This past week, something happened that we’ve been anticipating for years. We finally were able to put on an in-person edition of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.
This was the first time we’ve been able to put on our flagship conference since Fall 2019. Since that time, COVID, of course, struck and we had to go virtual with INDUSTRY ever since. While it’s been fun to learn an entirely new way to put on INDUSTRY – and we’ll continue to run virtual conferences and even have one planned on October 18th – it felt really good to gather hundreds of product people from nearly every US state with us this week for INDUSTRY.
But I’ll be honest – it took nearly every ounce of energy we had to put INDUSTRY on.
In the weeks leading up, we were thrown more curveballs than ever. Our celebrity keynote backed out less than a month beforehand along with several other speakers. Some attendees had to cancel travel and could no longer make it. At one point, it felt like things had the potential to unravel.
But our team knew that letting things unravel wouldn’t be an option. We had to finish… and finish strong.
We quickly recruited new speakers – including SNL’s Mikey Day (who hung out with INDUSTRY attendees all night, even at the INDUSTRY party!). We came up with contingency plan after contingency plan. And ultimately… we did the thing. INDUSTRY 2022 ended up being one of our best conferences yet.
My takeaway from this entire week is this: No matter how much you’re struggling with any sort of product launch – and how hard things feel… you’ll never regret putting every ounce of energy into finishing strong. You’ll only feel as proud of yourself and your team as I do right now.
