Inside the Creator Conference Everyone Talks About (Craft + Commerce 2026 Vlog)

Every creator that I know who's built a successful business has a few friendships that have changed everything for them. For me, it all came from events, and actually a bunch of those people who I've known for years are now speaking this year at Craft Commerce. Craft Commerce is Kit's annual conference where we bring together hundreds of creators to meet and learn from each other and also to share the latest of what Kit's up to. We're doing it right here in Boise, Idaho at Treefort Music Hall. We're gonna record some podcast episodes. There's actually a really interesting moment that it in my episode with Pat Flynn that I'll tell you more about a little later. Up next, we've got a mastermind that we're walking over to now, and then later today we've got the opening party, and it's going to be great. All right, so we're here at the opening party for Craft and Commerce. It is so exciting that we've got hundreds of creators here in the room. Some of them have come from as far as Zambia and Chiang Mai, Thailand. It's wild that would make the trip all the way here. The thing that The thing that makes me most excited is that there's all of these people who are connecting with other creators probably for the first time, and it might just be a relationship that could change their life or their business.

Last year was my first Craft Commerce, and I had no idea what I was in for in the best way. I can tell you from being here twice now, it has paid off dividends in ways that I never expected.

There's no higher ROI for your business than just being in person, in proximity, particularly to other people who are maybe a step behind you, your peers, people you feel are a few steps ahead of you because you really get to craft into their momentum.

Most of the partnerships I've had through the decades have come through meeting in person at conferences. I found that things accelerate so much more. You can get to know people at so much of a more depth.

All right, so this is the end of day 1. The mastermind, that was probably the highlight of the day. James Clear is so good. Someone asked him about how intentional he is with designing his life, and he just said that he drew a box of his life and the way he wants to do it. He will do the best opportunity for growth within that container and he won't go outside of it. So for him, that means he's not doing YouTube because he wants to be known for his ideas, not for his face. And so it's fun to see him live that out and still have a huge impact. Earlier I mentioned Pat Flynn. I was talking to Pat and asked if he remembered this moment where Thomas Frank actually reached out to him a bunch of times asking to be on the podcast. And it wasn't until they met in person at a conference that Pat on his own was like, Thomas, you're amazing. I'd love to have you on the show. Did you know that he was pitching and angling to be on your show for years, like over email and all this before you guys actually met in person?

No, I love Thomas. That's crazy. I didn't know that.

He's the best.

And I invited him on just kind of because I wanted him on the show.

When you're in person, you can cut through the noise that otherwise happens online. And so I love seeing that play out in real life.

The big lesson is go to events like meet people in person, collaborate. That's where those opportunities happen.

Tomorrow's a big day. My keynote's happening. We're announcing a lot of big things. It's probably time to wrap up and get some sleep. If I'm being honest with you, I'm not going to do that. That'd be the responsible thing to do. Instead of what I'm going to do is I'm going to drop in on as many dinners and creator meetups as I can, and then maybe I'll get some sleep. Also, a random thing. I have a Taylor Swift friendship bracelet that says "In my kit era," and that's what Creator gave to me. Well, good morning. I said last night that I was going to stop by some dinners and do things with creators, and we were just having a great time. And then we watched the final of the Knicks game, which was wild.

It's over!

Knicks fans, this is not a dream! Shiv and Hailey just kicked it off with a ridiculous Bad Bunny opening number.

Who's going to be Bad Bunny?

Oh, that's actually a great idea. Somebody from the Kit team will be Bad Bunny. Hayley, we—

you—

I thought you were going to be Bad Bunny.

This is awkward. But yeah, in about a half hour, doing the biggest product announcement that we've ever done at Kit. So I'm really excited and a little bit nervous.

So please welcome to the stage my friend, our CEO, Nathan Barry. Good morning, everybody.

I've always felt that that something was missing when you just view your list and your subscribers as a number. Because behind every email address is a person. So what if we could identify those high-value subscribers early on and we could know who someone actually is? So we're building a new product that we're adding to the kit, and it's called Subscriber Signals. That identifies your best subscribers from the beginning. You can go ahead and search any of their bios or any other information. So I can find the top authors, podcasters, or CEOs. And then you can immediately reach out. You decide what matters, and Kit's gonna watch for it and let you know about it when it happens. What were the things that stood out to you most from the keynote this morning?

Just the ability to be able to find people within a large swath of audience that I would want to personalize a message to that I couldn't have done without actually manually walking through and looking at some of those email addresses.

It feels like a family reunion to me now. There are a lot of people in in my life who don't know exactly what it is that I do. And it's really nice to get together with old friends and also meet new people. And we don't have to explain that to each other.

In 2023, I met Nathan Barry for the first time. The funny thing was I went up and shook his hand and asked him to be a guest on my podcast, and he told me no. And I totally understood that. And so when I came back the next year, reintroduced myself, built that relationship a little bit more, and I ultimately ended up pitching Nathan to be on his show. That episode has been the most successful episode of my entire professional career. Within the first 90 days, we had generated over $140,000 in revenue directly from that episode. That exponential growth in my business is completely correlated to the relationships that I've created. And that's exactly what, you know, Kit and Craft Commerce have provided for me.

Please welcome one of my dearest friends, the creator-ish of this conference, Barrett Brooks.

I have met more genuine people than I have ever met at an event. The entire culture of the event is collaboration, experience, education, and I have now left with a pipeline of potential business, but of also people that are going to help me be successful as a person in and outside of business.

¡Gracias!

I just interviewed one of my closest friends on stage in front of like 450 of my favorite people. And that was really special. It was actually like a full circle moment to talk to James on stage.

How was the keynote?

Ooh, the keynote was good. The brand team did such a good job on designing the slides. The marketing team wrote some really amazing copy. I have talked to 5 people today who said they're migrating to Kit because of what we released today. Subscriber signals. We've rebuilt landing pages. You can build landing pages now through the MCP and with AI. We opened Kit Studios New York, launched a book, laddersofwealth.com, preorder today. Busy day. We're going to do a speaker's dinner right now. And now we take naps.

Please, now.

I am so used to being the one who speaks life into other people. Very rarely am I the one being spoken life into. And so for that to be my first impression really spoke volumes and set the tone for the rest of the experience. Like, I had so many interactions after that that really quite literally changed my life.

Well, the speakers' dinner was great. We do a fun thing where we invite not only this year's speakers, but everyone who's spoken at Crafty Powers in the past.. And so it's sort of once a speaker, always a speaker, and it's just so much fun. This event has turned into like basically a family reunion where so many people come again and again. It's been a day. It's a very, very successful day, but it's been a long one. It's probably time to wrap up and get some sleep.

In 2023, I knew one person here. This year in 2026, I hosted a meetup last night that had 20 of my own clients and they're here for this conference.. And the vast majority of that was created by having the courage as an introvert to show up in person, to be in proximity to really cool people doing amazing work.

Well, good morning. It is day 3 of Craft for Commerce, and I did not get enough sleep last night. Just out with creators a little too late. We had this moment last night at the speaker's dinner where a bunch of us who had founded our original mastermind group together and had been together for like 8 years were all there. And it was such a reminder to me that events like this are where that happens, where those relationships are formed. And so I'm watching everyone else who's here make the relationships that they can have to start their own. My hope is that in 5 years, those relationships turn into businesses on the scale of what we've all been able to build.

If this feels like a risk coming to Boise, coming to Craft and Commerce, you probably wouldn't be interested in taking the risk part of you wasn't already convinced it was the right risk to take.

My name is Folake Oluokun. I am an emergency medicine physician. Also, I am a coach. I promise you, the connections you'll make, the impact people's speeches will bring to your life, it's worth more than you paid for. It's not just the speakers, it's The people, it's my highlight of the year.

All right, so we just finished up recording a podcast episode with Mike Pacchione. I stopped by a happy hour, that was fun. Josiah and Hillary came down, so I got to hang out with them for a moment. Now we're gonna go to the closing party.

This being my first year, I didn't have a good context of what to expect. I'd been to events and this just feels different. It's been so great having real conversations with people that I actually want to go to dinner with, not checking a box or getting a business card. It's been a really good experience, and I'm genuinely looking forward to come back more for the people than anything else.

Alright, so that is officially the end of the closing party. The conference was a huge success. We had a lot of fun, a ton of great connections, Jun creators.

In general, it's so fun to be able to get to see people and read their body language, look them in the eye and be intentional versus just being another DM.

It is so different being in person.

You are one person away from things changing.

It's craft and commerce. Your craft is your heart. Your commerce is your head.

Can't wait to do it again next year. If you want to grab tickets, go do that. kit.com/conference. We would love to see you in person so you can connect with all these great creators.