Wow, it’s been a hot minute. I am in my favorite writing room, the middle seat of a Southwest flight back from Las Vegas to Columbus after a productive, but tiring trip to Shoptalk. It’s the biggest and best conference for retail and e-commerce, and I joined my partner Chase for a couple days of chatting with amazing brands and tech partners of Electric Eye.
Following the ecom herds into the Mandalay Bay Convetion Center
From the travel to nonstop conversations and meetings, work conferences can be exhausting. I can't neatly classify myself as an introvert or extrovert, probably something like a hybrid where I get some energy from great discussions, but struggle with interacting with complete strangers. I try to push myself to spark some conversations, maybe by commenting on someone’s hat or simply asking what people do for work. It can be out of my comfort zone but it leads to some a few great brief interactions, a couple career long friends, and in some rare magical moments, new business.
Me at The Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas for the Rebuy Event
For the second year in a row, Electric Eye hosted a dinner alongside Shopify Plus, Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Social Snowball at Golden Steer Steakhouse, a former client and Las Vegas instituation where Sinatra used to hang out. We had 50 attendees from growing ecommerce brands. Our guests and sponsors were beyond thrilled with the turnout, food, and overall vibes, with many saying it was the best event at the week. Kudos to Chase for quarterbacking such a spectacular night. Can’t wait to run it back next year and make it even bigger! The only downside was we ran a little long and missed the Lil John show :(
Our Dinner was popping at Golden Steer Steakhouse!
While it’s important to get out these types of event to form stronger partnerships and meet potential new clients, it’s just as important to come back with new ideas and inspiration. I’m not the type to get jealous of the latest app or agency blowing up, I’m just inspired to do better within my own endeavors and things I can control. We’ve got some exciting ideas that really only form from traveling outside of the bubble and taking a break from the day to day work. Now it’s time to follow through and make it all come to life.
At Shoptalk I think it was Paul Gottlich that asked me what my favorite project was recently, and without a doubt it was working with Sheec, a sock brand out of New Jersey that were just the kindest people that truly understood investing in branding, design and development to improve their business. Even better, we got to collab with Korey at Feel, Lynn “Da Bulldog” Oh, Walker Crane, and Thor at Parkfield Commerce. Everyone chipped in and while the website is not yet complete, I know it will rock. Work just works better when you collaborate with like minded people, I will share more when it’s fully live.
Mockups from the Sheec Rebranding & Website Design Project
Next up on the schedule will likely be Shopify Editions in Toronto in late May. If you are attending, please let me know so we can plan a time to link up. Before that, we are finally moving to our new home after a few delays and I can’t wait to get in there and enjoy some Spring days out back in the ravine. Once we unpack and get things organized, we’ll try to do a housewarming party and would love to host you.
I’ve still been nudging our pal Jason Roehrig to create his own newsletter, but until then I will share some of his incredible links that he has been sending to us consistently since my days at Homage.
