Start Showing Up and Get Off Your Couch w/Kent Dodds

Alrighty, good morning everybody. When I say everybody, I mean nobody yet. No one's here yet, uh, but have a great— Ken Dots, pump! Hey dude, it's good to see you.

Hey, what's going on?

You know, just, uh, surviving the cold. I was, I was, I was asking Kent backstage, I said, man, like, it's, uh, it's, it's literally— I'm looking at my Apple Watch, it's 11 degrees. When I was— when I woke up this morning, it was 9 degrees. Um, so I'm braving the cold. Ken, have you guys got any snow with all the snow that's happened?

Uh, yeah, we actually— we got a little bit. Um, not as much as lots of y'all back east, but, um, yeah, we, we got, uh, some really, really great Utah snow. So, uh, really happy about that because Utah is, um, has this really beautiful powdery snow that, that's called the lake effect because, okay, Salt Lake does something to the snow that makes it—

Oh, is that really a thing?

Yeah, that's, that's a thing. And it's so good. Um, it's— I, I really wish that I'd been able to go up, but like everybody went up yesterday. Um, I think actually Ryan Florence went up on Thursday and just has a— is staying at a cabin or something. Uh, I think is what's going on. Um, and, uh, yeah, because he'll, he'll be up there today, I'm sure. Um, And probably having the time of his life.

That's amazing. So, so how— okay, realistically, you leave your house, how fast can you be snowboarding?

Uh, like, let's say I'm lying in bed, I look out the window, I'm like, I'm going snowboarding today. I could be going down the slopes in an hour.

Crazy. That's awesome. That's so cool. Can't do that here at all. Um, uh, it's, it's great to see Ace, my guy, here this morning. It's great to see you, Taya. It's good to see you, Ricardo, Jason. Yeah, Jason is getting some snow. He says he and I were texting this morning. But yeah, that's awesome, man. All right. So lots to talk about today. And the title kind of says, start showing up and get off your couch. And Clark, you were mentioned backstage with obviously Clark's son setting that conference. And I think With, with having a guy like Kent who understands community and, and who's doing the damn thing and building it from scratch, I think, I think it's important today to really kind of talk about getting off your couch. Um, I think this market sucks. I don't think it is. I caught up with Jim Young last week on Netflix, from Netflix. You know, he was like, he goes, Taylor, I don't really want to talk about the market because it's awful. So, and, but, and I think at the end of the day it comes back to relationships. So, Ken, Again, not that many people need an introduction, but if you want to quickly introduce yourself to the people tuning in and we'll dive in.

Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't know who I am. So, I need an introduction. But yeah, my name is Kent C. Dodds. I live in Utah, as we were talking about. I have a wife and 5 children. And I teach people how to build quality web experiences with Epic Web, Epic React, testing JavaScript. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's a ton of fun. I'm also running a conference and going through all of that. Uh, we'll probably talk about a little bit, um, not just a conference but also a camp I run, uh, in September. Um, so yeah, lots— I have lots of opinions about the job market and what you can do to differentiate yourself and all that stuff. I love it.

Well, let's dive in. So let's start, you know, I think it was Angie Jones posted A bit ago on Blue Sky. And she was like, she was like, why don't people show up to meetups anymore? And basically it— and, and I was reading through the comments. I said, because they're boring as hell now. Um, and I saw one comment that says, because you have to compete with Netflix. And I thought that was a fascinating comment. And so I really kind of want to start this conversation off super high level, man. What are your thoughts on the state of just everything around community or around, you know, building together, um, in person?

Yeah, I think that comment is, is spot on. And conferences have to compete with vacations. That's something Dax Rad said recently as well. This is interesting. This has been like on, um, the— like on a lot of people's minds recently, especially after Clark posted, um, his, uh, post about that conference. A lot of people have been weighing in on on what's going on with events and things. Yeah, like I think the COVID lockdown kind of accelerated a lot of things that were already in progress, and like working from home and all, like just tons and tons of things. You know, people retiring, stuff like that. And one of those things was a realignment of. what these events really are good for.

Yeah.

And a lot of companies would just throw money at the events because that's kind of what you do. And I actually talked with somebody recently who said, if he was working at a company that you all know, and he said, if we didn't throw, or if you saw a company that wasn't putting money into an event, you'd like go to him and say like, what's going on? Are you okay? Like, is, you know, so it just was like a, not really a status symbol, but like a signal that things are going well just to sponsor the event, which is of course not really what sponsoring the event is supposed to be about, but that's what it kind of became. And that's why one of the reasons, I'm sure there's many, but one of the reasons why conferences and meetups and stuff were so well funded is partially for that. And so COVID lockdown, everybody is at home, we're not sponsoring events anymore, and we kind of Um, realize, oh yeah, maybe we don't need to do that from the sponsor perspective. Uh, and then also like it is expensive to send people, uh, to, uh, to conferences and stuff. And so they're just, um, now the, the burden of proof used to be on like, why not? And now the burden of proof is the why. Um, why should it be that way?

That's interesting.

Yeah. And so you have to really kind of sell it. Um, And I can answer that question of why you should be doing that. But I think that's a lot of the reason why. And on top of that, people kind of grow out of meetups, especially for myself. And I know for others, once you start having a family, you're not just competing against Netflix now, you're competing against bedtime with the kids and putting all of that on your partner. And that sort of thing, too. And so, that's the primary reason I don't— if I don't go to the meetup, that's probably the reason.

Okay.

Because I'm hanging out with the kids and helping put them to bed. So, I am going to a meetup this week.

Nice.

Or let's see. No, it's the second week of February. So, if you're in Utah, come to the Remix meetup. I'll be there speaking. But I think There's just a lot. And so like the people who were going to meetups kind of grew into other responsibilities and the people who would take those people's place didn't get into the habit of going to the meetups and seeing the value there. But there's a lot of value there. And I just really— it's exhausting, but I really want to pull people back into in-person events because I think it's really important.

Yeah, and I absolutely think so too. I mean, I truly believe I would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for in-person events, and I truly believe that. What are some conversations you're having right now? Obviously Epic Web Dev, you know, you're throwing the conference in March. If we wanna talk about that, we can talk about that. Low-key, high-key, I'm one of the MCs, surprise. So if you wanna hear some really bad jokes, come hang out. It's gonna be great. But so, Kent, I mean, Obviously, talk about what you're building, talk about what you built. You've been tweeting some really good stuff. And I feel like a fanboy 'cause I keep retweeting your stuff and giving my thoughts. But the way you're kind of viewing conferences is very new and very— sponsoring a speaker, I think that was brilliant. You almost view these people as football players or soccer players, kind of in that way. I love that idea. So I'm rambling here. Talk about Epic Web Dev, talk about the conference. And really talk about really some thoughts around how you're building this and trying to build this differently.

Yeah, well, I'm glad you like the idea of sponsoring a speaker. That was just an idea I thought of on Friday because just a couple days ago, because the sponsors are, it's just really hard to have them come through. So yeah, I think I'm gonna implement that and we'll get people, get the speaker travel sponsored. 'Cause the thing is right now, if I don't get more sponsors, I'm gonna be, in the red by tens of thousands of dollars. And so, it's— yeah. It's a struggle. And that would stink a lot. And Clark, I know, knows all about that.

So, yeah.

The— I've just been thinking a lot about this for a while. I started organizing conferences back in '21, I think. So, I did Remix Conf year 1, 2. And then Epic Web Conf year 1. And now this is year 2 of Epic Web Conf. And then I ran Epic Web Camp last year, which is a little different. It's not really a conference. And then I also started the Remix Conf or Remix meetup here in Utah as well. So, I've— and actually, years and years ago, I was a co-organizer for the Google Developer Group here in Salt Lake City as well.

Yeah.

So, events are like just kind of in my blood. And like I said, things are kind of changing. So, I'm trying to figure out how do we adjust things? And I don't know if you know Henri Helvetica. Henri. He's got some really interesting ideas around the directions that we can go with these events. And to summarize, kind of, I hope he doesn't— I don't think he minds telling me this because he's been talking to a lot of people about this. But he's kind of looking at what Tailwind Connect is doing with their kind of a— it's a meetup conference. Um, and what, like, if we take a step back and say, what's the purpose of these events? Um, education is not the purpose at all. Um, because that's something that you can easily get from just watching a video online, right? So that's not the reason. What is the reason? Well, like, it's partially the reason because it gives educators or even like industry professionals a reason to educate, right?

Yeah.

So there, there's part of the reason, but if you can satisfy that through other means, then what's like the primary reason? The one thing that you can do with an event that you can't do any other way, and that is to get people to meet each other in person. That's the purpose of these events. And do you need a like 2-day conference, like fully stacked thing to make that happen? No, you don't need that. And on top of that, like, getting people to meet each other from across the world is really, is really great. That's awesome. But it's actually more impactful to get people to meet each other in the local community. That, that will be more impactful for sure. Like, I got a job because of a conference at PayPal and they're in California, so they're not my local area. So like, there is some value there. But really most people are gonna get most value by meeting people in their local area. And so what you can do is you can have the draw of a conference, but like the kind of cost structure, I suppose, of a meetup. And what's the cost structure of a meetup? It's not a lot, but you can like dial it up just a little bit to make it more than just a meetup. So one person in the comments mentioned like the meetup content, like the content actually has to be really good. And like you mentioned, it has to compete with Netflix. And so maybe you fly a speaker or 2 in, uh, and, and you like, just by making the event bigger in a sense, like a bigger deal, that will help the speakers like step up to the plate and say, oh, okay, I've gotta like really put some effort into this talk.

Sure.

So you get, you get this really good speakers that are gonna draw people to the event. Um, you, uh, potentially add a fee to attend. You do a lot of marketing around it. And you do like actually good food and badges and that sort of thing. So it's the conference meetup, but it doesn't have to be a 2-day thing with hotels and flights and everything. It can literally, you could even fly a speaker in and fly them home day of. They don't even have to stay in a hotel if they don't want to do that. And with that, oh, and you don't just do it in somebody's office. You do it in a theater or something like that. So that it's like not a movie theater. Well, maybe a movie theater. But like—

Look at you, Star Trek.

Yeah, yeah. But you do it in a place that's separate, that makes it feel more special. And so, this is like a mix of conference meetup sort of thing that's similar to what Tailwind Connect has been doing. And I think that this is a really interesting approach I'd like to try because it accomplishes the goal of getting people together, especially locals. Some people will fly in if you have like a good enough event. Like most people are going to be locals. You could probably get 100 people and that would be a success for that. You could possibly get 300. I think Tailwind Connect did something like that. And yeah, and then like to sponsor that, these venues are not— they don't cost a lot, especially if you're saying, hey, I'm going to take a night that you're not busy anyway and we'll bring a bunch of people into your venue. And so, yeah, then you need like what, like 2 sponsors at $2,000 each or something? Like to take care of the flights for a speaker or something? It's a lot, lot easier.

Yeah.

And again, it still accomplishes the primary purpose of these events, which is to bring people together. So, yeah, I mean, this is all still very experimental. I didn't go to Tailwind Connect, so I can't speak to that. But it sounds really, really good. So that's— I'm not doing that for Epic Web Conf. If I could, maybe I would try to do that, but I've already selected all the speakers. It's gonna be a fabulous event. You should all come. That would help a lot.

Thank you, Norm. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Let me ask you this, Kent. When it comes to conversations that you're having, 'cause I am curious, what conversations are you having with companies right now, sponsorships? 'Cause I think it's interesting. I've said it for a long time, and Clark, Clark said it right here. Education is not, was never a fact, just starts the conversation that should be much deeper. How do you sell? Because I've thought about this and I've tweeted this myself. I haven't retweeted you. I've tweeted this myself that I feel like there is just this appetite for individuals to want to get to a deeper level, to want to share, to even have a soft skills conference. I mean, I want to give a shout out to Black Men in Tech. Everything's a panel. Everything is like non-tech, like non-technical code related. It's like how to raise a round, how do you be a better leader, how do you do— so it's very good. But it's like, I had a lot of people tweet at me. They're like, well, you can't sell a company to network, just to hang. So like, what conversations are you having? How are you positioning Epic Web Dev? And again, this isn't just an Epic Web Dev commercial. This is more of just like Kent's doing it. So I want to share it, like build in public essentially, like what conversations he's having behind closed doors.

Yeah, sure. Um, I, I think at some point it'd probably be good for us to talk about why people should care about events as well, like what the value is there. But, um, for these, um, like the, the types of things going on, when I was at PayPal, I, um, I was just ramping up, like the, the last year or two I just started in the industry and I was just ramping up on conferences. And so I submitted to like every conference I could think of. Not like just shotgun approach, but like very focused. I had a whole bunch of CFPs and I would just send the appropriate CFPs to the conferences. And I got accepted to way more than I expected. Uh, it was still like a low percentage, but I just submitted to so many. And, um, and so I, I was like, sweet, this is going to be epic. And I went for a year, I went to like, uh, over a dozen conferences or more. And like partway through the year, my manager brought me in and was like, hey, well, I was remote, so he didn't bring me in anywhere. But, but he said, hey, do you know that you're out of the office 1 day in 5? Because of the conferences and stuff. And I said, yeah, but we have like unlimited PTO and stuff like, and I get my work done. And he was like, yeah, but you could probably get more work done. You're kind of leaving your team hanging. And I was really confused about this. And then he said, and we're not hiring right now. So it's not really doing anything for us. Like PayPal was under a hiring freeze. And so I was like, oh, I get it. Okay. So they don't want to just like, let me do the thing that I want to do like this. This is still a business. And they do still care about me being a productive developer on the team and stuff. Which totally makes sense that they're totally— I don't think that they were wrong at all. But that like contextualizes a lot of things for me that a conference or like companies don't want to just send you to network unless they're hiring. And maybe they are hiring and they're not putting 2 and 2 together that like you're not just going to network to build your professional network so you can move away from their company. Maybe like change the narrative a bit and say, hey, I'm gonna find us some like really good partners, or I'm gonna find us some potential engineers to come and solve these problems. Like, point to specific problems and say, hey, this is the problem that we've been having. I'm gonna go to this conference. We're gonna find somebody who can help us with that. Like consulting or even hiring. I think that, that, and then like go and do the work. Like go to the event and build that network. And like a nice side effect is now you have the network for the other side of things if you wanna leave your company. So anyway, that's just like one thought that I've had is you've got to help the company see how it benefits them. They're not just gonna send it to you because they used to do this because it was a nice perk. Uh, and now the market is such that they don't really need to give that perk anymore. Uh, like, they— the perk is that you have a job and you have a salary, right? And, and insurance and stuff. So, yeah. Um, so now you have to, like, convince them that it's gonna be a beneficial thing for them. Uh, as far as, like, conversations I'm having with sponsors, They, many of them have realized that like, well, take a step back. Booths are as valuable as you make them. I've seen some sponsors who do a great job with booths and they like, they'll have giveaways or something and everybody comes around their booth. And now the thing is like all the sponsors, they just want to stand up in front of the entire event and have 5 minutes to tell them about their thing. And here's how you do that. You do a really cool giveaway, say at this time during the break, we're gonna do this thing. And now you've got rapt attention of probably half of the event. So that's how you do that. But they all want to be on stage and whatever. It's low effort, low energy, whatever. So anyway, I also see lots of sponsors who run a booth and their employee is literally just sitting at the computer waiting for somebody to come talk to them. And that, yeah, if that's what you're running, then yeah, a booth is a total waste of money.

Yeah.

And so a lot of sponsors are like, yeah, we don't think a booth is worth the effort, 'cause it's not just money, it's also employing and getting people there. And so yeah, they're just saying that's not a good enough draw for us anymore. And I'm saying like, well, you're probably doing it wrong, but I understand that you don't wanna put the effort into doing it right. And so in fact, even some sponsors are just like, I don't want a booth. Like, I'll— I have one sponsor who's like, yeah, I'll be your top sponsor, but we're not going to do a booth. We're just— we'll— we just want to be the top sponsor. Like, okay, yeah, thank you. That is awesome. Um, I can give that sponsor booth space to somebody who hopefully will use it well. Um, but yeah, we need to be more creative. It's, it's more than just, um, booths now. Um, there's got to be Other ways to get these people connected. And really, what's the value to the attendees? Like, the sponsor is probably selling something that could help lots of them out. And so you have to authentically connect those individuals who are gonna be helped. It used to be that a lot of sponsors were sponsoring 'cause they're recruiting. That's not so much the case anymore. And so like, yeah. And so lots of sponsors want to have decision makers come to the event.

Right.

There are some conferences that draw those kinds of people. Epic Web Conf draws a couple of those people. But most of Epic Web Conf attendees are my audience, which are the regular, like, individual contributor people. I do get managers for sure and that sort of thing. But— and tech leads and whatnot. But, yeah. So it has been kind of difficult to help sponsors see the vision of, Like, this is really great for recruiting. Yeah, even though these aren't the decision makers, they are in the ear of the decision makers. They're like, hey, I, I saw this thing at this place, now we don't have to build it ourselves, we want to use that, or whatever. Um, anyway, that's a bunch of conversations I've been having recently.

No, I love it, I love it. And, and I, I have, I have some, I have some thoughts. I have a lot of thoughts, but I have some thoughts because this isn't my show.

I talk for a long time without interruption, so—

No, no, no, no, you're good, you're Uh, Luke, any advice on selling the idea of going to a conference and working in a startup? I think there's a—

Yeah, I mean, startups, depending on what your goals are, if, if your startup is looking for growth, then, um, yeah, that's pretty easy. I'm gonna go and recruit. Um, like, have you tried recruiting recently? I have not, but I have talked to people who have, and they're like, yeah, I listed a job offering and I had 10,000 applications, and over half of them are AI-generated. Uh, how about you go to a conference instead? You meet some real people and you have like real conversations. You basically do the interview with a couple hundred people that are there at the conference. That to me is a really, really great way to sell your attendance to a conference. If you're not trying to grow, then like you're probably trying to sell something. If, if, uh, what you're selling is to developers, then that's also good. Wear your t-shirt and go and talk to people about it. If you're not selling to developers, you're not hiring from developers, then, yeah, I actually— like, the last thing is just the education piece. And you can get education online. Like, I've got courses or you can, you know, trudge through the free stuff.

Right.

I actually— I can't think of a really, really solid reason to— for the company to send you to a conference if you're not hiring and you're not selling to developers. Other than, like, making you happy. Because these connections to like humans is where our happiness comes from.

So, God, that's so good. I think, um, and then Roselle, it's good to see you, girl. Thanks for, thanks for stopping by. Um, so we gotta see, I'm kind of going through the questions real quick. So we got anything? I find great value in folks I meet in the community and I build, uh, during and most importantly after conference. 100%. Um, yeah, when that conference is gonna be smaller, much more intimate. Yeah, again, I mean, I think there is a, I, I do think there is a focus of people wanting, um, I mean, even we're evaluating Torque right now. How do we get, you know, people more on a one-to-one level. Um, I know we talked about it in my Dads in Tech group that I have too. Um, let's see here. You can connect to, uh, yeah, it says you can connect to a presenter, be introduced to their public paid work, then you can take that and learn after the conference. And just in terms of what you get out of a conference, I mean, I think for me, and this is a conversation I've been having with Brianna at Torque, is that like, like, I think When it— the problem is, I think Dax— did Dax post this or somebody posted this about why companies keep hiring CMOs or heads of marketing who like don't understand the industry? And like, and like, that's— I literally, I had a conversation with some friends. I've only worked at 2 places, so you can— so, but like, like both places I've worked have never had leadership in marketing who understand the industry. And so I think that's a fundamental problem, right? In my perspective, I think, do you run— and this is a conversation we're having actively at Torque right now. Do we run an ad for $5,000 or do we go invest $5,000 for top of the funnel brand awareness at a conference? And in my perspective, it's a conference every single time because I know the dev community is gonna buy from us being in the community than just us running an ad. I think that's like the first fundamental issue right now in tech.

Yeah, I think that connecting with people is— the thing is, you don't have to connect with a lot of people. You just have to connect with the right people, right? You connect with— and actually, I think this is part of why Theo is doing so well, aside from the fact that he just makes really great videos and has a really good audience and everything. But, uh, um, people like potential sponsors will say, well, we need to connect with an influencer because they're going to influence their following to come and use our, our thing. I, I get emails about this all the time. For the record, I, uh, I have yet to do any sponsored stuff outside of either a podcast or a conference. Uh, everything, all my educational content is not sponsored. I've had— I've actually had companies who said, hey, we want to sponsor you to do a video, and I'll say no, and then I'll do the video anyway because I like their stuff. So anyway, just want to put that out there, that not to say that Theo is bad for doing sponsored content, that's totally not what I'm saying. But anyway, the reason I think that companies want to do that is because they want to shortcut their way to the right people, which they see as these influencers who can pump up their brand and everything basically for like just a couple thousand bucks. And now they don't have to send anybody to a conference. They don't even have to do the work. They just have to like get buy-in from these influencers. And like, I don't know, man, it just doesn't feel super authentic to me. And so I much prefer Like, take the engineers, not like DevRel are cool and all, but take the engineers who are working on your product, send them to a conference with a t-shirt that says, talk to me about whatever, and then have them talk to people about that thing. That's actually kind of what Fly is doing. That's the company that doesn't want a booth. They're just like, yeah, we'll just send people there. We'll make sure that they know who we are. And then people who want to talk about Fly can come talk about Fly with us. And yeah, I like that approach.

Yeah. And I agree with Ken said earlier too. I think companies, and so like if you are a marketing leader at a company, I think like reach out to Ken, reach out to me. And again, I have lots of thoughts and Brianna and I are talking about a lot at Torp, but like prime example, we did one giveaway and we're gonna do more giveaways at our next conference. We went down to Mexico. 'Cause one of our focuses with Torque is Latin American engineers. And we got like, we bought AirPod Pros, right? And we did a raffle. There was like 500-person conference. We got like, I think between the raffle and just our networking, we got 300 people signed up in our ecosystem. So we got over half the signups. Then I went with Brianna and then we set up an email drip campaign. To make sure we said, thank you for showing up. Thank you for networking us. Here's gonna be our next opportunity. Join our Discord. We actually literally hired a community builder in Mexico, obviously speaks Spanish. She's throwing events in Spanish, getting connected with her. So it's this whole top of the funnel down to the bottom of the funnel conversion that nobody understands for some reason in the tech community. And I think going to conferences in my perspective is equivalent of you running an ad that won't convert. Listen, I won't say what company. I worked at 2 companies. One company, we spent $40,000 a month on ads and got zero leads.

That's insane. Yeah, that's crazy.

Can you imagine going to enough conferences for $40,000 and then seeing your ROI from leads?

Yeah, for real. Well, and but again, it depends on how well they use the conference too, right? Like if they're just going to the conference, they have the booth and then their engineers are just Or, or not even their engineers, they're just sending marketing people who don't understand the industry are just like sitting there on their laptops. They probably still get more than zero, but like, but still, like, you have got to just put in a little effort, like just a little bit.

It doesn't have to be much.

Just like, just like, don't be on your laptop and, and talk to people about stuff.

Yeah.

I, I think that, and, and that is on the business too. It's not just the people that they're sending, but like, don't send them emails when they're at an event because they're busy, or they should be. Um, so yeah, I, I think you're totally right. Um, at like running an ad, I've never really done that. Um, I, I had like some, uh, some ads that ran on Code Sandbox because he was like, hey, I'm gonna throw an ad up there for you just because I'm gonna be nice to you. Like, go. Thanks. Yeah, that's nice. But like, I haven't actually paid for any ads that I can remember ever doing. And really, it's like, comes down to connecting with individuals who are going to be your customers, understanding them. And there's no better way to do that than to be like physically in person with them.

You literally gotta break bread. Building community and doing it the right way is hard. But it's worth it. It's worth it. Talk about too, because I know we're wrapping up here soon. Talk about, again, I know we touched on it, but I know you brought up your PayPal journey. Is there any other specifics that instances about where you've attended something and you've got ROI out of it just for people who are still even just considering the 2025 landscape and seeing that they should even push, just fire them up right now on why they should get off the couch.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. I talked about earlier how, like with that question about whether a startup should send employees, and I said like, I don't really know a reason for your company to send you, but I can think of a million reasons for you to go yourself and even pay out of pocket if you have to, for you to be there at the event. And like, if we're talking just soulless and like selfish, then yeah, your professional network is like number one. It is so, so much easier for people to hire you if they know that you're a real person. And like your resume just floats up to the top when somebody knows you at the company. And if you are just going clocking in at work every day and then clocking out. And that's all that you do in the community. And then maybe you post a dank meme on socials occasionally or something like that's just not going to do it when that company experiences layoffs. And like now you're on the other side of a cliff having to figure out how to get to the other side. And you forgot to build the bridge before you got there. And so what networking does, even when things are good, actually you want to network especially when things are good. Because people know, like, oh, this is like a genuine thing. He's just— he doesn't need anything from me right now, or she. And so, yeah, you build the bridge before you need to cross the chasm. And that is like, even just selfishly, that is a really, really good reason to go to events like meetups and conferences. And honestly, if you don't have a really good event in your area, you can make it. Like, that that's a thing you could just do. And, um, I— like I said, I've done that multiple times myself. Now, like, I come with a whole bag of privilege and all that stuff too, but, um, I think I've seen some pretty remarkable, um, examples of people who have a lot of stuff that they got to deal with and they still manage to run these events. So I, I recommend it. If you don't feel like you've got a good enough event, go run a really great event. Uh, other reasons though, like beyond just the soulless, I'm doing this for my network is like, how about being happy and, and having like a true relationship? Your Netflix show is never going to show you the kind of love that like a big hug from a friend at a meetup is going to show you.

Like that on a shirt right there. I love that.

Yeah, it just like— there, there's an epidemic of loneliness. Uh, there are studies about that right now. Like this, uh, this generation, as, as we're growing up We are more lonely and feel more alone than any other generation before us. And I— you can attribute that to a lot of things, but I can give you a really great solution: don't be alone. And like, it can be hard sometimes. You can be in a crowd of people and still feel alone. And there's chronic loneliness and all of that stuff too. But I don't think that the number of people who are feeling lonely Uh, equals the number of people who are chronically lonely. Like, I, I think that it's— it comes down— for most of us, it comes down to our decisions to just be alone, and we got to stop that. You got to get off the couch and get in person, meet people. And when you're at that event, then nobody's talking to you, look around and there are a bunch of people who are also not talking to anybody. Go talk to those people. And like, they're waiting for you. It's your turn. Get up and go talk to them.

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I said this, so here's my— so I— we are not about to go down the AI train and hot take here, but I think Clark makes a good point. The landscape of development is changing. In 5 years, we'll be doing it differently. Um, I tweeted this. I talked to my brother about this yesterday. My brother's a product manager at SeatGeek, and, you know, he— you know, everyone's worried about AI. I— my, my post was, I think soft skills is going to be at the premium in this next wave of everything because you can get an LLM to do whatever you want to, but like at the end of the day, you still got— you have to talk to people from a business perspective. So I think like the soft skills is huge, and I think going to conferences— I always talk about networking like working out or snowboarding. Like the first time you do it is not going to be easy, and but the more you do it, it gets easier. But then if you take time off, like, it's not gonna be like, literally, I'm going to Amsterdam to speak at DevWorld, surprise, uh, at the end of February. Like, that's my first conference in a bit. Like, I'm gonna be kind of like wonky because it's gonna, it's gonna be like ice skating, like hockey for the first time in weeks, right? So again, like, I think getting out there is incredibly important. And also too, man, it's just, it's just how you feel. It's like you said, and there's a reason why we have this unofficial saying at Torque is welcome home. Because at the end of the day, your career's scary, life's scary, life can be scary, and you're not, you're not meant to walk through life alone. And so being, having that community is, is, is essential.

Yeah, it really is critical.

Yeah.

And it's like, you, you can bring more happiness to the lives of others and to yourself by, uh, having a relationship with them. And that's, you, you do that by being with them in person. Yep.

And also too, I wanna, I wanna say this to wrap up. I spoke, like, when I went to All Things Open, I met a handful of people in Raleigh that like paid for their own ticket because they knew they needed to get where the people are. Like, they, they, they knew that them being in a group and sea of people allows them to be closer to the opportunity that they want to be at. And I think like if, if you have that, like you can do a conference for cheap. Like I'm sure Kent probably needs volunteers. Get volunteers. Yeah, I'm— go, go fly Spirit, mate. I mean like, you know, drive, go get an Airbnb for 2 nights. I will tell you one thing, if I, I will say this, the people who pay for their conferences are much more dialed, engaged than the people who get their company pay for their conference. That's just the way it is. I think, in my opinion, I think if you can get to a Kent conference or any conference and you pay for it for yourself, you will realize how important and it really opened up your eyes to really show you like just how much you need to be there.

Yeah. Yep. 100%. I, I really do think that, uh, even paying out of pocket, it's really valuable. And I don't know that, um, that you'd be able to go to a ton of conferences that way. Um, I, I actually do know people who pay out of pocket to go to a lot of conferences a year and I don't know how they manage that, but the reason I I started speaking at conferences was so that I could go to a lot because I knew how valuable they were for my career. And, uh, like, the relationships that you have with people online are improved immeasurably by meeting them in person just once. And, uh, I just— I think that, um, I don't know, I like— it's almost spiritual. There's, there's a connection that you build by meeting that person in person. And even if you don't jive with them before, meeting them in person isn't necessarily gonna make you jive with them after, but it's gonna make that relationship better anyway. Like, it just will.

100%. Totally agree. Well, Kent, where can people sign up to— so now all y'all fired up. I'm fired up. You should be fired up. Where can people go sign up for Epic Web Dev?

You go to epicweb.dev/conf. And that is— yeah, you can see the speakers, the sponsors we have so far. And there's a buy ticket thing on there too. And then look forward to September. I'm actually wearing the Epic Web Camp shirt from last year. If you go to epicweb.dev/camp, then that will take you to the site for last year. Um, but that is— that, that's a totally different event. We could talk about that for a long time, but, um, it is phenomenal. You should definitely check that one out too. Um, it— Dax said your conference has to compete with people's vacations. That one absolutely does. Like, you, you, uh, you will be very happy, uh, to forego a vacation in favor of that because it is gonna be just a phenomenal experience. So anyway, um, Yeah, I look forward to seeing you all at Epic Web Conf in March.

Yeah, and listen, I know I'm emceeing, but I would say this even if I was not emceeing. The caliber of speakers that Kent is bringing in and the intimate setting of it, I think, in my opinion, huge bang for your buck. Huge, huge bang. And again, like I said, I would legitimately be saying that whether I was emceeing or not.

So it's just— yeah, and actually, the, the buck is not as Uh, as much as lots of other events. Um, it's $350. Uh, that's the full price ticket. Oh, so that's nothing. Yeah, it's, it's not like you look at some of these European conferences charging €900 or something. It's like, holy smoke, how are they doing that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you, I spend about $350 a month on cold brew. So like, literally, like, just, it's like, just, just forego cold brew for a month and just show up to Ken's conference.

Yeah, yeah. And Roselle just said Bree is emceeing. Uh, she's— yes, you and Bree are gonna have a great time on stage.

Yeah, I'm pumped. I'm pumped. I met Bri for the first time at Commit Your Code, so it's funny. It's all full circle.

Yeah, yeah, man.

All right, y'all. Well, again, thank you again. Kent, stay on backstage so I can say bye to you. But again, appreciate you all so, so much for tuning in this morning. Hopefully you enjoyed this. Share this if you want your employer to like low-key get this. Like, just share it. Just be like, hey, great conversation today about conferences, would love to go. Anyway, just share it. We'll see what happens. Uh, tomorrow, very excited bringing Taz on from guild.host, the meetup.com alternative. Um, we are using Guild tremendously at Torque, so we're going to talk to him again, another power of community talk. So be on 9:30 AM Central tomorrow, it's gonna be a good one. Kenzie Dodds, love you, big dog, appreciate you. Y'all have a great night.

Thank you, guys. See ya.

See y'all tomorrow.