Quick context if you’re newer here..Commerce Roundtable is one of my events we run and we just wrapped it a couple weeks back in San Diego. It is all focused on ecom, SaaS, brands, community, agencies, pretty much everybody in the ecosystem in one room. Which is by design.
A couple issues ago I was hyping about ~8 of the 12 speakers who’d never touched one of our stages, and then at the last minute we added even more (not naming names)..and I’ll own it, those did NOT need to be added even though they were incredibly valuable.
We just wanted to stack the room with more content, and it back fired on us.
After everything wrapped we sent out review sheets asking how we did, what we could do better, all of that. A lot of the feedback was that it went too long, we didn’t start on time..things I don’t want people having to bring up.
BUT the survey is kind of funny, cause even with that feedback, here’s where we’re sitting so far:
Overall: 4.5 stars.
Timing: 63% said it was perfect, others were indifferent.
Sales focus: 80% said balanced, 10% too salesy, 10% no opinion.
Venue: 76% said amazing, some said okay, and some said eh, could be better.
…the venue “could be better”??? Cmon
^ (Of course nothing is perfect, but it doesn't get much better than this) ^
Then we had the raffle. Which is our version of sponsor integration, sort of like running YouTube pre-roll ads.
Normally we pull a ticket, call a name, person comes down, pretty simple..but this year we built a custom lottery people could watch on the screen and made it a whole thing.
Way more fun… Also took WAY longer cause people weren’t in the room, so the whole 30 seconds times 3 thing (for 3 giveaways) didn’t work, and then the sponsor yaps with the giveaways ran a little long too.
That’s part of our event though, we give away incredible products/trips/cash in exchange for you to sit there and listen to a service pitch.
That’s the deal.
What I didn’t see coming was the Q&A, cause it was insane this year. We had enough questions to go another 30 to 40 minutes per speaker and had to cut it off…
In hindsight I would’ve made everybody speak shorter and given way more of that time to Q&A, but we did a much better job this year with the recordings so people could go catch up with everybody and still get the presentations.
(You can grab the recordings/decks here by the way: https://www.youtube.com/@CommerceRoundtable)
TLDR: Commerce roundtable was incredible, and for me it was another reminder for why I love showing up every time to do these. - it ain’t a major money maker but it is a community driver.
And next year, here’s how I want to apply what we learned:
Fewer speakers, with larger slots so they can go deeper on Q&A.
Actual round tables where people solving a specific thing can sit with others working on it and the people who know that topic..hear the presentation, then go keep asking questions at the table.
Make it clear that you can sit through the content OR go meet people. Overall I want things to feel even more open and fluid.
It’s a very interesting and hard balance to get right..even when the reviews are good, there’s still plenty to change.
Hit reply and tell me: at the last event you went to, what did you actually want more time for?
AND if you were at Commerce Roundtable and haven’t submitted this yet, FILL OUT YOUR SURVEY HERE.
(please)
🫶
See you next week.
- Shack