I've spent the better part of two decades traveling to conferences across the hosting, cloud, open source, Joomla, and WordPress communities. Somewhere along the way, I realized that attending an event isn't actually the hard part. Managing everything before, during, and after the event is.
My workflow looked like everyone else's.
A calendar link to book meetings. A notes app to remember conversations. A CRM that I'd promise myself I'd update when I got home. Business cards stuffed into my backpack. Follow up emails written at midnight from a hotel room because if I waited until I got back to the office, I'd probably never send them.
Every tool solved one small problem. None of them solved the whole problem.
I've experienced this at JoomlaDays, WordCamps, CloudFest, Domain Days Dubai, and countless hosting conferences over the years. No matter how large or small the event, the challenges are always the same. Too many conversations. Too many follow ups. Too many opportunities slipping through the cracks because everything lives in a different application.
The breaking point came after one event where I had meetings scheduled in three different places, notes scattered between my phone and notebook, leads sitting in my inbox waiting to be entered into the CRM, and speaker deadlines for upcoming conferences buried somewhere in my email. I wasn't short on opportunities. I was short on a system.
So seven months ago, I started building one.
Not another meeting scheduler. Not another CRM. Not another badge scanner.
I wanted to build what I kept wishing existed: an operating system for conferences.
That's how Conf64 was born.
The vision is simple. Everything related to conferences should live in one place.
It starts long before you ever board a plane. Finding the right events to attend. Tracking Call for Papers before they close. Matching speaking opportunities to your existing sessions. Planning your travel, researching attendees, and identifying who you should meet before you ever arrive.
Then comes the event itself.
Book meetings through multiple scheduling options. Scan badges directly from your phone. Capture notes while conversations are still fresh. Build attendee lists. Connect on LinkedIn. Keep track of who you met, what was discussed, and what needs to happen next.
The part that excites me the most is what happens after the conference.
This is where most opportunities disappear.
You return home exhausted. Hundreds of emails are waiting. The excitement from the event fades within days, and suddenly you're trying to remember whether that great conversation happened on Tuesday morning or Wednesday afternoon. Was that prospect from WordCamp? Was that partnership discussion at CloudFest? Did I promise to introduce someone after JoomlaDay? Without a system, everything starts to blur together.
Instead of relying on memory, Conf64 turns every meeting into a workflow. Mark someone as a hot lead, warm lead, partner, customer, speaker, media contact, or simply someone to stay in touch with, and the appropriate follow up can happen automatically. No sticky notes. No forgotten conversations. No spreadsheet you'll never open again.
For teams, it goes even further. Booth schedules, meeting coverage, shared contacts, reporting, KPIs, and visibility into what's actually happening at an event instead of trying to piece everything together after everyone flies home.
And because nobody wants to replace their entire tech stack, Conf64 integrates with the tools you're already using, including CRMs, calendars, video conferencing platforms, and automation tools.
I've attended enough conferences across the Joomla, WordPress, and hosting industries to know that success isn't measured by how many business cards you collect or how busy your calendar looks. It's measured by the relationships that continue long after the closing keynote.
For years I've been stitching together half a dozen different applications trying to make that happen. Every event exposed another gap in the process.
Conf64 is my attempt to close those gaps.
Over the next few months I'll be using it extensively at WordCamp US, CloudFest Americas, Atlas Digital Summit, Domain Days Dubai, and every event in between. I'll be sharing what works, what doesn't, and where I think conference technology still has room to improve.
If you spend your life at conferences, whether that's in the Joomla community, the WordPress ecosystem, the hosting industry, or the broader technology world, I'd love for you to give Conf64.com a try and tell me what you think.
Because I have a feeling I'm not the only one who's been duct-taping their event workflow together.