The First Drop: Happy Accidents

I am not a fellow who is really prone to fits of nostalgia; I tend to lean more toward self-induced dementia.

Nevertheless, we recently embarked on a marketing experiment internally that led to an email being sent to just about every single speaker who has ever joined us at BevNET Live.

It turned out to be a happy accident. Even amidst the bouncebacks and the occasional “lose my number” reply – miraculously, there were many fewer than I’d imagined – the sheer volume of names, going back more than 15 years, worked pretty well as an electronic stand-in for the Proustian Madeleine.

The names on the replies were wonderful and evocative. There were kind words from (I’m going to use the Barry
Nathanson term here) old friends, everyone from Alissa Sears to David Karr, both of whom I met the first year I went to Expo West. There were reflections on the quality of conversation and connection off the stage and the great job our team does making the founders and attendees understand that they might carry the ideas that can guide them through similar challenges.

Zooming from those earliest days to the present, it was amazing to hear from many of today’s emerging founders: Scarlett Leung, Rosa Li, Sandro Rocco, Jesslyn Rollins, Janelle Bass. It’s great to feel like we’re reaching different generations with the program.

There was a lot in between. The responses brought to mind the lessons learned from incredible, hard-fought success stories, like Ken Uptain’s long quest to win with Essentia, or Seth Goldman’s ability to take a social and economic mission and make a brand embody it.

I could picture myself speaking with the likes of Jack Belsito, Tom First, Tyler Ricks – all of whom are still in the game in some form or another. Jesus Delgado Jenkins of 7-Eleven, whose email bounced back, but will likely activate again once he bounces back to 7-Eleven for the umpteenth time.

To protect them from investor backlash, I’m not going to share the name of the founders (there were several!) who noted that my jokes are the true best part of the show.

As I sorted through the replies, the intimacy of so many live interviews came flooding back, and I felt, once again, the cumulative stress that comes as we spend so long finding, scheduling, and fine-tuning discussion topics with our guests. It evoked the hours spent deciding whether one conversation will take 20 or 25 minutes, doing the math and making the hard cuts on timing to nail the talk lengths down to the second – and the natural dismay of our production team when we blow through those time windows to continue the conversation.

It was great to hear from those people, and wonderful to remember. It grounded me in the events that we’re about to have in L.A. in December, and the hard push to once again take the thoughts of the current brand founders and integrate them into the collective wisdom of those who have specialized experience and knowledge, and to make it all digestible and coherent and beneficial for as many of our attendees as we can.

Every fall, as we head towards Thanksgiving, much of the background noise fades and the work to pull these events together spirals into a whirlwind, and when the end comes, it’s always a bit of a surprise, and a letdown, because for a little while, we’re manifesting the community that we have all created, together. People say really nice things, and then they go back to work.

It’s nice to know that the experience is memorable and positive, as the years stack up. I look forward to more fun, more conversation, more positive memories as we head into the next set of events.