Going Solo

The internet industry is fast-moving and as such, generates a large number of freelancers. These soloists often choose this path by passion for what they do rather than because of their solid business skills.

Going Solo is an event for European (and other) freelancers and small business owners, which will address the business side of freelancing in the web world.

Opening registration is a moment of truth for an event. And Going Solo has passed the test. I’ve had mainly positive reactions on the pricing (even students telling me that with the Earlier Bird discount, it was student-affordable), and more importantly, people have actually been registering. Well, yes. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

If you’re thinking about registering, or might know people who are, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact the 300CHF Earlier Bird discount closes at the end of this week-end. It’s still “just” 400CHF after that instead of 600CHF, but it would be a pity to miss the deadline, wouldn’t it? So, now would be a good time to blog about Going Solo and tell all your friends about it.

To be perfectly honest, the pricing structure has one main aim: encourage people to register early so that there is money available for the inevitable event expenses — and so that I know where I stand regarding the general budget. Don’t wait until the last minute! I also like the idea that I can, during a short time, offer a price which is on-a-budget-compatible (if even students are telling me it’s affordable…)

Talking of blogging, I’d like to extend many thanks to all of you who blogged about Going Solo. There are some great posts in there — and if you do blog about the conference, let me know so I can add you to this growing collection of links. You’ll be in very good company! So far, we’ve had coverage in English, French, Dutch and German — which, as you can imagine, makes me doubly happy.

Update, 21.02.08: the open stage speech video is online!

Unfortunately, we have no idea when my open stage speech video will be available. I guess this shows you why it’s always better to attend events rather than rely on technology to give you second-hand access to them. For those of you who didn’t attend my speech (because they weren’t at LIFT, or because they arrived too late on Thursday, well… I can only say I hope the recording is not lost and will surface at some point. (Let’s say “it’s complicated”.)

I was interviewed at least four times after my speech, and I’d like to point you to two videos which are online — and are, in my opinion, pretty good 🙂

First, my friend Robert Scoble caught me off-guard on Qik:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.477534&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Then, Nicolas Charbonnier did a really nice interview of me with his HD camera. I can’t embed it here, but you should head over to techvideoblog.com and watch it there. (Maybe I’ll stick it on YouTube or something later on.) Third time lucky — thanks for insisting, Nicolas: I said “yes, later, not now” the first two times he approached me. I’m glad we did it!

Watch my interview by Nicolas Charbonnier about Going Solo:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ud4b1RQYPtE]

In other news, registration is working (yes! people are actually signing up!) — be sure to pass the word around so that your friends don’t miss the Earlier Bird discount (only until this week-end).

This is a pretty exciting (and scary) moment for me: registration is now officially open! You can head directly over to the registration page proper over at our partner Expectnation‘s.

I’d like to give a particular shout-out to Edd Dumbill, one of the pairs of hands behind Expectnation, for his very responsive and patient help while I wrapped my brain around registration processes and setting up the system. Thanks, Edd!

Once you’ve registered, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and put a badge or logo on your site. And talk your friends into coming too!

Welcome to my major pre-LIFT headache: setting the final price for Going Solo.

Let me start by saying this: whatever price you choose for an event (or a product, or a service), it will always seem way too expensive to some, just right to others, and too cheap to a lucky bunch. So, there is no way to please everybody.

As I mentioned in my last post, Peter Hogenkamp was of great help here, by pointing out that there are different types of events. Different events also cater to different audiences, and that’s also to be taken into account.

• Free or almost free: this is why we like BarCamp and other unconferences. There is little or no barrier to entry (if there is a fee, it’s there to cover small costs such as lunch, etc.), no commercial interest, and lots of interesting people. Price tag is 0 to a few tens of €.
• Affordable: these events can be commercial or not, but what they have in common is that they aim to be “affordable”. Think LIFT or reboot. Not necessarily cheap, and in some cases, expensive — but “affordable”. As in “I can afford to go”. Now of course, not everybody will be able to afford such events. Price tag is in the few hundreds of €.
• Expensive: these events are commercial, and usually target a more corporate audience. In many cases, one expects that employers are going to be paying for these, rather than individuals. Price tags are around 1000€ or more (TED is $5000 6000, I’m told).

So, Going Solo does not aim to be cheap. However, it would like to be affordable. People might go “ew, that’s expensive!” — but then look at the programme, think a bit, and decide that it’s worth the investment.

And trust me, if you’re a freelancer, it’ll be worth it. The stuff you’re going to hear about at Going Solo is going to help you run your business better, and be more successful doing the work you love. More cash or more free time, it’s your choice — how much is that worth for you?

I know there are varieties of “training” offered to professionals — learn how to network, learn how to pitch, learn how to sell yourself: how much would those be worth to you?

I’m aware freelancers are not usually rolling in money (being one), and that many of you will have to add to the price of the conference the flight or train ride to Geneva/Lausanne, and maybe a hotel. That unfortunately didn’t help my headache go away.

The way I set the price for Going Solo is by looking at my budget (yes! I actually have one!): if I count conference expenses, not including salaries for those working on the event, an attendee costs a little less than 300 CHF. Even those, like staff members, speakers, or partners, who will not be paying anything. They still cost that much.

Salaries? As I mentioned when I announced I was getting into the event business, the whole idea is that organising events like Going Solo will be worth my time, financially. I’m putting four months (and that’s rather short notice compared to other events) of hard work into this, and so are other people. So, salaries. “Profitable” comes after that — when the expenses and salaries are paid, is there anything left to reinvest into the next event?

So, enough talking, let’s get to the meat. Here’s the pricing (currency converter if you need it):

• Regular ticket: 600 CHF (approx. 375€, £275, US$545)
• Early bird: 400 CHF (approx. 250€, £190, US$365) — until Mar. 16th
• Earlier bird: 300 CHF (approx. 190€, £140, US$270) — until Feb. 17th

A few comments:

• Find the regular ticket a tad expensive for your budget? Be sure to not miss the Earlier and Early Bird prices. (You only have this first week after registration opens for the Earlier Bird price.)
• Register this week and you actually get your ticket half-price!
• We’re charging in CHF, as most of the spendings for the event will be in CHF. It also saves me sleepless nights worrying about market fluctuations.
• I initially wanted to give a discount to members of the LIFT community during the first week, but decided not to discriminate like that and to give it to everybody. Hence the “Earlier Bird” pricing of 300 CHF for everybody this week.
• Organising an event like Going Solo requires cash. That cash comes (initially) mainly from registrations. This is why you get a very interesting discount if you sign up early — the pricing is designed to encourage early registrations. So… in case this wasn’t clear: register early!
• PayPal takes a significant cut of the registration fee, so if you choose to pay by credit card through PayPal an “online surcharge” of 20CHF will be added. You can pay by banking transfer for no extra fee, but that will depend on how much your bank charges you for these transactions (mine doesn’t charge me anything). I’m not very happy to do things like this, but it’s preferable to raising the price of all the tickets to cover the handling costs.

So, here we go. Next step is opening registration (in a few hours!)

This is a case of “why on earth didn’t I do this before?”

Going Solo now has its very own Twitter account. Hurry up and follow!

Here’s a little status update — because although a lot is happening and things are making good progress, it’s mainly progress. So it looks like nothing is happening (from my point of view), but in fact, we’re getting close to some really exciting stuff.

• Registration: I’m working on setting up the registration site right now (it’s a tad more complicated than I expected), but it shouldn’t be very long. If you want me to inform you directly when registration is open, just leave a comment.
• Design: we have pretty badges and a logo now, and the design of this site will shortly be adapted to the new visual identity. Dealing with the whole design issue was em way more complicated and painful than I anticipated (there’s stuff to blog about there, later maybe).
• LIFT08: as I mentioned my open stage speech at LIFT08 was received very positively. Many people came to ask me if it was still possible to register (yes it is, once registration opens!) and I’ve had promising discussions with a bunch of interesting (possible) partners. A little overwhelming but very exciting.
• Pricing: pricing was a headache, like many other things. I want to write a more detailed blog post about this, but basically, you can say events fall into 3-4 categories, as far as pricing is concerned. (1) free (most barcamps and unconferences) or (1b) a small cover fee ($20-$50), then (2) “affordable”, meaning “not cheap, but which can be afforded”, and (3) high price events with fees around/above 1000€ or more (TED is $5000). Going Solo is in category (2), meaning some may find the price expensive, but I’ve done what I could to ensure it was an amount that can be paid by freelancers.
• Audience: there’s been some confusion about who this event is for, and I want to blog about it in more detail. In the meantime: it’s open to everybody (we’re not refusing anyone) but the content is geared towards freelancers or very small businesses somewhere in the internet/tech industry. I personally think that any freelancer or small business will find it invaluable.
• Programme: in addition to Stowe Boyd, Suw Charman, and Martin Roell, we now have a fourth confirmed speaker. Laura Fitton will be in Lausanne on May 16th to speak about how taking care of your online presence will help people find you. (I’ll find a better way to phrase that later.) I have roughly half my speakers, so now is time to go back to the programme drawing board, sort out who is going to talk about what, and look for people to talk about the specific topics that are still uncovered.
• Partners: I don’t yet have the fancy PDF to hand out to prospective partners, but it’s near the top of my priority list (up there with all the rest, hehe). As I said, things look good on the partner/sponsor front, particularly after LIFT08. Possible media sponsor found, looking for others. “Packages” (I don’t like that name) for Gold, Silver (etc.) partners have been defined, so don’t hesitate to contact me about it. As soon as the presentation PDF is ready I’ll create a special “Partners” page.
• Video: from what I understood, there was some miscommunication between LIFT08 and Nouvo, who filmed the talks, and the open stage talks have not yet been edited and put online. It will happen (the tapes are safe) but I don’t know when. In the meantime, you should read my speech notes and watch the interview I gave Robert Scoble.

Now, I’ll go back to fiddling with CSS and setting up the registration site 😉

Thanks for your positive reactions to my open stage speech at the LIFT08 conference. It’s really encouraging! If you’re at LIFT08, come and say hi and pick up a Going Solo moo card. I bought three boxes of them, so there should be plenty for you.

If you missed my speech, you’ll be able to see it online once the video is up (or so I understood), or you can read my preparation notes on CTTS.

I wanted to open registration for LIFT08, but decided it was better timing to do it just after. See stay on the lookout this week-end or early next week! There will be a special discount for LIFT participants.

Finally! As I mentioned, the logo/branding/design aspect of Going Solo is proving more of a headache than I anticipated. I really really wanted to have it all sorted out for LIFT08, but that’s unfortunately not going to happen.

However, we do have something for you. We’ve been asked for stuff to show off on blogs wishing to promote Going Solo (which we’re very happy about), so we went and created some. Thanks to Carlos, who did all the hard work on the first version of these badges while I complained that it should be “more like this” and “a little like that”, and to Steph who came up with what you see below. There are two widths (180px and 150px) to accommodate various styles of sidebars, and also in compact form if you prefer something smaller.

Please hotlink to these images by copy-pasting the code provided.

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-180px.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-150px.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-180px-wide.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

<a href="http://going-solo.net/"><img src='http://climbtothestars.org/files/going-solo/going-solo-badge-150px-square.gif' alt='Going Solo conference for freelancers, May 16th, Lausanne (Switzerland).' /></a>

Carlos is also responsible for putting together the image file that graces the back of the Going Solo Moo cards that I’ll be carrying around with me at LIFT. Come and ask me for one when you see me!

A little while ago, I shouted out “it’s an event site!” because, frankly, it wasn’t really obvious that this was indeed an event site.

I’ve added a few more pages which should help dissolve any lingering doubts:

• Registration, which will soon lead you to our first partner’s service, Expectnation, where you will be able to register for the conference (plan: opening of ticket sales at the beginning of LIFT08, and very special pricing while the conference lasts)
• Programme, to give you a handy place to keep up with new topics, new speakers, and things taking shape
• Practical, with information on the venue, getting to Lausanne, accommodation, and all that kind of stuff
• Support Going Solo, because without you, Going Solo will be way too solo (this is where you head to get nifty sidebar badges to help us promote the event!)

We’ll soon have a Partners page with information about sponsorships and partnerships as well as a presentation of our existing partners. (And wondering, just this second: is there a difference between a “partner” and a “sponsor”?)