Our Co-founder, Anna Arterberry, glowing – as always!
This time around, the goal was to do just three things…
- Spend less money.
- Set a goal and stick to it.
- After we’re done -head to the next event!
These tips may seem trite, but let’s look at this with a little more details…
Spend Less Money
For 2015, we decided to not purchase plane tickets, but to make this a road trip. From California to Texas is not that long of a drive, and since gas prices tend to go lower the further you drive out of California, it was MUCH cheaper than a flight to Austin.
We booked lodging the year before, knowing that costs would skyrocket as time grew closer to the event. Albeit – we stayed at three different places on the road – but it was STILL cheaper than a flight. For example, in Vegas, we stayed at the Downtown Grand Casino and Hotel – newly remodeled -and priced at $25 a night. The hotel was gorgeous, clean, and perfect!
Once at SXSW – we didn’t participate in the tradeshow – because that costs a lot! This time, we participated in a specific event – where our cost were dramatically cheaper than the tradeshow. We were only allowed two hours, but our agenda was to set a goal and stick to it – and the two hours was more than enough!
Set a goal and stick to it!
Since we only had 2 hours, we knew we wanted to do the following –
Anna with two time Olympic gold medalist, Edwin Moses!
- Hand out as many cards as possible and get as many people to sign up to Pledgerunner. We did! Check!
- Make business contacts near the showcase area we were located and we made some GREAT contacts! Done!
- Find a celebrity and take a picture, since we were in a specific showcase event, we knew we would see someone famous! Boo-Yah! Did that too!
Head to the Next Event!
Since this was a road trip, we had a few stops along the way to meet with a few charities, and introduce ourself to them. It wasn’t a SXSW event – but it was part of our overall goal to make this adventure count!
And we are still not done!
We have a few more events just around the corner, as we continue our marketing and promotional efforts!