Building Monetery has been a wonderful experience in building community. The conference experience is influenced by various other conferences around the world. It’s quite small and it’s meant to be a bit niche. I’d even go as far to say it’s a boutique conference… It has its own style and approach.
The conference also has a thesis, which is something I’m really proud of. The thesis comes through in a way that’s hard to describe. I was looking back through some photos this weekend and this stuck out to me. The pictures don’t look like any other conference I’ve ever been to.
This photo is from Harper’s presentation.
The brand/narrative has started to evolve for the conference. Meanz & Jami really started to develop something more meaningful with the photography.
Monetery is something special for our community and I’m excited to do it again next year. In the first year we focused on around 100 people. In the second, we grew it to 250 and in the third, I’m not entirely sure what will happen yet…
It’s clear that Des Moines and the no-coast community can support a 500/1000 person startup conference and we’re hopeful we can help feed into that even if Monetery becomes one of the smaller gatherings.
In some ways Monetery works against the common wisdom of conferences. We’re pro impact as opposed to pro growth of the conference. We aren’t adding cities, but we will add experiences. We want the experience to be more inclusive of the people who deeply care about the core thesis and engaging with one another.
An against the grain approach isn’t always popular and is going to press us to consider what a continued focus on what the best experience possible looks like as opposed to constant expansion. We’re looking for a new leader for events at Dwolla, which means a new leader for Monetery. If this focus-driven approach excites you… We’d love to hear from you.
We’re not trying to do the same thing… We’re trying to do a higher impact thing. If we do make money, we’ll reinvest it back into the community.