Series: PropTech Chatter.
Show Notes
Summary
Special mentions
Company: Blueprint, Fifth Wall, Retcon, OPTech, Greystar.
People: Asam Cole.
Transcript
(Disclaimer: Please be advised that this transcript may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate, and/or amusing transcription errors.)
Matt Knight: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This time we're gonna do a special episode.
With Chris Moreno where we talk about how to get the most outta blueprint in Vegas. So hope you enjoy 20 minutes on lessons learned from several years ago into this conference and how you can best utilize your prep time and your time in Vegas and I hope it goes well.
Matt Knight: All right, Chris, starting conference season, I thought it would be fun to do sort of a newcomers guide to an event. And since blueprint is up, first, I thought we would start with Blueprint. So does that sound all right with you? If we do some sort [00:01:00] of insight or tricks and terms over the last few?
Chris Moreno: Yeah.
Sounds good. Happy to dive in.
Matt Knight: So I'd say start with registration. Like when do you, and how do you register? And any tips on that for newcomers?
Chris Moreno: Yeah, so I think a couple things. Number one is as soon as you know, you're going to commit and you're gonna go to that event , get registered. Usually there's, there's oftentimes discount codes or, if you know, you can register and then you can also apply to be a speaker. Oftentimes if you apply, if you are a speaker, they might comp you, so you, you know, even if you've already paid, they'll, they'll usually refund your money and give you a credit back. And then obviously for booths, you gotta go early to get the best booth. That goes without saying. And, you know, a lot of experience on finding the right type of booth should have a five by five or.
Five by 10 or a 20 by 20. Just totally depends on your budget and, and goals. And I, I think the most important thing, Matt, when you're thinking about registration and then deeper into the other parts, is why are you attending this event and why is it meaningful? And so for many companies it's like, should I send one [00:02:00] person? I send three people, what is it? I think that all goes back to your registration of like, are you having a booth? Are you speaking? What opportunities are there? And then how many meetings are you looking to have to make it a successful event for the ROI and the dollars you're gonna spend?
Matt Knight: Yeah. I'd say every event I go to has some sort of flexibility. Well, not every, most of them have some sort of flexibility on. Tickets. and Blueprint I think is really good at this is if they, if you're a person in the industry that should be there, they'll find a way to get you there within your budget. And so I, I will sort of double click on what you said about, you don't always have to pay full price and most people probably don't.
Because they can bring other people or sign up or I have discount codes. Right? And so you don't have to pay, don't let sticker shop scare you. If you were a student or a young professional, or if you're not sure if your company can afford it, like there's usually ways to be flexible to get you to these great events like Blueprint.
Do you agree with that?
Chris Moreno: Yeah, I think, you know, generally there are, there are some kind of [00:03:00] discount or opportunity and I, I think that, especially depending on who you are, right? If you're obviously selling to the audience there, that's one thing. But if you're also an owner. Owners will oftentimes have opportunities to speak, right?
So I'm putting together, I think for Blueprint, we're doing two round tables , of owners, and those owners are provided badges. So same thing with like an opt ec, right? They can provide badges or customers can, when you buy your package or you register, you often, even similar to, you get invites for the types of people that the, the trade show would like to have there.
Matt Knight: Yep. Alright, so my takeaway is. Be flexible, be early, look for discounts, and kind of have a plan about who's going. And I think that's, that's always a good practice for every event. But blueprint I will call out is specifically very good about getting the right people there and not letting ticket price be a hurdle.
Second is travel. And I can go first in this one if you want, or you can go first. But like, how do you get to, how long do you stay? When do you get there? Vegas can be appealing. Do you want me to go first on [00:04:00] this one or do you want to go.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, go ahead. That'd be great.
Matt Knight: I would say Vegas, it kind of depends on, 'cause Blueprint is in Vegas. If you don't know, it depends on your take on Vegas is I don't smoke or drink or gamble. I'm happily married. I live in the desert. Vegas has no appeal to me at all. So I go in and out super quick. And the beauty of being in the same time zone as Las Vegas is I have like a. 53 minute flight from Sky Harbor to Harry Reed. And so it's super easy for me to get it out. So when I do blueprint, I'm like 48 hours. I come Tuesday morning, I leave Thursday afternoon. And that doesn't hamper me in any way. 'cause there's really not a lot of stuff formally that happens on Monday. The kickoff is technically like Tuesday evening.
Like if there's a five o'clock happy hour, that's the first. You know, real group thing. There's usually some pre-show tracks. I think there's a multi-family track. Fifth wall's done a climate track. They'll do on kind of day zero, but I'm generally there just setting up my booth and things so I don't have to be in the night before and make sure I get up at the crack of [00:05:00] dawn.
You know, getting meetings in so my first day will be, and I'll get more into my agenda in a second, but I don't need to be there early because I'm just setting up my booth and getting ready for happy hours and dinners. And then I fly out after the show is over, sort of lunchtime ish on Thursday, I'll fly out kind of late afternoon, three, four o'clock, something like that, and be back in my place.
So that's, that's how I. If you're booking your flights from the West coast, that tends to be how I do it. And I know you're East Coast and people have different plans, so how do you do travel to and from Vegas?
Chris Moreno: Yeah, so the way I'm thinking about it is I am generally gonna go in. For me, 'cause I'm from East coast.
I'm going in on the night before. So Monday night I fly in and then I fly out either on Thursday, like the last day or even the day after. So a good example is sometimes I'll, you know, I have an event, I have to go to that Thursday. On the last day, so I have to fly out that afternoon. But [00:06:00] usually I will try to actually fly out the day after.
And one of the things I've found by doing that is the last day tends to be the quietest, but funny enough, there tends to actually be a bigger opportunity. But because it's so, so quiet and there's fewer, you know, if there were people there, you can actually get more meetings done. So people's days tend to fill up and the people who are still there actually do meet or can meet for a lunch or meet for dinner.
Matt Knight: So let's touch that after this next thing, because I think we need to touch prep first. Like how do you prep when you're, like right now, the week before blueprint, you're getting set up meetings, like how do you prep and how do you handle setting up meetings and thinking about your time allocation?
Chris Moreno: Yeah, so for me, I think one of the most important things is I'm thinking about. Who I wanna meet and why I wanna meet them. So I'm trying to be as specific as possible. So I just, you know, a couple people who I'm meeting I am meeting because we're talking about venture capital and speaking, and, and it's for another event. And we're actually partnering with you know, so we're, I'm there with [00:07:00] Retc and with Optech and we're looking at events.
We're also looking at technologies, right? And people who wanna discuss other companies or venture fundraising or companies looking into technologies. So I think being really specific with people about why you're meeting with them and then how much time you'll need. So if you're just meeting to catch up or to dive into their focus and seeing if what their focus is and if there's something that needs to have more follow up after, you might just take a 15 minute coffee, right?
Or a 15 minute meetup 20 minutes. If it's something that's deeper and there's a longer discussion, and maybe you've actually you know, discussed it ahead of time and you're like, okay, we need to talk a little bit deeper about this. Then I might actually have a 30 minute, 45 minute meeting set up, or like a breakfast or lunch or a dinner.
So I think. Between those different types of meals, happy hours work? Well, so people who I know and I've seen for a while, and I'm gonna spend a little more time, we're gonna go to some happy hours together. Right? And, and probably go to lunch. So I think there's certain [00:08:00] times that I block off Matt , around the meetings is I block off, like I'm gonna go meet someone at their section.
Right. So I'm gonna go to their session, then I'm gonna meet them afterwards for 20 minutes. So I've blocked it off on my calendar, whereas other people, I'm just meeting and we're finding times. But it can be, it could be a musical chairs thing where you're going back and forth trying to get time. So oftentimes even just, you know with some people I know throw on their calendars and then we'll say, Hey, well we could always move this.
And then knowing that. Stuff goes wrong. People will, you, you know, sometimes you, you don't find each other and that's always kind of annoying. But either their meeting went long. So I think just having the courtesy to tell someone, Hey, my meeting's going long, or, Hey, you know, even if you did completely miss it, because the app.
Some of these apps on these websites can be actually very difficult and people will try to book through them and maybe you didn't see it or it didn't sync, or you missed your meeting. I think the key thing is, is just making sure you follow it up afterwards, either party and just say, Hey, we totally missed each other.
Let's find a time to zoom. So it's never, you know, things change, things happen. I, I think I've already had like six [00:09:00] people who I had meetings with say, oh, you know, I'm no longer going to the event. Something came up or I, I had to change my flight. So those are some things I always think about.
Matt Knight: Totally agree, and I'd say I usually start with the speaker agenda.
I'll go through who's on the speaker agenda and I'll say, oh, Joe's coming. Phil's coming, Susie's coming. And I'll shoot him notes and say, Hey, love to catch up. And to your point some, I know I'll see you at a happy hour, some I know I'll run into and we'll just say hi and high five, or give a hug or whatever.
But there's others that it's like, oh my gosh, we've been meeting to catch up for a year. Let's make sure we meet. Right? And so I think the thing you said that I'll kind of underline is you sort of have to stratify the types of people you're meeting with. Like there's catching up with friends, which is quick and easy.
There's someone you haven't seen in a while you need to spend time with. Right? Then there's people that. You know, you need to meet, that you have to reach out to. And those three tiers are sort of how I go through the list. And so I start with speakers and then the last two weeks I've been going through all of the attendees, like alphabetically A through Z.
And oh I know [00:10:00] Joe runs innovation at big Company X, and he probably knows who I am and I know who he is. Let me reach out and see if we can connect, because all of these apps that, for all these events in particularly. Blueprint, which has grip, I think it'll have this matchmaking service where you can go in and say, request a, a meeting, or connect or, you know, show interest or whatever.
And so I sort of make sure I get through the important people I know first, and then I fill it in with like, I need to catch up or meet with second. And then it's everybody else, people that reach out to me, people that I don't know, cold emails you know, this just looks like an interesting person I've never seen before.
And I'll kind of fill it in first. So it's sort of like the must meets go first on my calendar. The, it'd be good to catch up and spend 10 minutes with you, our second, and then whatever's left is kind of, I don't know you, you don't know me. Let's say hello and see if we can do something together. Does that make sense?
Chris Moreno: A hundred percent. Yeah. I think that diving into the types of people, that's also a big mistake I think people make is they cold email or message a bunch of people saying, Hey, [00:11:00] here's my sales pitch. Let's find time. And it's not even relevant and they don't get responses or curious why they don't get responses.
Or it's just a wasteful meeting. So I always try to say, Hey, you know. Not, not, not a focus for me right now, but I appreciate it. And I appreciate people who do that too, say, Hey, you know, not, not a focus. I'm focused on this. So I always try to tell people why it's not a fit and then why it is. And then the focus on you know, the speaker's list is always great, but they do get hounded and inundated. And then you know, is it, is it someone who's an owner? Is it someone who's in technology? You know, what are your goals? And I always say like, Hey, you don't have to have 50 meetings. But like what is the number of meetings you do want to have and that are productive and meaningful and have a next step? And I think too many people go in without understanding the other side. So, but yeah, usually for some people I think it's a you know, having 10 meetings can be a, a very valuable conference.
Matt Knight: Two things you said there I think are important. One is know that the speakers and the owners get harassed. They get pinged by 900 [00:12:00] people. And so if you don't have a way to them, if you don't have a differentiated, interesting pitch, they're just not gonna respond. Right. And so there's I would almost say like.
Don't reach out to owners and the high level speakers through the app because you're not gonna get a response. Right. You have to have a warm intro if you're gonna get any their time, if they don't already know you. Right. And that's sort of what I meant with speakers that I already know. It's like, oh, hey Joe, I saw you're coming. You know, you didn't come last year. Let's catch up if you have a few minutes. Right. And the second thing I think, I think you said was how many meetings? And so, I mean, I'd be curious with you. I would say I average 30 meetings across Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. But to your point, they're not all the same qualities.
Some of 'em are meant to be, and this is on purpose, right? Some of 'em are speculative. I don't know this person, they don't know me. You know, this is how you make new relationships as you meet people that may or may not be a fit, right? And so I always leave some room for that. It's not just a boondoggle for me to catch up with my buddies over the craps tables, like it's meant to be meeting new people.
And so I always have [00:13:00] bandwidth for that. But I'm curious how many meetings you think you average at a show like Blueprint.
Chris Moreno: So probably have upwards and, and because I'm, I'm doing a combination of things, of meetings, you know, connecting with people, connecting the dots, and then also doing podcast interviews.
So I'll probably do about six to 10 podcast interviews while I'm there. And then number two, I'll probably have around 20 meetings and then about another 25 to 40 people meeting through groups, right? Like your happy hour. And several that are happy hours and meals that I'll be at. And those are oftentimes group settings.
So you're with five other people, eight other people, 15 other people. And a lot of times it's Jeffersonian style where someone's talking or sharing and you're like, oh, okay, what, what are you focused on right now? And then, so it's great 'cause you're actually in a group setting. But I'd I'd say, yeah, it's tricky because.
If I say 20 meetings and there's actually four people in that meeting that's really 20 times two, right? It might be 40 people. So a [00:14:00] lot of my meetings actually have multiple people on it, and so it's just great to be able to be more productive. It's more productive for everyone oftentimes when there's more people there and then you can all hear the same thing and you're not having to repeat it multiple times.
Yeah, I'd say upwards. I will be meeting with blueprint. Easily between 80 to 120 people that I'll catch up with. It's not a hundred, it's not a hundred meetings, but it's a hundred people through interactions at happy hour dinner, lunch, sessions, you know, standing with three to four people and talking through what they're working on.
Matt Knight: I think that's right. I think that's the right, 'cause you're right. How do you quantify someone that you see at the lunch line or like, oh, hey Jimmy, what are you working on? You know, like you're meeting someone. Right? So I think that number is fair.
Chris Moreno: Yeah.
Matt Knight: I guess the other tip I would give for, if we're moving into like how to handle the onsite stuff is I sort of push people off of the app into text message.
Because to your point, sessions run long. People get caught in meetings. Oh, this meeting area is not where I thought it was. Stuff just happens. It's easier to do that on the fly [00:15:00] via text than to like work into a messaging app and then out of the messaging app into the Connections app and see when your one-on-one time was like, I just find it much easier to use all text, say, Hey, shoot, text me. We'll figure out our meeting place and so I don't use the app during the show very much. I'm mostly on text messages because it's just so much more flexible with where people are. And I'm curious if you do the same thing.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, a hundred percent. I'm all about text and then to your point, it's all about the next step. And so I always find like you can meet with someone and then finding closure. So even if it's like, okay, we're meeting, but this is probably isn't a good fit or there isn't a good discussion, follow up from here. Can't make that, then you, you close it off and say, no problem. No next steps here either.
But generally there's gonna be a next step on probably 70 to 75% of the time of something. And that's either setting up a next meeting and setting up an introduction, setting up a connection, setting up help , whatever that is. And so that's the key. And for me, it's not having a long hour long meeting, it's having a good 10 to 15 minute [00:16:00] pow wow connect and then move because everyone's in a hurry.
Everyone's, you know, traveling and trying to get their next thing and, and ev anyone who's busy. So that's, that's what it's all about for me, is that next step and that action item. And yeah, I mean, it's been awesome. Like, to be able to be at these events I've seen, you know. Half a million and million dollar checks get written from meetings at Blueprint and Op Tech and other shows.
So I think very much about it's the right connections, the right time to the right people. And you'll be very surprised, you know, many people who don't know each other and never heard each other, and you're like, wow, this is a perfect connection. And I, I love that. I remember actually several years ago when I went to a blueprint mat, when I was at On Deck just after Clubhouse, I think it was 2021.
And I remember asam cole walking up to me at the bar and he was at Grave Star at the time. And I said, you know, I said, oh, you know, hey, what are you guys here focused on? And he said to me, I'm looking to meet one person. His name is Mr. PropTech, Chris Moreno. And that blew me away. And it was like, wow.
I just walked in the [00:17:00] event, met someone and that's what he was looking to meet. And we hit it off. And we've been friends ever since then. So I think about those kinds of interactions, putting yourself in the right position to, to have, if you could have five. Great memorable meetings where both parties are really excited.
I think that's the benefit of these in real life events.
Matt Knight: I think that's right. And I think before we get into the last bit on follow up is I would say there's a million happy hours and dinners and things that happen. And if you're newer to the industry or younger or whatever, and you don't have one of those, what I would tell you is that's not a big deal.
Grab a friend, grab someone you just met and invite 'em to dinner. Invite 'em to happy hour. Those things will happen over time, and they're not as special as you think. They're, they're fun, but like, there's a, there's a bunch of 'em, right? I have a happy hour and there's 40 others. Like, so there's nothing special about mine.
But I would tell you, like, to your point, like you can use the serendipity of like, oh my gosh, you do the same thing I do. Let's go grab a bite after this show ends. Right. I would encourage younger people or newer people to lean into that. Right. And you'll find the happy hours that [00:18:00] are worth going to and are relevant to you in the future.
And then I guess the last thing I would say to your point is always have a follow up. Like there's always some sort of follow up even if it's like, hey. This wasn't a fit or we're not a fit. I always shoot 'em a note and I don't do it the last day of the conference. I don't do it the day after the conference.
I give everybody time to recover and get not hungover and get back into their bed. So it's usually the Friday or the Monday after it's like, Hey, great to meet you. Doesn't sound like there's a fit, but best of luck. Find me if you need me, right? But there's always some sort of like, Hey, as the next step, let's do a Zoom, or, Hey, let's make sure we meet at the next event, or whatever it is.
I always make sure I have this two hour session blocked out where I'm just doing follow up. It's just follow up with people that I met or could meet, Hey, sorry I missed you. Let's find a time to connect. Or I'll see you in New York at the next thing or whatever. So I'm not sure if you're the same way, but I do it well past the 48 hours after the clo, the, the show closes just to give people time to recover, but also close enough where they know who I am. And [00:19:00] it's not like, who's this random person that I was supposed to meet six months ago at Blueprint? Like, there's that window of it's fresh, it's relevant, and I follow up with you.
And if there's something that happens, it happens that that's how I do it.
That happened where we had a partnership, a previous company where we were meeting and I said, timeline wise, what's this look like? And they said, we don't wanna get going. Let's set a meeting for Tuesday. Boom. And then there's other people, like you said, who are, you know, there isn't as formal of a relationship or partnership.
And yeah, you're following up a week, two weeks later. Yeah, so I, I agree and, you know, generally not six months out, but you know, again I always say if it's not a good fit, you're checking in, you know, connecting with someone every 90 days or so. On, on what they're up to. If they're onto something new, if they're looking for a role, I've found that oftentimes looking for jobs at these events.
If they're unhappy at their current firm or looking for something new or their firm is in trouble, and so they're looking for their next chapter. And that, that's something that surprised me is that probably 80% of people I know looking for jobs, 90% have a job today. Right. And you know, [00:20:00] so that's always surprised me at these events.
Well, hopefully this is a useful 18, 20 minutes for people that are newer to it or thinking about it, and appreciate you hopping on and sharing some wisdom with us.
Chris Moreno: Always, man, I can't wait to see you in person at Blueprint. It's gonna be a great year and and looking forward to it.
Matt Knight: Me too, man.
