I'm Going to Host An Event for Creators

Read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives Saturday Edition where I share insights from the brightest minds in business and life and how I'm applying them to my life.

What is your definition of success?

For most of my life, success was landing a high paying job, getting married, having kids, buying a nice house, and going on lots of vacations. While I’d love to have those things, I’ve realized those things don’t determine whether or not I’m successful.

Success to me is the ability to live my life by my design.

Part of that design is having conversations with interesting people. Every week, I aim to have at least 2-3 curiosity conversations. Phone calls with cool people from my membership communities, coffee chats with entrepreneurs in Austin, or FaceTime calls with friends.

Back in February, I was having one of these conversations with my friend Brian. Brian and I met last May at an event hosted by one of my entrepreneurship groups called Gobundance. He committed to going all in to improve his health. While most people are all talk, Brian hired a personal trainer, changed his diet, and changed the trajectory of his life. He’s also been a supporter of my entrepreneurial journey and an early newsletter subscriber!

When we spoke in February, I had just gotten back from 2 months of traveling abroad and had no idea what business I was going to pursue. At the time, I was interested in starting a travel adventure company. I talked about how I enjoy bringing people together and creating memorable experiences. At the end of our call, Brian said “What’s your email, I want to send you something”.

An hour later I received this note and a link to download the book, “The 2-Hour Cocktail Party” by Nick Gray.

This book cost him maybe $10 and he didn’t know if I would actually read it. But the gesture meant so much to me. It made me reflect on how many times I recommended a book to someone when if I really wanted to make an impact on that person, I could just spend 10 bucks and send it to them.

In the weeks that followed, I went a different direction for my business and the book sat in my kindle library. But last month, I got inspired to host a meet up in Austin for Creators who are building big businesses. There are so many creators in this city but after asking around, there was no organized community to get them together.

Hosting an event with strangers is definitely not my thing. But as Noah Kagan taught me, being a hub is a powerful thing. Bringing people together can lead to incredible opportunities and relationships. I wanted to learn the best way to host an event and I immediately thought about Brian and the book he sent me.

I finished the book last week and am preparing to host my first event in the next few months. Here are a few things I learned from Nick’s book:

1. Why host a party?

   1. You get to meet awesome people

   2. It will boost your reputation

   3. It will strengthen your relationships

2. Host your event on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday (nights most people don’t have plans)

3. Have a clear end time (he recommends 2 hours). Don’t let the party linger.

4. Start small and aim for 15 people at your first party

5. Create an online RSVP page that sets expectations for what to expect at the party (who will be there, type of activities, food/drink)

6. Get a core group of 5 people to commit to a date and time before sending invites to other people you don’t know as well

7. Send short, personalized messages to invite people

8. It’s ok to send reminders 1 week out, 3 days before, and the morning of

9. Include “Guest Bios” in your reminder. These make it more inviting for people who don’t know anyone attending. Keep them fun and short

10. The first 20 minutes of every event are awkward. That’s ok you’ll get through it

11. Name tags are a must. Creates a more welcoming environment

12. Do 2 rounds of ice breakers for people to introduce themselves.

    • Ice breaker #1: easy first question

      • Name

      • What are you working on that excites you most right now?

      • What do you eat for breakfast?

    • Ice breaker #2: make this question more challenging to get interesting answers. Some examples include:

      • What is a great piece of media you have consumed recently and why did you enjoy it?

      • What is the best product or service you bought in the last year

      • If you could teach a class on one topic you are passionate about, what would it be?

Final Thoughts

These tips from Nick all seem pretty straight forward.

But hosting an event for mostly strangers is intimidating. What if nobody shows up? What if people don’t get along? What if only 4 people show up? These are all possibilities but I believe following Nick’s playbook will give me the best odds at putting together a great event.

The name tags and ice breakers do sound cheesy but I can see the value there if done correctly. As long as people know in advance that they are coming to a party / event to meet new people and should expect these ice breakers then it’s not as intimidating or strange. The questions are simple, but you can learn a lot about someone by their answers.

Someone who eats pancakes with maple syrup vs someone who eats a protein shake probably has different values around health.

Someone whose favorite piece of media was the Hawk Tuah video on Tik Tok has very different interests than someone who mentions a real estate investing Podcast.

I would be pretty comfortable going up to the real estate investing podcast listener, looking at their nametag and starting a conversation. Compare that to walking into a typical networking event or party where I don’t know anyone… Everyone is in small circles, and I have to awkwardly start eavesdropping for a way to contribute to the conversation.

I’m excited yet nervous to run this as another one of my life experiments. We’ll see how it goes!

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew