What I Learned About Product-Market Fit Running the Snafu Conference
Last summer, I decided to level up my learning on Snafu-adjacent topics by curating a conference. I've never held myself up as an expert on sales and persuasion. Rather, I'm a student, and I curate conferences that I myself would like to attend.
That's what the Snafu Conference was: a day-long event about non-sales selling and self-promotion for those of us who are a bit hesitant to speak up.
It worked.
We gathered a hundred founders and executives on March 5 and covered topics like how to get over rejection, persistence, and founder-led sales in the age of AI.
Logistics
The logistics of the conference went flawlessly. I've run enough conferences to know the steps. More importantly, though, I work with an incredible production team.
Over the past couple of years, I've wanted to level up our AV, so in 2025, we hired our own AV team in-house at Zander Media.
We have a speaker liaison who works closely with each speaker to hone their presentation. We do all of our own video production.
Marker Ninja illustrated the conference. M'Gilvry Allen played music. And, of course, the Oakland Museum of California is a beautiful and immersive venue.
Product-Market Fit
Responsive Conference brings together about 275 people each September, and we've done that for the better part of a decade. I have a good number of people who like and trust the quality of conferences that my team and I produce.
One of my hopes with the Snafu Conference, though, was to reach a new audience: people like me who are building their own small businesses and startups and wanted to get better at selling.
The problem with the topic of sales is that it is inherently taboo. Even the best salespeople don’t identify as salespeople.
We had a hundred people come to the Snafu Conference, and of those, about 80% had previously attended Responsive. I'm honored by that trust. And it is interesting that this new event was not able to break through and reach an entirely new audience.
Positioning Snafu (Sept. '25 → March '26)
When I started the Snafu Conference, I positioned it as a conference for reluctant salespeople.
Then in January – realizing that I was falling into the age-old trap of trying to tell people to do something they did not want to do – we repositioned with the statement:
Good ideas aren't enough. Modern work runs on influence.
This is true, but people who are not yet influential don't necessarily want to do the work of learning how to become persuasive. It’s scary, difficult, and rubs up against our fear of being seen and heard. (Or, worse, taking advantage of people.)
Historical Pattern
Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People during the Depression. Amidst the con-men and the need to sell in order to survive, Carnegie advocated for sincerity and connection.
Robert Cialdini's books Influence and Pre-Suasion did well after the Watergate-era distrust.
“Growth hacking,” though a bit of a cringe term today, grew to prominence in 2012-2013, with marketer/engineers using viral loops and consumers' self-interest to create exponential growth.
Something’s Coming
While the Snafu Conference didn’t reach an entirely new audience, I remain convinced that something big is coming.
Already, as a very small company, I hire less than I did two years ago. With LLMs, I need fewer people to do the same amount of work.
It's unclear what the future holds. Mark Andreessen, famous co-founder of a16z, tweeted this week that AGI is here already. To quote science fiction author William Gibson, "The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed."
Attention matters. Those who are able to manage influence, persuade others, and advocate will get ahead. Those who don’t… may get left behind.
3 Things I’ve Loved This Week
Interview I’ve Loved
I like self-experimentation, so it is no surprise that my favorite video creator is Michelle Khare, known as YouTube’s Daredevil. Her video I Trained Like An Olympic Boxer remains an all-time great story.
Michelle sat down with Tim Ferriss for an interview about her work and show Challenge Accepted.
Whether through his books or projects like The Tim Ferriss Experiment, Tim has attempted some interesting self-experiments, so this was a particularly fascinating conversation about self-experimentation and career longevity.
Series I’ve Rediscovered
I first read The Wheel of Time in high school, and haven’t thought about the series in a decade. But looking for something to listen to as I fall asleep at night, I picked back up the first book The Eye of the World.
Robert Jordan was an incredible world-builder, and these books have aged well. If you’re looking for some escapism high fantasy, give them a try.
Payment Tool I’m Using
I hire contractors around the world. I’ve generally used PayPal to pay people, but recently transferred over to Wise.
Wise is free, fast, and has much better exchange rates than PayPal and many other platforms.
Want more?
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Responsive Conference is coming back in September! With AI and a changing economy, our jobs and careers are changing faster than most of us can adapt. Attend Responsive Conference and learn how to keep up with change.
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Until next week,
Robin
