It may shock you to learn that I’ve attended 8 FinCon events. It low-key shocks me LOL! I’ve just returned from my 8th event which was held in one of my favorite American towns: New Orleans. I’m going to share a review of the event, what went well, what didn’t and more. After every conference I like to reflect on and evaluate my experience because I’m at the point where a conference isn’t an excuse to go on a vacation. They are real time commitments that hope will have some type of short-term and long-turn return for me. With that in mind, the events I attend have to provide good content, opportunities to connect with and meet other creators, are in a great town and have opportunities to share my expertise if I’m interested in doing that. Basically, when I’m looking to say “yes” to a conference it has to be a well composed and thought out event. Ok, enough of the lead up, here’s my FinCon 2023 Review. It’s long. You’ve been warned.
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Arriving in New Orleans
This year’s FinCon was held at the Sheraton New Orleans on Canal Street. As I often do, I arrived a day early and opted to stay at The Quisby, a cute hostel on the edge of the Garden District. I love New Orleans so much and with each trip fall in love with it even more. For me, New Orleans is the embodiment of organized disorganization, great food, prickly sweet people and quietly understated beauty. It’s a city filled with power, history, poverty, great music, good food, pain and joy. It’s not an easy city to visit in many ways but it’s absolutely worth it.
What is FinCon?
I consider FinCon, in its current iteration, a marketing conference focused on supporting and uplifiting creators in the personal finance and adjacent money spaces. If you’re looking to learn about funnels, YouTube channel growth, podcasting, growing newsletters, getting paid to speak, starting impactful communities and more-FinCon is a great fit for and your aspirations. There are other content niches that overlap nicely with personal finance such as real estate, investing, financial policy and more. If you’re wondering if you have a project or area of focus that aligns with FinCon-it’s likely that you do even if at first glance it may feel like you don’t.
The Low-Lights
I’m actually going to start with what could have been improved. I’ve hosted events, no event is perfect. That’s just a fact and what’s awesome is that there were very few low-lights for me. What’s funny is that a couple of these were issues completely outside of FinCon’s control and had nothing to do with FinCon. But, I think they’re important to watch out for related to the logistics of bringing large groups of people into a city that is new to them.
- Unprepared speakers-FinCon has a high caliber of speakers and sessions that are shared at the event. So, when I landed on two dud talks-I needed to share some thoughts. This happens at every conference. Folks will pitch what looks like a compelling talk because they had amazing results in their business. Having amazing results doesn’t mean that you’re ready to run a session or panel. Those are two completely separate things. The two sessions that were duds had speakers who “prepared” about 20 minutes of talking points and then winged it for the remaining 25 ish minutes with the hopes of the Q & A lifting up the experience. Don’t do this. Don’t insult our intelligence. Don’t disrespect the event. Especially when other well-known creators in the space who’ve achieved amazing results are in your audience. Be prepared, practice and lead with the audience OR DON’T PITCH A TALK. It’s that simple. I now have two creators who are new to me that have left me with a bad first impression of them and their work ethic.
- Serious Cellphone Problems-My phone service hates NOLA. If I stepped outside of the Sheraton New Orleans-my phone did not work. It was a little bit disconcerting and luckily I’m the type of traveler who is able to travel analog which is what I ended up doing. If I was meeting friends around town I made it REALLY CLEAR that my phone was not working and that they couldn’t just switch things up on me or we would have problems. Things worked out in the end.
- The New Orleans RTA Transit Pass-Is….not great for one specific reason, did humans test it out? I’ve taken public transit around the world and New Orleans and Los Angeles are tired for having transit that feels like it should work but have unexpected aspects of friction in the experience. I would have loved it if a couple of team members could have tested going into town from the airport to a well-known Downtown location and reporting the experience. By the way, I feel the same way about Denver’s app even though it’s a little more intuitive. There are still some of us who go “all in” when visiting the conference town. That may include embracing local transit for a variety of reasons ranging from cost, enjoying local experiences and even environmental concerns.
What Stood Out
Wow. This year did not disappoint. My list is long and part of what stood out is the choice of New Orleans as the host city. I truly appreciated the FinCon team’s concerted effort to facilitate connections between attendees and brands who were at the event. There were so many hangouts, meetups and moments to meet, connect and not feel rushed while doing so.
- Bring back the dinner clubs! I enjoyed a wonderful evening with 7 other attendees and a tiny baby at Compère Lapin, a woman owned and Black owned restaurant. The food was phenomenal, the company exceptional and there’s nothing like having a great meal with new and known folks. I picked the blackened pig ears appetizer, curried goat entree and mango crème brulée. Sublime.
- Secrets Behind an $85,000 Launch-Julia Menez of Geobreeze Travel KILLED IT! This was one of the best sessions that I’ve attended as an “advanced” content creator in years. If you’re looking for a blueprint on how to run a profitable launch, things to consider and how to offer bonuses that you don’t have to create yourself-this is a session that you must watch and take notes from.
- How We Built This the Rich and Regular Way-I’m a huge fan of Julien and Kiersten Saunders, founders of the brand “Rich and Regular” what I love about the work that they do is that they’ve monetized it leading with their audience. The brands and collaborations pay for their work which allows them to avoid “being in their audience’s pockets” There’s more than one way to make money as a content creator and I wish we would have more thoughtful conversations about the fact that you can design a sustainable and impactful personal finance brand without selling your soul. As always-Julien and Kiersten gave a phenomenal presentation.
- How to Diversify Your Income as a Freelancer Without Adding New Clients Because AI Could Take Your Job-In full disclosure, this was the panel that I put together. But, it was really well done and we got a lot of great feedback from the attendees. No one left the room once we got started. Huge thank you to Lee Huffman, Sarah Li Cain, Kevin Payne and Miranda Marquit for being such wonderful panelists.
- Meetups throughout the event-I attended the blogging and travel content creators meetups. Who says that blogging is dead?
- For the People Meetup-Creators along the African Diaspora had an incredible offsite meetup in the French Quarter. I can’t rave enough about how wonderful that experience was for me.
- Social and Financial Justice Meetup-I got to hangout with my people!! Huge thanks to Diana Yanez for hosting this event.
- Being invited to the TravelCon announcement meetup-This was huge for me because I’m actively growing my Colorado based website. BUT, I don’t talk about this a lot. So, I knew that Jessica pays attention to my ramblings and it made my day to be in the room for that conversation.
- The hospitality! New Orleans stands out when I think about hospitality experienced at the venue, and from people that I met randomly around town.
- Experiencing New Orleans-From riding the historic trolley, watching the neverending Halloween Parade (later people would tell me that it was a shorter than usual parade) wandering the Garden District, the French Market and enjoying the French Quarter. Then there was all of the bike focused activities. I literally encountered three different bike community events on different days. New Orleans owes me nothing.
Value Based Travel Spending
It’s very important to me that I’m able to spend in alignment with my personal values. A huge part of that is the ability to support locally owned businesses and Black-owned businesses whenever possible wherever I happen to be. I’m sharing where I spent my dollars while in town. I was so freaking hot while there which is why I was popping into so many coffee shops.
Stop judging me LOL!
In all seriousness, I was in NOLA for 7 days so I had plenty of time to check things out. Here are the businesses that I supported while I was in town.
- Baldwin and CO–This is a stunning coffee shop that I learned about a year ago. It also has a huge enclosed patio and podcasting space. Black-owned.
- The Big Squeezy (Juice Bar)-This place was an awesome and unexpected find. The juice is incredible and the customer service was fantastic. If I live in NOLA I would stock up on juices here weekly. Black-owned.
- Backatown Coffee Parlour-Lovely coffee shop with great food and drinks. It also had a patio but it was too hot for me to sit outside. Black-owned.
- Compère Lapin-I already shared the phenomenal meal that I had there. Black/Woman owned.
- Loretta’s Pralines-I wanted to try a different type of beignet. I’m so glad that I did. These were the best beignets that I’ve ever had. Made fresh to order and filled with pralines. We went to the French Market Stall. Black/Woman owned.
- Eat Well Food Mart–Yakamein was a regional dish that I had to try while in town. It lived up to its reputation and I can’t wait to have it again the next time I’m in town. Vietnamese Owned.
- French Truck Coffee–I ended up going to several locations and loved this local to Louisiana coffee chain. Locally owned.
- The Quisby-A small, cute hostel in a great location and historical building that was renovated in 2017. Locally owned. I slept like a stone and all three nights that I was there (one night before FinCon and two nights after) I had the quietest and nicest roomies EVER. The Quisby also had breakfast and a complimentary drink for guests.
- Acme Oyster-If you’re looking for a delicious seafood meal, Acme Oyster needs to be added to your list. We had chargrilled oysters, fried fish and all of it was good. Locally owned (100 year old business!) We went to the French Quarter location.
- Twelfth Night Coffee–This tiny little shop on the edge of the French Market caught my eye while I was on the bus. I made sure to go back and visit it. Locally owned.
My Goals for FinCon (Did I Achieve Them?)
I love attending conferences. However, I have some very specific goals when attending. I’ve shared the goals that I had for this event.
- Goal #1-Host a Kick Ass Panel
- Achieved!
- Goal #2-Kick Off My Crowdfunding Campaign
- I was a little nervous to do this, but I thought, I’m going to reach out to friends in this space in the future. Why not make “The Ask” in person? I’m glad that I did. I’m crowdfunding for my upcoming “Vixens, Virgins, Vigilantes: The Impact of Policy on American Women’s Money” season. It’s a bad fit for brand partnerships so I’m reaching out to listeners and wonderful people who support me or are aligned with the project. I’ve included a link if you would like to learn more. I’m trying to raise 500 pledges of $24 dollars.
- Goal #3-Find Creators for My Project-Creators Getting Paid
- Achieved! I met so many incredible people to share with the resource that I’ve been building for the past year.
- Goal #4-Pick Up One New Writing Client
- There is one company and editor that I think I would work well with.
- Pending
- Goal #5-Have Fun, Meet New People and Spend Time with Friends
- Achieved
Do I Recommend FinCon?
Yes. I do! If you’re looking to make great connections, learn from the best and have a ridiculously good time-FinCon is the event for you. There’s no way I would attend 8 times if that weren’t the case. Many of my closest friends I met through FinCon. I even go on vacations with them! This year I went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park with my FinCon friends some of whom I’ve known so long-they’re like family.
Looking forward to seeing you at the next one.
