Double Your Freelancing Conference: Europe 2016

Experience at Double Your Freelancing Conference (by Thomas Smale)

Last weekend, June 22-25, I attended the inaugural Double Your Freelancing Conference: Europe in Stockholm. Bringing together 100 of the world’s most talented freelancers, Brennan Dunn succeeded in organizing an amazing experience. The 4-day event was hosted at the sophisticated Japanese resort, Yasuragi Hasseludden. There were 10 headline speakers, 6 attendee talks, and 2 days packed with presentations all there to master the business behind freelance consulting.

The event was sponsored by Drip, ProjectPuzzle, Chris Lema, Nusii, DonorsClicks, Smashing Magazine, Startups For the Rest Of Us and Pepsi.

The venue really shaped a unique conference experience. The view was amazing.
DYFBlogPost(7)The spa provided robes for everyone to wear, which they did. Having a conference where everyone was wearing a robe, broke down the usual conference-going boundaries. It opened up lighter conversations for networking and generally made the event more fun for everyone. For instance, we all played a game called Werewolf. I found to be a great idea for conferences where people weren’t familiar with each other. Many people at the conference had just met for the first time.

Prior to the conference, I was in contact with Brennan Dunn, founder of DYF and Kai Davis, founder of Double Your Audience. We had exchanged emails in the past and met briefly, but it was great to spend more time with them in person.

Julie Elster gave an interesting talk on applying onboarding strategies for freelancers to a larger company, like FE International. I learned what apples at a freelance level can also apply to a team of 20.

Here are some glances of the talks that were presented:

Austin Church, Attracting Better ClientsAustin Church, “Attracting Better Clients”

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Make Money Online podcast live broadcast with Nick Disabato, Kai Davis and guest Kurt Elster

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Reuven Lerner, “Technical Training: The Ultimate Productized Service”

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Kurt Elster, Jane Portman, Kai Davis, Nick Disabato

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Matt Inglot, “Increase Your Client Value by Following-Up”

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Brennan Dunn and Kai Davis

Closing Thoughts

This was a truly delightful and exceptional experience. I made some new friends, gained relevant insight to our business and can’t wait for the next DYF event. I would love to speak and share some of my experiences in the future with other DYFers and how they can be applied to freelancers or people in the early process of growing their business.

Will definitely be back next year!