3 years ago, I held my first entrepreneur meetup at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. 5 people attended and I paid $300 for a small room. I felt really silly because I knew 3 out of the 5 people who attended, and why pay that much money to see my friends? Still, that night I realized that I really enjoy the process and the experience of bringing people together. No matter what.

Slowly but surely, that little meetup group grew and grew. From 5 people to 10, 20, 50, then 100, then more than 300 people. And today, more than 3,000. Out of that group BizTechDay was born!

BizTechDay was born because of a conversation with Gary Marshall (of the Small Business Administration). We thought the entrepreneurial community need to learn from the best from both worlds–from the business side and from the technology side. Why not create an event for that? When I didn’t have a good answer to “Why not?” I decided to ask myself instead: “What am I waiting for!”

BizTechDay is built on the philosophy that the most important aspect of a successful business is not about what you know or how you do things (though those are obviously important elements). The most important thing is to have great people around you. This isn’t to be confused with just networking or a popularity contest. Instead, it’s about living a life and doing business with people you trust, like, and learn from. Your co-founder, investors, advisors, employees, customers, fans and partners–it is the WHO that will make or break your business. They are the ones who want to see you succeed. They are the ones who will help make our entrepreneurial journey worth all the sweat we put in.

With that in mind, BizTechDay is really a conference about people. We of course have amazing speakers and innovative technology demos, but for us the most important thing is to facilitate the connections between you and other attendees, not just from the speakers to the audience. If every single one of us walks away from BizTechDay 2010 with at least one meaningful business connection, a relationship that will truly help and change your business for the life time, we will have done our job.

I’m sharing this story now so you can get a look at the spirit behind the conference, and maybe understand why I’m always talking excitedly about it.

I truly believe when amazing people get together, magic happens. Imagine 1500 doers and changemakers in Seattle, New York and San Francisco all come together to support you.

How cool is that?

Meet our amazing attending presenters:

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