Conferences arenāt a vanity play. Theyāre how newcomers become builders.
My path into the Ethereum ecosystem started in 2016, via:
1. attending a meetup on OranienstraĆe in Berlin (which made me start meetups in Prague)
2. competing in a hackETHon in London (which made me learn Solidity)
3. flying to Shanghai for
@Devcon 2 (which made me come to every single Devcon since)
Meeting the community in person meant 1000x more than all the online interactions combined. Thatās what made me stick to Ethereum.
Events still matter for talent inflow and retention. They also expose what we do to people standing on the sidelines. Theyāre not just marketing gimmicks - events are the core glue!!
If youāre reading this, youāve probably been around long enough that conferences no longer feel like an entry point; they feel like work and a lineup of meetings. Fair. But remember how you got here: what were the first events for you? If we start acting like IRL events arenāt important, weāll close these channels. Thatās it. Weāll silo ourselves in a self-swallowing bubble. Game over.
Real-life events need your support. If youāre a marketer, running a company or you are a whale in this space, sponsoring an industry/community event is in your best interest - that's how you help the industry grow. Also please donāt drain organizers dry while doing it. Events cost money: venue, catering, Wi-Fi boosts, production. The nicer you want it, the more it costs, and more often than not the hosts are volunteering to make them happen.
Yes, I understand itās hard to measure exact impact of an IRL experience. But thatās how you make yourself real: brand awareness, association, a gateway drug. The point is the optionality you create by letting someone new in. You wonāt measure it cleanly, and you donāt need to - the occasional āwinning caseā is what drives outsized impact and multiplied growth. That's how you find your next star, get meaningful product feedback face to face or make a deal 2 years from now. Don't expect your user base to grow magically because you showed people a laptop at your booth and threw a party - by fostering events and brining value to them, you are boosting the shared signal - if all of the remaining parts of your product or tech make sense, you can leverage that signal for your own grow.
Iām genuinely sad to see
@ethereumfndn not supporting events with grants anymore. I get the focus on meetups and local hubs - they matter too - but seasonal events are beacons that make local substrates flourish: side-event rentals for local hubs, media interest, new visitors, new hackerspace members. Those second-order effects are real. Likely brining more value than the $1k thrown at a meetup occasionally.
And Iām sad to see companies trying to reap the benefits without contributing to the core:
- Posting only a hacker bounty without sponsoring the hackathon - what?
- Spending 20k on a side event without sponsoring the core event - seriously, WTF?!
I joined the Ethereum Foundation largely thanks to Devcon 4. When I left EF, my goal was to go out and grow the garden
@AyaMiyagotchi often talks about. A few weeks ago we made this happen with
@EthereumZurich - now a group of students is taking over the conference is nurturing the local community.
@ETHPrague has grown into a significant annual event with global reach, with some of the most unprecedented conversations happening in this small town in the middle of nowhere. Initiatives and teams have sparked from ETHPrague with ambitions to change how Europe and the world is viewing Ethereum (can't wait for this to be announced!). IRL still matters.