Recently I started talking about purchasing a 1963 Lincoln Continental. The people around me warned me and generally were a bit skeptical. This only fueled my interest. Why? Because everyone thinks I’m crazy for doing it.

Seth Godin talks about how the safe choice is often the risky choice and the risky choice is the safe one. I’ve made a life few decisions that made no sense to the people around me. It turns out those were some of the best decisions I ever made.

Here’s some example from my life

1. Took art classes in high school instead of working out with the football team. I design for a living now.
2. Left a full football scholarship to play at a bigger school, which led me to meeting my wife.
3. Took a job offer and quit school right after 9/11. I made 40k as a junior designer and that company was my first freelance client.
4. Left said job to go freelancing, which led me to Steve.
5. Put in every dime I owned into Less Everything so Steve and I could change our piece of the internet.
6. Released LovdbyLess our open social network, free code = good for business? Yes it’s helped bring in over 1.5mil in consulting work in the past 2 years.
7. Launched WeAllHateQuickbooks.com much to the disagreeing marketing consultant that insisted we’d be sued.
8. Poured time and money into ideas like LessAccounting, LessTimeSpent, LessProjects, now these side projects represent 40% of our income.
9. LessConf, who throws a conference in 7 weeks? We did, solid turnout, amazing love and a great time was had.

Most people are sheep and they don’t realize it. Follow their beaten path and face the cliff after them.

It's been a week since LessConf, I've been thinking about the personal exchanges I had with attendees and speakers. Let me start by saying the outpouring of love was amazing, thank you to everyone that supported our little conference. I'll write about the attendees later this week, this blog post is about the speakers and how they personally affected me.

A few of the speakers we met in person for the first time when we picked them up at airport. We greeted them with a handshake and small talk and by Sunday, when they departed, we gave them goodbye hugs. HUGS? I don't hug my uncles. So why was I compelled to hug these new friends?

These are people I admire and hold highly on a pedestal of awesomeness. So it was interesting to see how normal these people are. They were all so humble and giving of their time. In the past years I've thought many times on how to make a user fall in love with your app but put little thought on "how to be likable as hell." How much of success is a product of being extremely likable?

I'm not saying the speakers have a hidden agenda, I think it's just how they truly are. They connect with everyone, they're born with this gene that makes them genuine, kind and humble. They look you in the eye, as if you're the only person in the room. They make you feel like you're special. Maybe that's it, they make you feel special. I don't think you can fake this quality, the insincerity will show through. You must truly care about people, look them in the eye, shake their hand and be truly interested in the exchange.

LessConf was probably one of the most fun weekends of my life. I can't wait for LessConf 2010 so I can meet more cool people and connect with my old friends again.

Every coffee shop I've been to has good coffee. What makes me choose that one place I return to over and over? It's not the coffee.

The direct exchange of coffee for money is how they profit. But their customers aren't choosing them for the coffee, it's something else: Maybe it's the light music or the silence. Maybe the chairs, tables or sofas. Maybe the barrista makes them feel they care or maybe it's just the convenience of your location. Your profit comes from coffee but your selling point isn't the coffee, most coffee shop have good coffee.

Related Article

Never trust a dinosaur. (Don't worry this is the last sock puppet video.)

For more information head over to LessConf and register today! We're hoping for 250 attendees so help us spread the word about LessConf by telling a friend and retweeting us!

We're gearing up for LessConf, excited, pumped, awesome are the first words that come to mind. It's going to be so much fun, I hope you can attend. If you come, we'll be super best friends forever (as if we're not already).

Price

We decided to keep the $207 pricing until 5pm est today. Then the price goes to $257, so buy your ticket now.

CoWorking This Week

Steve and I plan on co-working this week and would love to have some friends hang out with us. Our plan is to co-work Wednesday - Friday of this week. We have a small space so please let us know if you plan on working with us. We already have 5 people RSVPed and we have about 5-6 seats left for the co-working. The agenda for each day will be making bad jokes and giving high fives every hour. It's free, well unless you want to buy us lunch which we'll gladly accept.

So let us know if you want to co-work with the two hottest studs at LessConf. We hope to see you at LessConf, I know you'll have a fun, inspirational time.

LessConf will have a Dinosaur Petting Zoo and Free Massages, Get Ready!

For more information head over to LessConf and register today! We're hoping for 250 attendees so help us spread the word about LessConf by telling a friend and retweeting us!

Here is the talk I did at Small and Special this year. If you like this talk you’ll love LessConf. I won’t be speaking at LessConf, but the speakers are all better than me. (I will be doing Q&A with them though.) Buy your tickets now!

Humacorn = half man, half unicorn + wings!

For more information head over to LessConf and register today! We're hoping for 250 attendees so help us spread the word about LessConf by telling a friend and retweeting us!

Allan and I attended the BarCamp in Tampa this weekend and had a great time. I gave one talk each day and Allan gave an awesome talk on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I sat in on @veeus’ talk and provided comic relief. The high light for me was the people we met. It is always really cool to find such nice, smart, genuine folks at an event like this. I was inspired by the organizers who did an amazing job organizing. I hope we do as good a job at BarCapJax Oct. 18, the day after LessConf.

Steve’s Stats

girls flirted with	1
boys flirted with	3
talks given	2
talks participated in	4
talks where my participation was appreciated	1
new BFFs	14
good talks	3
awesome talks	2
really good conversations	54
really bad conversations	3
conversations with at least one crazy person	1
I tried to save someone from a conversation with a crazy person	5
successful saves	4
Allan bitched about me	83

Allan’s Stats:

Pieces of Pizza Eaten	4
Nights I slept on the roll out couch, while Steve had the king sized bed	2
talks given	1
times I was uncomfortable because of something Steve said or did	14
New Friends	31
Things Learned	44
Hours Driven	14
Times I thought about my family	494

We hope to see you at LessConf

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Mr. T says some rude things about Steve and me.

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Yesterday Tim Chilcott and I made a bunch of sock puppet videos for LessConf. Don't expect much production value.

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On October 17th in downtown Jacksonville we will be hosting the first LessConf.
About a year ago I started pestering Allan with the idea of doing a conference. He was never interested, so I’d wait and then bring it up again. On June 30 I spoke at The Small and Special Conference in Seattle and after my talk I called Allan to chat and tell him how it went, and he said the most amazing thing: “We should do a conference.” I’m so glad he had such a great idea.
We’ve been going to technical and business conferences for a while and have been inspired and made a lot of great friends. That’s what we want LessConf to be, a place where you can hear some great speakers, people that have actually made something awesome and where you can see old friends and make new ones. We also wanted it to be really personal and a place where the speakers are really approachable, so we came up with a plan to make that happen. First we decided there should only be one track, that way no one is missing anything. Next we decided to make a lunch with the speakers. Each speaker will have there own table and, on a first come first served basis, you can pick which speaker you want to eat with. There will be Q&A time after each talk. We also decided to have a social after the day of talks so you can meet new people and get more time with the speakers.
Allan and I also wanted to be very accessible so starting the Wednesday before the conference, anyone that RSVPs can work with Allan and/or I on those days. We decided that working with you folks is the priority, so if you have questions about your stuff, you want to pair program or get design help or UI tips, we have set aside that time for you.
We worked really hard at picking speakers that have inspired us. So although they may not be the most famous, these are talks that will change your life and your approach to business and work.

Des Traynor & Eoghan McCabe of Contrast.ie

If you haven’t heard these guys speak or read their blog make sure you check them out. They are two of the coolest and most straight forward guys out there. They totally “get it” and have a wonderfully no nonsense approach to business and the web.

Kevin Hale of Wufoo.com

Kevin is one of the key people behind Wuffoo. If you’d like an example of great UI, check them out.

David Hauser of Grasshopper.com

Grasshopper used to be called GotVMail. They have killer customer support and amazing marketing. We’ve watched this company use Gary Busey as a spokesmen and send chocolate grasshoppers to people as apart of their re-branding.

Mike McDerment of Freshbooks.com

Freshbooks is the largest invoicing application on the web. They have really good UI and are all around good people. Mike knows how to build a web company.

Derek Sivers founder of CDBaby.com

When Derek was at the helm of CDBaby (he sold it) it was one of the companies I admired the most. The personal attention and killer aesthetics, right down to the purchase confirmation email, were always brilliant. Derek remains inspirational, his blog is a source of wisdom and always offers a fresh perspective on business and how to relate to customers.

Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.tv & VaynerMedia.com

I first met Gary at FOWA Miami 2008. I admit that I didn’t know who he was, but listening to him was then and remains a kick in the pants reminder to always be genuine and engage my customers whenever I can.

And if that wasn’t enough, here are some more reasons to attend:

1. Great speakers.
2. Get to hang out with Me and Allan.
3. Free massages all day long in the lobby.
4. Dinosaur petting zoo.
5. 1 in 5 attendees will get super powers.
6. There will be no snakes on any flights to or from the conference.
7. Spend a day at the beach.
8. Everyone will get a free copy of Gary’s new book Crush It!
9. Gary will choose three people at random from the audience and become best friends with them.
10. Derek will show you how to turn your LessConf t-shirt into a hat.
11. Mike will balance your checkbook.
12. Kevin will interpret your dreams.
13. David will feed you chocolate grasshoppers for lunch.
14. Des and Eoghan will teach everyone how to speak with an Irish accent.