In 2018, I joined ProfitWell as Events Manager, hired to build out their events and experiences program. The first big thing I built was Recur Boston, our flagship conference. At the time this was peak SaaS and in terms of events, SaaStr and SaaStock were the giants of the space. They were massive, sprawling events with sponsors, exhibition halls, ten tracks running at once, ten happy hours a day, etc. We sponsored and loved those events, but when it came to our own thing we knew we’d never outspend them.
So with Recur Boston we knew we needed to go in the opposite direction to compete. We decided on a purposely small group of two hundred attendees, VP and exec level, one day, one track, one stage, in our home city, Boston. No exhibition hall. No pay-to-speak. We led with stellar content and made every other decision in service of that.
We also knew the power of brand, and that for a start-up, perception is key. We understood that if we held a conference that was incredibly well done people would assume we were more established.
The quick Recur Boston stats:
- 200 or fewer attendees, exec level, one track
- Top speakers including Rand Fishkin, Dan Martell, David Cancel, and Katie Burke with extra long 45-60 min slots to go deep on a topic. Speakers really needed to hold their own to speak for that duration.
- Recouped event cost in ticket sales alone
- Closed revenue more than 5x event cost
- No exhibition hall, no paid speaker slots
- Built and run inside a bootstrapped company
The messy middle parts:
1. I came to ProfitWell from an events agency. I was great at my job, but I was trained to be a gun for hire. I was used to creating and presenting three options to a client and recommend the right one. The client made the call and then I executed. The first time I did this at ProfitWell, our CEO Patrick stopped me mid-recommendation and asked me "What do you think the right call is?" I told him. and his response was just "Okay, do it."
I was the perfect person to own Recur at that time because in that moment I realized I had years of stuff that I wanted to do that I could just execute. I knew the right call and it was incredible to simply do it.
2. The standard playbook for a conference is theme-first. You decide what the show is about, then find speakers who fit. We went a different direction. We asked speakers what they were excited about, what they were working on, what they couldn’t shut up about with their teams. The themes then came out of the speakers, not the other way around. Speakers were pumped and often tried out new talks with us first. This was a key way for us to put content first, earn the speakers trust, and ensure that what our attendees were hearing was fresh instead of forced.
3. One thing I am unyielding on is the perfection of small stuff with events. Those small things can seem trivial, but when you add them up they can completely make or break the experience. It's knowing where to park or walk, wifi that connects, good lighting, water before you need to ask. It’s a thousand small things going right, all at once, that elevate the event.
I would be remiss in the telling of this story if I did not mention my talented counterpart Dan Callahan. Dan was the Creative Director at ProfitWell, and was the brain behind much of the brand. He designed and I had the honor of bringing those designs into the physical world.
I'll end with this - Recur became one of the things ProfitWell was known for and one of the best received and reviewed events in SaaS at the time. The brand we built around it punched at the level of competitors 10x our size. That positioning was a piece of ProfitWell's growth and ultimately acquisition.
