A pattern than I unwittingly did and have noticed in others is that you need to work out what your variation of ‘consultant math’ is for yourself. No matter how many people tell you, you need to blunder through to your own understanding of it. Often by going waaaaay overboard on conferences the first year or so after going independent.

Here is my variation of ‘consultant math’ around whether I will attend your conference or not. Not that anyone will listen to this and not thing ‘hey! I’m different!’ — no, no you are not. But anyways…

The first part of the equation is whether or not I am getting paid to be there. This can either be in term of an honorarium, or flight or hotel (or all three!). Consultant math is pretty easy when this happens … in most situations. But there is the whole problem of Opportunity Cost. Let’s say you are giving me all three of these variables to attend your conference [presumably to speak] but I have to spend a complete day flying there, and a complete day back. That is really 3 days I could be billing people to work on their stuff. If the honorarium only covers 85% of a single day’s worth of billing, well, things start to break down a bit.

Fear not though, the math still might work in your favour if there is a good chance I am going to get new business from attending an interacting with the other attendees. This actually has two parts to it. First, you need to know who your target demographic is. After 3+ years at this, I have a pretty good feel on who I am targeting and the sorts of things they need to hear in order to get them to sign on. (New consultants are unfortunately at a disadvantage and I think this is a large part of the reason why they go to so many conferences in the shotgun approach.) You, as a conference organizer need to convince me that there is a match between my target demo and your audience. (Tip for consultants: check their sponsorship packages, they often include this information in there.) If there is a match, I might eat the Opportunity Cost and turn it into a Marketing Cost.

There is another variation of Consultant Math I have been tinkering with a bit recently, and that is the Sponsorship Option. This is advanced level math and should only be employed once you know your audience since it often requires more risk [in terms of outlay of money]. Upon successful completion of this math you end up sponsoring a target conference [or event association with it]. For instance, the Consultant Math with Sponsorship Option looks quite favourable for Pycon or php[tek], but is pretty abysmal for CAST, Star*, STPCon or even, ironically, Selenium Conf.

I explained Consultant Math to a could non-consultants today [including ish a conference president] which is usually a sign I need to blog about [my variation] it.

So I’m in a pitch contest right now, and easily the biggest outcome is to switch me mentally from ‘talking about my app’ to ‘building my app’. And part of that shift was to got to TorontoGROWtalks last week. Waaaay too much stuff to absorb. (And thank-you startupnorth for the discount code!). Notes are as follows…

Brant Cooper

• took 3 minutes to mention FAKEGRIMLOCK
• Innovation: Disruptive, Sustaining or Rippling?
• hockey stick growth curve is an inverse mullet
• disruptive organizations optimize for learning
• sustaining organizations optimize for execution
• pre product fit, you are pushing the product on the market. after product fit, market pulls the product from you — I’m pushing now, need to stop that, and soon.
• first vp of sales needs to be able to sell without a demo — I don’t look forward to hiring sales.
• figure out your marketing, by going out and sell
• product creates the buzz, marketing is about amplifying your buzz
• you are not ready to market until there are things in the top of your sales funnel
• how do your measure a ‘passionate user’? figure out how to measure satisfaction and then passion
• if you have sharing, measure sharing since its an indicator of passion

Mike Meltzner

• product ownership isn’t an authority, it is a responsibility
• voice decisions the rest of the group has already decided on
• Startup stages: a comparison of 3 models — Marmer stages was mentioned
• job of ceo is to say same 3 things to everyone outside of the company (Speak the vision. Keep the tank full. Build a team). job of product owner is to say same 3 things to everyone inside of the company (important thing this month, thing we’re ignoring, where we are going)
• be in everyone’s business everyday so they know to include you in decisions
• default to no — but help me to help you convince me to say yes
• no — for now…
• who is handling the project — starters, or finishers?
• unsuccessful product ownership involves handoffs

Kate Rutter

• was an updated version of
  
• 
• ux != ui
• ui = delivery mechanism
• ux
  • a mindset
  • experiential payoff
  • inspires the right kinds of ideas
  • guides decisions
• if people are not going to pay for it, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby
• make decisions intentionally
• startup workshops
• if you cant have one user being passionate about it, how do you plan on having 1000s?
• ‘you dont have a product box, you have a product sieve’
• the market will give you permission to succeed
• customers [give you money] vs end experiencers
• cohort watching is useful
• there is nothing better than being schooled by your product
• each stage of the stack has its own ways to test it
• you should be okay looking like an idiot, because this is how you learn

Laura Fitton

• is there any conceivable world where someone would pay for this blob of marketing
• be useful
  • relevant to your user
  • relevant to your product
• start responding to how they make decisions
• its not spammy feeling if it is properly segmented
• HubSpot Academy
• will customer’s thank you for your content?
• hits don’t count; conversions count
• ‘them’ vs your ‘them’
• ‘smarketing’ — combination of sales and marketing

Scott Kveton

• creation stories should all be like urban airship’s
• ‘more of a feature than a product’
• its not lying, its selling forward
• think hard on pricing and packaging
• you really /do/ need to listen to customers
• customers will direct your business far better than you can
• outgrew ec2 within 3 months
• torn down and re-built tech 3 times

Dan Martell

• to have a hockey stick you need to have the flat part
• as soon as you truly understand your core product, get rid of everything else
• you need to instrument /everything/
• know your baselines
activity streams
• curious
• casual
• core <--- pay attention to these ones
• use in app surveys
• know your funnels
• unless you have core, don’t do this…
  • opn (other people’s networks)
  • shareable moments

Michael Litt

• solve the problem the customer has, not the problem they think they have
• do not trust the data, talk to the customer
• metrics only work /after/ you have product-customer fit
• everything at the start should be outbound
• ever developer should talk to customers

Mark organ

• most important ingredient for founder or investor: conviction
• ‘how does cookie monster mean capital’?!?!?!
• you need to have deeper knowledge about things more than anyone else
• to bootstrap
  • conviction
  • microniche
  • serviceize (charge for anything)
  • high pricing (multiply by 3x – 5x your competitor)
  • systematic scale
• to raise money
  • conviction
  • beautiful story
  • abp (always be pitching)
  • get feedback and connections
  • firm, but coachable
• the best way to get a canadian investor is to get an american investor first
• you do have spend time on planes to raise money