Pragmatic Paddy

On Wednesday I went to the Waldorf Astoria to hang out in the lobby and meet people going to the money:tech conference. This was a $3000 conference, and being the founder of a growing start-up, I couldn’t afford the $3000 ticket, nor could any of my friends get me in for free. So, my idea was to hang out in the lobby – otherwise known as “lobby coning” – in hopes of finding people heading to offsite meetings (read: bars) where real business happens. I also wanted meet other people running finTech startups.

As soon as I walked in, I saw someone with a Money:Tech name tag. I walked up to him to introduce myself, when he asked: “Are you Jonah?” To which, I replied: “No, I’m not.” I proceeded to give him my pitch and explained that I’m not actually in the conference. He said, “Oh, you really should come.” I thought to myself “Dick, does it look like I’m in a position to spend $3k on this conference?” He was smug.

So I plopped myself down in what I thought was the lobby of the WA, and after looking around a bit, I realized that there were about 4 entrances to the hotel. Thus I would only have a 1/4 chance of meeting people. I chose a spot with access to WIFI, and out of boredom and curiosity, looked up ‘conference crashing.’ That’s when I discovered that the term for what I am doing is ‘lobby conning.’

Then I see Jim Cramer walk through the lobby – he’s a true celebrity to me. I got up and introduced myself to him. He was very nice, and actually soft spoken. He said he will check out chartWidget.

That was quite a high for me. The rest of the morning was uneventful, there weren’t large groups of people hanging out in the lobby. I also realized that since most of the finance people at the conference live in New York, they won’t be going out to bars after the conference, they would be going home. I was getting a bit down by lunch, because I hadn’t really met anyone else. I went out to grab food.