credTen: Top Ten Conferences in Female Entrepreneurship 2018

Here at cred, we pride ourselves on working with passionate and accomplished speakers. In particular, we work with a number of inspiring female founders who are blazing trails and creating lasting impact within their industries. From advertising to artificial intelligence and machine learning, women are disrupting, innovating and paving the way for female leadership.

In this edition of our credTen series, we’re featuring the top 10 events worth checking out for female entrepreneurs.

BlogHer Creators Summit
August 8 - 9 | New York
#BlogHer18 Creators Summit will gather 2,000 attendees to celebrate women telling their stories to inspire and educate communities across the globe. Focused on the blogging and social media industries, the conference will feature talks from Jessica Alba, Gabrielle Union, Uzo Aduba, and more.
Tickets: $350*

Grace Hopper Celebration
September 26 - 28 | Houston
Named in honor of Grace Hopper, an American computer scientist and pioneer in computer programming (she invented one of the first compiler related tools), the Grace Hopper Celebration is an annual gathering of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.
Tickets: $1,150*

Yellow Conference
August 23 - 24, 2018 | Los Angeles
Hosted in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, Yellow Conference is a gathering of 500 women who desire to fight for a better tomorrow; the ones who are willing to roll up their sleeves, step out in courage, and use their creativity for good. This year’s theme is “Our Ownership” and will explore what it means to own our stories, dreams, visions, passions, and abilities we have.
Tickets: $377*

Create & Cultivate
August 25, 2018 | Chicago
A one-day conference with a focus to entertain, enlighten, and inform women around key topics surrounding #sidehustle life, the ever-changing digital landscape, entrepreneurship, and the real talk that comes with being a modern working woman.
Tickets: $350*

Brit + Co #CreateGood
August 24 - September 24, 2018 | Los Angeles
October 17 - 21, 2018 | New York City
Brit + Co’s #CreateGood experience is a digital, social, and experiential conversation leaning into these needs and empowering women to be their best selves. Hosted in both LA and NYC, the event will feature talks by world-class speakers, creativity workshops, live performances, and more.
Tickets: $35*

Startup Grind Global Conference
February 12 - 13, 2019 | San Jose
With 5,000 founders and investors, more than 40 keynote and fireside sessions, and over 50 exhibiting startups, this is Startup Grind's largest event. Over two days of programing, the entrepreneurs in the audience will hear stories, tactics, and lessons learned from founders from companies like LinkedIn, Slack, and Tesla.
Tickets: $255*

Watermark Conference for Women
February 22, 2019 | San Jose
The mission of the Watermark Conference for Women is to promote, communicate, and amplify the influence of women in the workplace and beyond. The organization was founded 25 years ago and this will be their 5th year hosting the conference, with past events featuring motivational talks and educational programming from the likes of Amal Clooney, Hillary Clinton, and Diane von Furstenburg.
Tickets: $225*

Stand Up Lift Up - PBWC Annual Conference
April TBD | San Francisco
At last year’s event, PBWC convened 6,000 attendees for a sold-out and content-rich day of powerful conversations about equality, diversity and change. Keynotes included Rosie Rios, former Treasurer of the United States, Maria Shriver, author & activist, and Jane Fonda, award-winning actress.
Tickets: $TDB
 

Forbes Women’s Summit
June TBD | New York
Featuring keynote conversations, panel discussions, one-on-one interviews and speaker spotlights, the Forbes Women’s Summit brings together the voices and insights of a diverse range of female luminaries from the worlds of business, entertainment and politics.
Tickets: Invite  Only- Request to Attend!

Inc. Women’s Summit
TBD | New York
Surround yourself with savvy female business leaders with diverse backgrounds, passions, and pursuits for a day of dynamic exchanges and innovative business ideas. Speakers will share their stories—and lessons learned along the way—about defying the odds and reinventing business their own way.
Tickets: $TBD

*Standard/general registration rates at time of publication.

Want to speak at these events? Get in touch to learn more about our speaker management services: speak@credpr.com.

Inspiration On-The-Go

Here at cred, we work with a list of clients who have turned inklings of ideas and moments of inspiration into influential businesses. While collaborating with these founders and funders, one of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away is that inspiration can be found in the most everyday experiences, and you can inject creativity into even the most routine projects. 

What’s one everyday experience most of us share? The commute to work. Whether you’re on a train, catching a bus, walking to work, or sitting in traffic on the highway, you’re probably wearing headphones, scrolling through the news on your phone, or reading a book. For me, this is a time for catching up on news or listening to music, but I find that the entertainment I use to drown out BART noise often shows itself in my work. 

Below are a few of the things I’m enjoying on my way into work, then incorporating into my work day: 

What I’m Listening To (Podcast Edition):  ZigZag

While listening to a recent episode of 99pi, I heard a preview of a new show called ZigZag— ”mini-stories about entrepreneurship, deciding how to align your values with your ambitions, and building strong partnerships”—and immediately subscribed. At cred, we work with many clients on both sides of these partnerships, both founders and investors; and while we know their stories—the successes, the challenges, the roadblocks—it’s a completely different experience to listen live as the hosts, Manoush and Jen, allow listeners to sit in on a meeting with a potential investor, or be a fly on the wall during their conversation weighing the pros and cons of building a business with venture funding. I’ll be tuning in over the next few weeks, to follow their progress and get an up-close and personal look into the life of an entrepreneur.

What I’m Listening to (Playlist Edition): Hit Parade’s “Feat. Don’t Fail Me Now” Playlist

Can you tell that the backup vocals in Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” are Mick Jagger? Or that the high pitched voice in David Bowie’s “Fame” is John Lennon? You wouldn’t know from the way the songs are credited. A recent episode of Hit Parade explored how the music industry went decades without crediting featured artists, and they made this playlist of songs featuring uncredited artists—a lot of them music industry royalty. How has this fit into my work day? In the cred office, almost every project we work on is a group effort, and listening to this playlist has been a low-key reminder to collaborate whenever possible, ask for ideas, always give a shout out to people who helped push a project toward the finish line. (Bonus: This playlist functions as a great lineup of classic hits, for when you need to throw on your headphones and focus).

What I’m Watching: Explained

If you’re someone who prefers to watch a quick episode of TV on your train ride, Explained may be the show for you. After many, many coworkers recommended this show, I had to check it out (at home, not in transit), and it’s the episode on cryptocurrency that really stuck with me. We work with leaders at the forefront of the blockchain space—a huge sphere of innovation to learn the basics on—and this quick lesson was the perfect primer on currency exchanges. If you’re more inclined to written word than ledgers, the episode on the exclamation point is another great choice.

Do you have a favorite podcast, book, movie, or song that’s inspiring your work? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

The Power of Why

What is it that separates our favorite companies (looking at you Southwest Airlines) and leaders (hello Sheryl Sandberg) from the rest? Simon Sinek believes the answer lies in cultivating a strong sense of “Why.” These leaders, companies, and products have a clearly defined purpose.

Simon, an unshakable optimist, leadership guru, and visionary founder—is the author behind the best-selling book Start with Why and the influential TED talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” Guided by his principles of inspiration and mission-driven living, cred spent the last month exploring our own Why. Here’s what we learned!

1. Start with a Map: Seeking the Why behind personal and professional actions is an extremely daunting task. To alleviate confusion, Simon introduces a clear framework for organization called the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is a schematic that helps visualize the What, How, and Why behind a person or product. Here’s the breakdown:

• WHAT: These are products or services.

  • If we take cred for example, the WHAT is securing speaking opportunities for clients.

• HOW: These illustrate the action behind a company or individual’s What.

  • For cred, our Hows are writing pitches, contacting event organizers, and building positive industry relationships.

• WHY: The core purpose, cause, or belief!

  • cred’s Why is to connect speakers to engaged audiences so that they build thought leadership and create environments that inspire.

2. Craft your Purpose Statement: Once you’ve defined the What, How, and Why, it’s time to reflect on its relevance in your own life. This can take shape in many ways, but we found it helpful to create sentences with a handy template: To___ so that ___.

The first blank represents contribution—the thing you or your company does to bring about results—and the second blank represents the impact of that contribution. Plug in the blanks and - Voila! - you’ve got a purpose. While it’s never as easy as that, finding purpose is possible and an extremely rewarding journey!

3. Share: Success goes where energy flows! Once you’ve built a purpose statement, share it in the comments below. We’d love to celebrate your mission!

RampUp on the Road: A Tale of Four Cities

4 cities, 5 days, 35 speakers, and 350+ brand marketers.

The fun doesn’t stop in March for RampUp. This Spring, we traveled across the US with RampUp on the Road, spreading the word of people-based marketing in four beautiful cities: Charlotte, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

RampUp on the Road provides the opportunity to bring the most stellar content and speakers from the March event (you can catch up 2018’s recap here) to regional audiences in a smaller, more intimate setting. And in the spirit of customized targeting, each roadshow’s agenda and sessions are catered to the most relevant local industries and fields from FinServ and Insurance in Charlotte to Entertainment and Auto in Los Angeles.

Common topics covered at all roadshows centered around the importance of data (1st, 2nd and 3rd party), the blending worlds of TV and digital, and the creation, implementation, and measurement of a people-based strategy. We love hearing real accounts of lessons learned and success stories straight from the brand marketers facing these challenges everyday and helping to create an environment where they can all connect on the future of the industry.

Popular sessions focused on customer-centricity and targeted marketing. Standing-room-only presentations in every city featured engaging speakers- including Newcombe Clark, Global Director of Rapid Learning at AIG in Charlotte, Erin Gulden, AVP, Director of Content Marketing at US Bank in Minneapolis, and Andrew Christe, SET Data Manager at Southeast Toyota Distributors in LA. The roadshow in Seattle brought a lively discussion among Amy Ball, Advertising Senior Program Manager at REI, Tesäen Chavis, DMP Owner at Uber, and Kyle Roemer, Practice Leader of Analytics at Slalom Consulting in Seattle.

We also made sure to incorporate some bonus adventures including test-rides in porsches in LA and catching a hometown Mariners victory at Safeco Field in Seattle.

And the US tour continues… Fall is just around the corner. We’re looking forward to hitting four more cities: Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and New York, see you soon at RampUp on the Road!

Interested in participating in one of these upcoming events or planning something like it? Let’s connect at events@credpr.com.

Hustle Con-nections: A Day of Hustling, Skee Balling, & Networking

Brought to you by cred...connecting thought leaders through speaking & creating environments that inspire.

“What does it mean to hustle?”
We all know & love The Hustle as the daily email with the latest updates on tech, business, and deals deals deals. Yet, very few are aware that Hustle Con, the annual conference, is what started it all back in 2014 to answer the question: what does it mean to hustle?

Hustle & Flow (through the Paramount Theatre)
Last Friday, 2,000 hustling entrepreneurs—non-technical and technical enthusiasts alike—gathered in Oakland’s historic Paramount Theatre to see speakers from companies like BARK, Instacart, Ellevest, MVMT, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK discuss how they got started, how they grew, and what they learned along the way. Mixing old with new, interactive booths from Microsoft, WeWork, Premier Talent, and Salesforce stood throughout the 1930s art-deco halls of the theatre.

Attendees were greeted with breakfast, coffee served by Algorithm Coffee Co., and lively music blaring in the background, packing the theatre with exciting energy. Opening remarks were made by Sam Parr, CEO & Founder of The Hustle, asking everyone to “be kind to each other,” and Lindsey “always rockin’ that amazing orange blazer” Quinn, The Hustle’s Managing Editor.

“How much does it cost to buy an entire Trader Joe’s?” $22,000.
Max Mullen, Co-Founder of Instacart and cred client, shared his hustle story during a fireside chat interview with Sam Parr—like that time he bought every item in Trader Joe’s to create the very first grocery store inventory for the Instacart app. Free samples and coffee never sounded more desirable.  

This isn’t the first Hustle event where a cred speaker has brought their insight to the stage. Other cred speakers including Edith Yeung (500 Startups), Anneka Gupta, (LiveRamp), Tara-Nicholle Nelson (SoulTour), and Sree Menon (Tophatter), have spoken at The Hustle’s 2X programs earlier this year in San Francisco. Tara-Nicholle Nelson is a top 50 finalist for The Hustle’s Woman of the Year.

friday shower thoughts from the stage:

“If you’re passionate about what you do, you’ll push through and be tenacious. If you’re not passionate, you’ll give up.”
-Max Mullen, Co-Founder, Instacart

“I couldn’t get to that next stepping stone without having that experience of failure and falling flat on my face.”
-Brian Scudamore, Founder, 1-800-GOT-JUNK

“Entrepreneurs typically do a terrible job of taking care of their own financial futures...Remember to invest in your future too.”
-Lisa Stone, Chief Strategy Officer, Ellevest

We didn’t only eat donuts...
The cred team also volunteered this year at the event, continuing our “fangirl”—yet mostly professional—relationship with The Hustle Team. We helped with guiding attendees, displaying food, and bringing leftovers to St. Vincent de Paul, a shelter a few blocks from the theater. On top of seeing our clients on stage, we had a great time being a part of the event and helping our friends at The Hustle.

See you at the next Hustle event!

-Abrisham “overthinking this signature” Khosravyani

credTen: Top 10 Conferences in Blockchain 2018

In the past year, blockchain has been called both a “tech breakthrough” and “the most over-hyped technology” of our generation. With tangible use cases across financial services, healthcare and supply chain, however, blockchain is more than just a buzzword; blockchain is changing the foundation of our global economic system.

In this edition of our credTen series, we lay down 10 events in blockchain worth checking out.

Crypto Valley Conference
June 20-22 | Zug
A global hub for blockchain and distributed ledger technology projects, Switzerland––specifically, Zug––is also home to the celebrated Crypto Valley Blockchain Conference. The event sees 600 attendees over three days of content, bringing together scholars, researchers, executives and government officials to discuss real-life applications of blockchain technology.
Tickets: $1,300*

Blockchain Connect
June 26-27 | San Jose
Bridging blockchain hotbeds of Asia and Silicon Valley, Blockchain Connect features international speakers and attendees, a demo and pitch stage, a hackathon and a career fair. “Catch the Next Crypto Unicorn” is the event’s tagline. Partners include Draper Dragon, Huobi Pro and ConsenSys.
Tickets: $799

Distributed
July 19-20 | San Francisco
The Distributed event series gathers global technologists, digital disruptors and industry leaders to explore how blockchain technology will shape the future. Distributed is the flagship event and includes an enterprise track on the foundations of distributed business, as well as a technical track covering tokenization and protocols.
Tickets: $649

BlockShow Americas
August 20-21 | Las Vegas
Powered by leading cryptocurrency publisher CoinTelegraph, BlockShow showcases the industry’s most groundbreaking solutions and brings together businesses with blockchain. On the heels of a thrilling Europe event, BlockShow is coming to the US this summer and hosts an Asia edition as well.
Tickets: $988

Keynote’s World Blockchain Forum
September 3-5 | London
Keynote produces the longest-running financial conference for the bitcoin, blockchain and currency industries. In its fifth year, World Blockchain Forum hosts editions in London, Dubai and New York, and draws an intimate audience of 350 senior executives, investors and government officials.
Tickets: $750

Token Fest
September 13-14 | Boston
Focusing on the business and technology of blockchain, Token Fest covers topics like the state of the token-based economy, applied cryptography, smart contracts and scalable DApps. With 4,000 attendees and 200 speakers, the Boston edition is slated to be 2x bigger than its inaugural event in San Francisco.
Tickets: $999

Deconomy
2019 dates TBA | Seoul
Deconomy gathers global thought leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, and academy and policy groups to discuss the future of distributed economy. In 2018, Vitalik Buterin and David Chaum graced the stage, and spoke on topics like peer-to-peer cash systems and building and scaling Ethereum.
Tickets: TBA

UNCHAIN
2019 dates TBA | Hamburg
A two-day conference featuring international cryptocurrency and blockchain experts and entrepreneurs, UNCHAIN 2018 gathered an intimate audience in Hamburg for quality content. Speakers debated the impact of cryptocurrencies and socio-economic frameworks for blockchain and beyond.
Tickets: €600

Token Summit
2019 dates TBA | New York
Token Summit explores the token-based economy in depth. The 3rd summit in 2018 discussed token regulation, security tokens, and best practices for protocols and crypto-assets.
Tickets: $649

Consensus
2019 dates TBA | New York
Held during New York Blockchain Week in 2018, CoinDesk’s annual blockchain conference drew more than 4,000 enthusiasts from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and overseas. Despite a hefty ticket price and lambos displayed outside the venue, Consensus is where the crypto world goes to be seen.
Tickets: $2,000

Bonus: Hosted by Brian Fabian Crain, Sebastien Couture and Meher Roy, Epicenter publishes weekly interviews with leading minds in blockchain. Laura Shin’s Unchained Podcast is another source of influential talks with industry pioneers.

*Standard/general registration rates at time of publication.

Want to speak at these events? Get in touch to learn more about our services: speak@credpr.com.

Youth Marketing Strategy SFO: Catching Up with The Future of Marketing

Following the success of events in London, Berlin, and New York, Voxburner brought their Youth Marketing Strategy summit to San Francisco for the first time on June 12 at Fort Mason’s Gallery 308. YMS offers insights that reflect the latest trends and hottest topics in the youth marketing industry. We attended to see our speakers from Tophatter and Greenbrier and hear what’s driving the behaviors of GenZ and how brands and agencies can do a better job of meeting the youth market where they are. Here’s what we learned.

CEOs, VPs and Founders shared their thoughts on current marketing opportunities and challenges and why young people are so important to their organizations:

• “These issues that are polarizing to older demographics are not to younger ones. Be a human, that’s what these young consumers want. Staying silent is not a long term strategy.” - Meredith Ferguson, DoSomething Strategic

• “We know that most young consumers, don’t read the New York Times or watch Bloomberg Tech. Surprisingly, most younger consumers get their news from local news websites. We need to figure out how to meet them where they are vs. trying to get a story in a top tier.” - Lane Kasselman, Greenbrier

• “We have to think very carefully about what we do. I encourage our company to act as a media/publishing company and think about planning every 3 hours vs. every 3 months.” - Livio Bisterzo, HIPPEAS

25-year-old Steve Bartlett of Social Chain helped us understand How to Avoid Becoming Completely Irrelevant in 2018 and the power of working with micro-influencers:

• “Most people are creating things from the perspective that people care. The only thing people really care about is what I can do for them . . . you are not a marketer, you are a publisher.”

• Personalization is the way to turn everyone into an influencer (ex. people sharing photos of their names spelled wrong on Starbuck cups)

• Where is the opportunity? Podcasting, free reach on LinkedIn because they haven’t figured out their algorithm yet, music.ly, Twitch, and Facebook Groups.

During The Kids That Are Changing the World panel,  the audience had a chance to ask ambitious youth what they want from their brand relationships. Authenticity, relatability and transparency were key:

• “GenZ grew up on social and smartphones and can detect BS much faster than other generations. Brands need to take this into account.” - Tiffany Zhong, Zebra Intelligence

• “No-one really gives a shit about you and what you’re doing, what they do care about is the content you're building out and what they can do with that. It’s all about trying to create content where, after people watch it, they feel like they’re walking away with something.” - Mehak Vohra, Jamocha Media

The first panel after lunch and a 10-minute guided meditation brought together speakers from brands TOMS, Casetify, Par en Par, and Tophatter to discuss The Future of Retail:

• “Instant gratification is what we see shoppers wanting, and snackability. In a world where our attention spans are shorter than goldfish, you have to bump the adrenaline up quickly." - Malcolm Scovil, Tophatter

• “It should be a given in your business model that you’re doing good, or at least doing no harm in your process of creating.” - Laura Choi, Par en Par

Ben Harms of Archrival gave an engaging talk on The State of Youth Culture and Shifting Trends. Key insights included:

• Youth are compelled to find and follow their personal passions to build up a life resume of experiences.

• GenZ is the most self-reliant generation yet. They know how to find the answer. 72% want to start a business.

• “This generation has blown open the world of acceptance. The more unique and individual you are, the more oddly normal you are.”

• “Girl Power” is an outdated mantra. In Z’s minds, the gender paradigm has already shifted and it’s up to us to catch up.

• 82% of GenZ said they’d rather trail blaze than follow traditional paths.

• “The idea of building loyalty among this generation is one of the most elusive things. They’re incredibly loyal - but that definition is changing. Youth are loyal to creativity and innovation. Brands must constantly push themselves to keep favor.”

Investing in Human Capital at the Bowery Capital People and Talent Summit

People and Talent are hot topics for early stage companies growing quickly in this culture-focused workforce. How do you recruit the best talent? What tools can companies utilize to build diverse and powerful teams? How do you maintain culture and shape company values?

Leading up to the Bowery Capital People and Talent Summit, cred worked with speakers to create sessions built around answering these questions. Speakers and panelists included leaders from Rent The Runway, Button, WayUp, The Muse, Justworks, and others.

WeWork Bryant Park was packed on Thursday, June 7 as the morning started off with a tactical chat by Nikki Goldman of I/O Coaching and WayUp explaining how to build an effective Values Playbook for your company. Following her was a dynamic presentation by Jacqui Maguire of Greenhouse about structured hiring.

Kirsten Behncke Colyer of Justworks, Jordan Wan of CloserIQ, and John-Paul Sukkar of Rent The Runway rounded out a panel called The Company Glow-Up: Maintaining Culture as You Scale. They were followed by the panel: Tools of Engagement: Tools and Data in the People Space, featuring Ilya Usorov of day100, Jennifer Williams of Drive Change, Inc. and John Erban of Axiom. Panel discussions explored the data points that are worth focusing on and the resources that can be used to measure outcomes.

To finish off the summit, Stephanie Mardell of Button taught on how to put ideas into action to sustain diverse and inclusive company growth, then Toni Thompson from The Muse explained the importance of using storytelling to create an image of your company.

This was the second installment of Bowery Capital’s Quarterly Leadership Series this year. Join us in New York on October 11 for the Finance and Ops Summit! If you’re interested in updates on that event, or want to hear more about what we do at cred, email us: hello@credpr.com.