About

Recap: Prestige Conference Las Vegas

•

What happens at Prestige Conference Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas…or does it?

Prestige_Conference_Las_Vegas
Photo: Aaron Hockley

 

Now, don’t worry, we won’t spill details about things that happened after the After Party. But we do want to share some highlights from the conference for those that couldn’t make it or those that are wondering what to expect at the next event in Minneapolis this August.

You can verify that our memories aren’t too fuzzy by cross-checking our story with these other great Prestige recaps:

Friday Night Product Panel

Our Friday night product panel included Andrew Norcross of Reaktiv Studios, Cory Miller of iThemes, and Ben Fox of Sidekick.pro, moderated by Jake Goldman of 10up.

Ben Fox, Cory Miller, and Andrew Norcross are interviewed by Jake Goldman at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Mendel Kurland

 

It’s easy for us to be biased about our own event, so we pulled some Twitter highlights to share instead.

Saturday: Tons of Great Sessions

We kicked off Saturday with a unique perspective from John Hawkins of 9seeds and Kim Schaefer of Downtown Project. Hearing both perspectives from developer and client led to some fantastic discussion and questions from the audience.

Kim Schaefer and John Hawkins present at Prestige Conference Las Vegas
Photo: Aaron Hockley

April Downing, CFO of WP Engine, has raised over $200 million in capital throughout her career. She gave a great talk on options to to fund your business.

April Downing of WP Engine speaks about business funding options at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Aaron Hockley

Pippin Williamson of Pippin’s Plugins & Easy Digital Downloads was interviewed by Jake Goldman on his place in the WordPress marketplace.

Pippin Williamson of Pippin's Plugins and Easy Digital Downloads is interviewed by Jake Goldman at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Aaron Hockley

Brad Williams of WebDevStudios addressed those looking to move from freelancer to agency. His talk was “Hiring Employee #1.”

Brad Williams of WebDevStudios shares his presentation on Hiring Employee #1 at Prestige Conference Las Vegas
Photo: Aaron Hockley

Stop Sucking at Accounting was the message Brianna Norcross of Balance Virtual shared at Prestige. And she totally nailed it.

Brianna Norcross of Balance Virtual presents Stop Sucking at Accounting at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Aaron Hockley

John Eckman of 10up took the stage to share his “Tales from the CMS Wars” and provided great insight on the enterprise side of WordPress.

John Eckman of 10up shares "Tales from the CMS Wars" at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Mendel Kurland

To round out the day, Chris Lema of Crowd Favorite took the stage to discuss “Why Here, Why Now?” in an interview with Jake Goldman.

Chris Lema is interviewed by Jake Goldman at Prestige Conference Las Vegas.
Photo: Aaron Hockley

We received overwhelmingly positive feedback for the event and the content our speakers presented. Thank you to all of the attendees, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers that made Prestige Conference a success!

More than just another WordPress conference

•
Prestige_Logo_Small

When Kiko & Josh conceptualized Prestige Conference, they did it using WordPress as the framework for the education they wanted to provide their attendees.

While that’s still a piece of the puzzle, the event has evolved into something so much more than just another WordPress conference.

The event organizers have taken the core of what makes the WordPress community great and used that model to create a business conference that’s unlike those you’ve seen in the past. You’ll find the same friendliness and willingness to help you with your goals. The same Open Source concept for problem solving. The same high-level experts you see making waves in the space.

But you won’t find any JQuery or plugin integration sessions here. Prestige Conference isn’t about building your skills as a developer or a designer. It’s a whole new level of sessions on what it takes to manage your business and your career.

Need help figuring out your pricing model? Lisa Sabin-Wilson will tell you why you should charge more and how to get clients to accept a rate that reflects the value you bring to the table.

Want to know what attracts clients & customers to your business? Whether you’re looking for them to hire you, buy from you, or learn from you, Jennifer Bourn will explain how a design-first approach sets the stage for success.

Feel like sometimes you have no idea what the hell you’re doing? Reid Peifer has been there. He’s even willing to share a bunch of the stupid mistakes he made along the way to building a $1 million dollar a year “side business.”

Wonder how to handle growth? Jake Goldman took his company 10up from a 1-man show to a 70+ person brand in less than 3.5 years. He’s offered to get up on stage for an intensive interview that will walk you through his watershed moments & risks that paid off. Like all of our speakers, Jake will be equally candid about decisions he regretted making along the way.

This is just a sampling of the type of business insights and advice you’ll gain by attending Prestige. Yes, all the speakers work in the WordPress environment. But the sessions apply to anyone that’s currently freelancing or building their business, regardless of the industry they’re working in.

You can view our full speaker lineup for Prestige Conference, or click the image below to purchase your tickets now.
Register_Now

New Prestige Sponsors + Awesome Pricing News

•
Good News, Everyone!

When Kiko and I started this endeavor, we had one goal in mind, and that was to make the very best WordPress conference possible. Because of that, we had a specific budget we had figured that included the best location, live streaming, recording, great swag, amazing after-party, and of course, travel expenses for the speakers. That number was higher than what it was for a WordCamp, and so we set the ticket prices accordingly.

Because we had to cover these expenses, the ticket prices were higher than we’d have liked. Our goal was to augment the ticket prices with sponsorships, but we were being careful.

Guess What?

Good News, Everyone!

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, including WPEngine joining Gravity Forms and Press75 as primary sponsors, we are able to swing permanent early-bird pricing for everyone! The deadline for early-bird tickets will come and go, and the price won’t change.

That means you’ll be able to get a ticket at payday next week, or after you finish up that big project next month, without adding weight to the family budget. Yay!

But I Was an Early-bird Buyer! What About Me?

If this is you, we got your back. We appreciate your investing in us and believing in us right away, so we’ve got something special that you, our early investors, will get the day of the conference. We appreciate every one of you, because you proved to us the value of what we’re doing. If you were planning to purchase today and hadn’t gotten to it yet, we’ll include anyone that purchases today in as our early adopters.

We’ll also be reaching out the early-bird streaming ticket purchasers in the next couple of weeks because we have something to send you too.

If you purchase any ticket before 12am pst, you’ll be included in the VIP program.

Thank you to every one of you for being awesome. We’re looking forward to October 3rd and 4th.

Why I’m Excited for Prestige Conference

•
Nikhil Vimal

Hello WordPressers!

My name is Nikhil Vimal. I’m a 15 year-old WordPress developer, but my interests span far further. I also have an interest in business. When I saw Prestige Conference show up, I was very excited. It was close to where I live so that was also a big plus. But the most exciting part? The speakers. Those speakers include bright minds like Jennifer Bourn, Jake Goldman, and Carl Hancock. Three of the many great speakers who will be there.

What’s even better? The topics they will be talking about. It will be even cooler to meet everyone speaking in person as well. Prestige is really shaping up to be a great event with great sessions and more. On top of that, some of the ticket money will go to different companies to help them grow (like Happy Joe, a program to help veterans learn code).

So what if you can’t make it? Well, you’re in luck! The organizers have decided to live stream the event for you, so wether you’re on the road or at home, you can catch it live and go back to sessions later. If you want to, you can also head up to “sunny” Minnesota before winter hits and enjoy the event from right at the venue, ask questions on the spot, and of course, meet the speakers face-to-face.

Also, for people coming to Minnesota, they have an exclusive panel the night before the event featuring great speakers talking about cool things. It’s not live streamed or recorded, so be there!

So anyways, I can’t wait, very excited to meet people and to learn business. I hope to one day grow my own business to great heights, and the knowledge shared by the speakers will be the first step to getting there.

So what are you waiting for? Purchase a ticket!

Organizer Note: This guest post was written by Nikhil Vimal, a fantastically talented young developer and great guy. He’ll *obviously* be at Prestige Conference, so make sure you say hi.

Hotel for Prestige Conference Attendees

•
DoubleTree Hotel

If you’re one of the many attendees coming to Prestige Conference from out of town, we’ve worked with the DoubleTree to secure an awesome rate of $119/night.

The DoubleTree is across the street from our venue, and near many good food and drink options in downtown Minneapolis.

This page has the reservation information you’ll need to reserve your rooms.

The room quantity is somewhat limited. If you run into problems, tweet at us @PrestigeConf and we’ll work on securing more rooms.

We’re Investing in the Future of Technology - Our Daughters

•
Alexis

This is Alexis. She’s my daughter, and along with my beautiful wife Sonya, she’s my world. She’s precocious, rambunctious, incredibly intelligent, and interested in every technology she can get her hands on (surprise!). She loves to put on her own headphones, grab her play laptop and “work with daddy.” I know being a developer would give her a great life, so I want to do everything I can to prepare her for that life if she decides she wants it.

Yesterday, we announced that we’ve agreed to give a portion of our proceeds to an amazing organization doing great things for veterans and WordPress, Happy Joe. It fits perfectly because Kiko has a passion for helping veterans, and James Dalman is doing great things for Veterans with WordPress.

My daughter was weighing heavy on my mind when deciding what organization my portion of the charitable gift would go to. I asked my Minneapolis developer friends what the *best* organization was that is teaching young women to code. It was a loud and unanimous recommendation: Katie CoderDojo. This organization is run by Rebecca Schatz, and they are helping an entire generation of teen girls learn to love code. Rebecca is an incredible, passionate woman who has a love for programming and kids. It’s a perfect fit for our vision and we can make a real difference in the lives of young women in Minneapolis.

Continue Reading…

Happy Joe Named as First Prestige Recipient

•
Happy-Joe-New-Logo

As we went through the process of organizing Prestige Conference, Josh and I decided that each of us wanted to pick a non-profit to make a donation to at the end. The impact over 10 years in the Air Force had on me, made me want to pick a non-profit that was tied, in some way, to veterans.

My original thought was to go with a big national non-profit, but after spending some time thinking about it and talking to some people, I found a great veteran non-profit right here in the WordPress community that is working to train veterans. My choice is the Happy Joe organization run by James Dalman.

I recently got to spend some time with James, to talk about Happy Joe’s goals. I was so blown away by James and his commitment to helping others that have served our country. James Dalman is a veteran and totally understands the stresses veterans are dealing with trying to transition from military to civilian life. James is helping veterans use things like WordPress to power their lives.

“Our mission is creating happy lives for our heroes after their honorable commitment to the military is over”
-Happy Joe

With an organization the size of Happy Joe, we know our donation can really help them take their efforts to the next level. James is doing awesome work and we want to support it. James will be at the Prestige Conference to talk about some of the things he’s doing. Take time and get to know him. Like I said, I’m really blown away by the things Happy Joe is doing.

By buying a ticket to Prestige Conference, you’ll also be supporting Happy Joe.

Thank you for your support!

Another WordPress Conference?

•
Indicator of some of the places WordPress has brought me over the years.

When we first started talking publicly about Prestige Conference, I was inundated with questions about where Prestige Conference fits into the WordPress live conference ecosystem. I’ve organized a few WordCamps, spoken at a few more than that, and attended a slew more. I love the concept of WordCamps and wouldn’t really want to change much about it. This isn’t to say that I don’t often wish there were other options out there for live conferences.

Continue Reading…