Last week was my first time going to South by Southwest. I went and paid for a badge to go to the Interactive session of the event. The interactive session is mainly comprised of business and tech related speeches, meet-ups and sessions. It was a bit overwhelming as there were at times over 20 different events to choose from at the same time. So here are the highlights of what I did:
- Met Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos at a dinner party.
- Went to a pitching session where startups got to pitch their new business to investors for 5 minutes. Not quite like Shark Tank, but like a mini-Shark Tank where no investors made offers.
- Went to a travel bloggers meetup
- Heard Elon Musk speak about Space X and Tesla
- Heard Peter Thiel speak about how maybe luck is not created, but is really just luck
- Met a bunch of new people at many other events.
I think the highlight of the week was when I met Tim Ferriss and was able to tell him how I started my e-commerce store based upon his first book the 4 hour work week and how it has grown into a full fledged business.
I think the best thing about going to SXSW Interactive is that you meet people who are very similar to you. Almost everyone I met was a business owner. Many were founders of small start-ups trying to get traction and many had huge businesses already. Actually, coming home I sort of felt lazy because it seemed like everyone there was working on so much stuff compared to me.
