I spent last week at Capital Camp.
This is the infamous conference put on by Brent Beshore.
It is the best conference I've ever been to.
My 7 unexpected takeaways from 2023:
1. Conference Perfected
Imagine a rural wedding full of 300+ interesting people.
Amazing food / drinks, fun activities, and small group discussions.
They keep the sitting in a dark room and staring at speakers to a minimum.
The small college town location is perfect.
2. HoldCos Galore
Crypto is out. HoldCo's are in.
Many are building and investing in HoldCo's of every sweaty business imaginable.
And all around the world.
Some random ones: HoldCo's of security services, local industry groups, and an F18 pilot turned ESG software acquirer.
3. Location Independent
One of the first questions is always "where are you coming from?"
Many came from across the world.
Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore had a solid showing.
A lot of the usual New York, SF, Austin.
Great to see cool stuff happening everywhere.
4. Awesome People
It all started with just friends of @BrentBeshore @patrick_oshag.
They set the tone of friendly / casual and built a special community.
Mostly PEs, VCs, holdcos, hedge funds & family offices with some interesting founders mixed in.
They nail the curation.
5. Everyone is Human
People that run billion-dollar funds or have a million Twitter followers are really not that different from you.
This is one of the biggest benefits of meeting your heroes.
Set your ambition higher.
6. Power of Content
The conference started from a Twitter interaction.
@david_perell preaches producing / testing a lot and keeping the best
@FoundersPodcast studies the eminent dead
@PermanentEquity has a big literary focus.
Build your audience while building your business.
7. Reached Capacity
They have literally maxed out the downtown of Colombia. Some real estate people are talking about building more hotels.
I'm glad it will stay about the same size.
It would be hard to maintain the culture at 10x the size.
I had so many great conversations.
I feel like I'm still digesting everything.