Last week I had a chance to escape the snow drifts at home and head down to Austin, Texas to spend a couple days in the mid-60’s. This was my first trip to the capital of Texas to take in the growing culture and technology boom happening in the city. I was familiar with a couple of things before my trip; first the locals like to ‘Keep Austin Weird’ and they definitely aim to preserve that motto! Secondly it’s home to the University of Texas, a bitter football rival of my Alma Matter Oklahoma State. But the rumors of Austin being the new home of ‘America’s hottest tech community’ and thriving ecommerce companies was something I needed to see to believe.
Let me say this right off the bat, those rumors are FACTS. I met with some of the most innovative, creative, risk takers and successful minds in the world of Internet Marketing while in Austin.
Thursday night kicked off downtown in the Warehouse District at the Market Bar. The event I was invited to was David Gonzales ‘Internet Marketing Party.’ My goals were to share libations and ideas with some of Austin’s leading marketers. I loved hearing the short (but powerful) presentation from uber-smart Dan Faggella on email marketing, automation – segmenting his lists to achieve amazing conversions! (https://www.danfaggella.com/). Dan is a legit black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu and even threw down with a much larger opponent RIGHT AFTER the preso was done!
The Market, downtown Austin (calm before the storm)
If you’re ever in the area where one of these events is taking place I’d definitely recommend it! To check for an event in your area their schedule updates here: https://internetmarketingparty.com/home/
After the party wrapped up I made my way back to the parking garage and proceeded to make every ‘baller’ in the Austin metro area jealous as I rolled out in a Toyota Sienna minivan; Bluetooth audio a mix of GPS directions and a Miranda Lambert playlist. I was in Texas at night after all!
My van was no where this sweet
The next morning was another beautiful day in Texas. I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with (and after 12 years in Affiliate Marketing, this is no small praise) some of the absolute most savvy publishers in the world. The location was the highly praised (aka Yelp) Royal Indian restaurant. After driving through what I am pretty sure what the Austin equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle I landed in curry heaven. Inside I was greeted by my friend Joe Marshall of SurvivalLife.com/Hawk Media Group and their affiliate manager Matt. These guys are amazing, and brought me some swag from their warehouse. More important we talked for an hour about our JEBCommerce clients and their ever growing brand catalog working together more in 2015. With nearly 20 niche, SEO powerhouse sites they are a partner we love to meet with and work with! To be fair, the sweet Hoffman Richter knife they gave me was brand new and the blade one color. Joe makes no qualms about the quality of their product quality. So once back home I gave the new piece a thorough ‘test’ aka beating and it absolutely stood up to the promise! Always a nice touch when a partner of ours showcases their products and gives us the ability to tell others about how AWESOME they are.
Next I was off to visit some close friends and partners of ours at the Offers.com headquarters. You immediately know you’re in the right spot when you pull into the parking lot and see their logo in 8 foot letters right on the side of the 3 story building – impressive! Once inside I got the grand tour from our close buddy Sean McDevitt and his team. The office is everything you’d expect from a top notch technology company. Open spaces, standing desks, a virtual APPLE store with computers and tablets a plenty! Bean bag chairs filled the back space and an inviting break room around the corner for colleagues to enjoy a coffee, tea, fruit or about any other snack you can imagine.
Sean, back row, third from the left. He looked happier to see me that he is in this picture!
Two days isn’t nearly the time needed to see all of our partners in Austin. JEBCommerce has set out this year to spend more time building relationships and friendships with our publisher partners. It was a great first experience to the State capital and I’m blown away with how many Internet Marketing firms have set up shop in Austin. There’s no doubt we’ll be back again soon to meet with old friends and new partners in 2015. For everyone that said ‘howdy’ to me I appreciate it. To the publishers we didn’t have a chance to connect with – we’ll be back!
