On Friday November 2, 2007 at 11am MadWhips.com officially launched. It wasn’t until later that night around 9pm when we were 1 hour out of Toronto on our way to Montreal for BarCampMontreal3 that Vinay and I decided that we had to attend the 1st BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas.
Our friend and CarZi co-founder Nate Whitehill had continually invited us out to Scottsdale Arizona all summer but unfortunately we were in the middle of developing our new site and had very little time available for anything else other than designing our dream site; we didn’t have to explain this to Nate as he is an extremely focused young man himself.
During our drive to Montreal, we concluded that after 1.5 years of giving MadWhips.com every waking hour we had that we should attend the Blog Expo to celebrate our successful launch, finally meet with Nate and his boys, and learn as much as we could from this inaugural event in a wild city I had never been to.
I have never felt so welcomed by anyone that I have met for the first time in person as I felt when Vinay and I met Nate and his boys (Matt, Josh & David) in Vegas. Vinay and I first came across Nates blog about 8 months ago when it first launched and had a handful of readers. Being business partners with the same focus (cars, money, web development) we followed Nates blogging as he started out from scratch on his entrepreneurial journey in Scottsdale. It wasn’t long until Nate, David Wilkson (the UK’s 13 year old super blogger) of TechZi.net and Vinay & I started up a successful collaborative automotive blog called CarZi.com.
Nate, thank you for the warm welcome, all the introductions and most importantly the inclusion into your family. You are very lucky, as they are lucky to have you as their leader (as I am to have Vinay as a business partner) that you have Matt, Josh and David on your team, they all have mad skills, determination and the vision and passion required for you guys to succeed in everyone of your endeavors. If everything outside of meeting you in Vegas had been a complete disaster and failure, Vinay and I would have still felt that this had been our most successful business trip yet! Cheers to our successful futures, they have only just begun!!
It was evident that the 2 day BlogWorld event was a very successful one for all who attended, participated and showcased their product.
We had the opportunity to listen to some very interesting keynote interviews, panel conversations and speeches by Matt Mullenweg, Jeremy Wright, Tom Frey and Mark Cuban.
Vinay had a chance to ask Mark Cuban 2 questions - see the 1 hour mark!
At night after the Blog Expo, Vinay and I were able to roll in stretch Hummers to hang out and party with Nate, Josh Mullineaux, Matt Blancarte, David Bjorn and their friends Ms. Danielle, Mr. Gary Lee, Chris, Greg, Darin, Prija, Shoemoney, Neil Patel and John Chow.
I couldn’t agree more with what Ms. Danielle said below in her post: Too Legit To Quit: A BlogWorld Expo Review”
Bloggers are legit. One thing I kept hearing among the group this weekend was, “This is the most legit group of people I’ve ever hung out with.” I couldn’t agree more. And it has nothing to do with money. I believe a majority of bloggers are like-minded people, regardless of topic or intention. Bloggers are motivated, driven, technical to a degree, inclusive, intelligent (usually), opinionated, and creative. This is why we’re drawn to each other (at least the ones I know), and this is why we’re legit. What bloggers are not are quitters.”
Many thanks to Ms. Danielle who knew DJ Dust @ Tangerine Nightclub who got us escorted to a VIP table despite the club being at capacity and an hour wait for bottle service. Ms. Danielle you ROCK, thank you so much, I can’t believe we had the opportunity to finally meet you!!
You can see more great photos and a writeup of our wicked awesome time at Tangerine thanks to Mr. Gary Lee’s post: BlogWorld Expo Nights. Another super chill intellectual we met and partied with was Mr. Gary Lee. Gary really looking forward to the next time we’re all together, I had a blast thanks for all the drinks!
Other amazing down to earth and super fun individuals we also rolled around Vegas at night included Chris Burdick, the gentle genius behind Egonitron and Automoblog (I think there might be another automotive opportunity here), the confident, calculated, personable and life of the party Darin Carter of DarinCarter.cc (this guy is a serious baller with style and a crazy ass blingy watch), Prija the super creative, ambitious and extremely talented documentor of blogging the movie and the super brilliant SEO rockstar Neil Patel co-founder of ACS and CrazyEgg who sounded more articulate and insightful than Mark Cuban (not joking ask anyone) who I would personally like to thank for the words of wisdom and many SEO tips; hopefully I’ll see you in Orange County soon!
We would also like to send many thanks to Mr. Chow for inviting us to the John Chow Blogger Dinner which took place at Benihanna Japanese Steak House in the Hilton Hotel. The meal was spectacular but the company was tops!
Jeremy Schoemaker aka the notorious internet guru helping you gain “skills to pay the bills” Shoemoney was also in attendance for all of these shenanigans and rolled harder than I anticipated with his own personal sexy female bodyguards borrowed from UBD !! Jeremy, thank you so much for all the drinks and for showing us how you Nebraskin’s really party! I would love to share some of the details about all the crazyness and partying we got ourselves into (willingly or not) but I’m going to have to play the Vegas card right about now ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’. You should be able to estimate the kind of trouble we got into just by the company we were with and the photos I have posted.
All these photos were taken using my trusty Canon SD300; The Unoficial Bloggers Choice For Cameras.
Other great Blog World Articles from these individuals:
- Gary Lee: Blog World Expo Nights
- Ms Danielle: Too Legit to Quit: A BlogWorld Expo Review
- Zac Johnson: John Chow Blogger Dinner
- Darin.cc: Viva Las Vegas
- Blogging The Movie: Blog World Photos
- Shomoney: BlogWorld Wrap Up
Sorry this post was so late, but we wanted to do this post justice and give proper thanks and shout outs to all the people that contributed to our successful visit at the Las Vegas BlogWorld Expo 2007. See you all soon!
December 6th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Sweet write-up and photos! That was honestly one of the most fun times I have ever had. I can’t wait until we can all kick it again! Come down to AZ soon bro!
December 8th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Anthony,
I had a great time hanging out with you guys … and we will have to do it again!
Darin