, Elizabeth Tobey of Medium, and Gary Liu of Digg to name a few. I’m interested in what Gary has to say since I did not even know Digg was still a thing. I mean I remember when Digg first came out. Yes, I’m that Internet old.
Want to attend? You can get 15% off if you use the discount code: daily15. What are you waiting for? Get after it!
A Daily Email That Doesn’t Suck
I hope you’ll come on out to Con Con and get educated on how to create killer content that moves people to follow you. If you can’t make it, then at least subscribe to The Hustle newsletter. It’s pretty awesome even if you’re not a millennial.
Special thanks to Kera, event planner at The Hustle, for taking the time to get me up to speed on the history of The Hustle. I appreciate it.
One more thing. Sam’s The Anti MBA blog is actually pretty good and I can appreciate his point of view. Dude, not all MBA’s are douchebags 🙂 — especially of the daily variety. I’m also glad you read books. Why not read mine about how to manage technical people frustration free? I’ll even sign it for you.
