The #helloetsy (www.helloetsy.com) summit last September inBerlin brought together over 500 people, mainly from Small Business and Sustainability. A lot of talks and discussion focused on being authentic, sharing your passion, especially by telling stories.
So were most of the speakers in sharing their experiences and insights e.g. about starting abusiness (Chad Dickerson, “Finding your way to courage“ or "Growing big while staying small“ with Xenios Thrasyvoulou), "Writing for impact“ (Farai Chideya) or branding (Lisa Rodwell). That’s why the talks were very motivating although me and others were wondering what if you don’t sell the typical emotional Etsy product like a fashion item or vintage which is rooted in your personality or a nice story? What if you sell an abstract service or “just“ toilet paper?
Chad Dickerson pointed out that courage comes by doing. You have to find your own way, be true to yourself and learn from mistakes.
Lisa Rodwell made five points of brand building: serve a purpose, stand out from the crowd, stay focused, stick to your promise (consistency!) and spread the world. She showed nice examples how moo.com give their customers something they can tell about through their customer experience (e.g. unboxing, personal communication).
In her writing tips Farai Chideya pointed out the importance of building up a relationship between writer and readers, playing with your strengths and evaluating what you’ve written by getting feedback from your readers and other people.
Douglas Rushkoff called in „Program or be programmed“ for a literacy in programming. If you don’t understand the language of computers you’ll have to trust them, like a passenger has to trust the taxi driver. At least you should understand what a tool is for and the possible bias of using digital tools and interfaces.
The last talk I attended was with Xenios Thrasyvoulou from peopleperhour.com He took a lot of time for questions and got into conversations – just as he talked about the importance of communication in „managing“ team members. This communication and sharing the core culture ofyour business with employees and freelancers is key. A lot of his practical tips go along with the credo of agile development.
Overall Hello Etsy was a very inspiring summit with a great atmosphere.
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