The First Affiliate Summit Was 20 Years Ago Today ⋆

My life modified in an enormous manner twenty years in the past as we speak. It was the primary Affiliate Summit that I organized with Missy Ward and it occurred at Baruch Faculty in New York Metropolis on November 3, 2003.

Pulling the entire thing collectively occurred fairly quick. We chatted on the telephone about attempting to begin a convention and registered AffiliateSummit.com on Might 19, 2003.

The unique aim was to placed on a convention on a cruise in 2004, however we determined to do a small occasion earlier than that to get the title on the market and construct an inventory.

I heard about a possibility at Baruch Faculty, which was a number of blocks from the place I labored on the time, and I went over to talk with them. We have been in a position to get a room for 200 with chairs, tables, A/V, and many others. free of charge in alternate for giving some passes to their advertising and marketing college students.

That was good since we didn’t have cash. If it wasn’t for that free spot from Baruch, the rise of Affiliate Summit could by no means have occurred.

Within the months we needed to arrange out first convention, we known as in favors from pals to workers the occasion, and did every little thing very primitive. All gross sales went via my PayPal account and affirmation emails for individuals who registered have been manually pasted from a Phrase doc and despatched from our emails.

Trade pals volunteered to be audio system and we obtained a bunch of pals with firms to “sponsor” it (we didn’t cost them, so we might have a bunch of “sponsors” out of the gate).

We scheduled it on the primary day of the advert:tech convention in New York, which was an enormous occasion on the time, so we might capitalize on individuals coming into city, and we set a low value level ($75 for all day and lunch).

Our solely bills have been lunch and printing for the day, and with ticket gross sales we broke even however turned wealthy in trade repute for Affiliate Summit.

Affiliate Summit 2003 was a sell-out a handful of days earlier than. We had a dozen or so individuals present up hoping to attend, and we quietly liked that we couldn’t match them, as a result of it created a buzz and demand once we began selling our subsequent occasion.