from the crossroads of America in the hooer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovation happening in the Heartland today I'm Nate spangle head of community at pwder keg and I will be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in studio as always by CEO of elevate Ventures Christopher to day hello and Matt hunkler CEO of powder KAG that's me Invision rally is an open source experience an open source Festival on the show today we're going to unpack some secrets about hosting amazing in-person events those topics include how to get started with inperson events
differentiating your event from the noise and how to maintain momentum postevent gentlemen welcome to the show thank you sir let's roll I think the the first thing we need to hit on on is for our our visual listeners Watchers we have our first startup tea on Startup tea I'm going to say we are all repping rally if we were all attendees at rally to was a great presenter at rally as well as Matt and just want to say if you want to get your brand represented on a show send us three largest to 16 Tech address to pwder keger Nate and we will give you
guys a 30 second maybe a minute if you're one of the early ones we'll give you maybe a minute and a half shout out on the show I'm also rocking my new Sho day hat it's a what is it new shoe day NSD it is a nonprofit based here in Indie all focused on supporting positive mental health through movement I show awesome I show up to run Club every Wednesday 5:30 and my man Casey said dude take a hat I know you always wear a hat on the podcast I love it money shout out to Casey and new shoe though new shoe day new shoe
day cuz there's nothing like that feeling if you're a runner when you get those new shoes you're just like I'm ready to attack the world hey by the way have you ever heard of sakon the brand yes I have heard of s are you a fan I didn't know about this brand until I was just in Australia at this Global entrepreneurship Congress it's huge and I was with Mitch Frasier and Chelsea Linder and we're walking through this mall in Melbourne and Mitch Fraser went crazy because it was the first salony store fully branded store like a Nike store yeah salony store that he'd ever seen
and so we had to get some photo ops and he bought some paraphernalia is that his brand of choice yes his brand of choice he ran the marathon over there oh no heck yeah was an Anna HG as well you didn't hop in on that one I I didn't want to show anybody yeah that's fair that's fair so you were just at this what was it called Global entrepreneurship Congress Global entrepreneurship Congress how many attendees give us a little yeah they have about 2,000 attendees it happens every two years and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation um took over a big delegation which was awesome and
I was lucky enough to get invited and and so about 20 of us went over and had a big presence for Indiana for the United States and then the iedc did a big announcement at the end of GE Global entrepreneurship Congress that it's actually coming to Indiana in 20 in May of 2025 oh we're going to be the host of the global entrepreneurship Congress yeah IDC did a great job amazing EXC so coming back from an event right 2,000 people you're literally all the way like there was halfway across the world all the way across the world down under I think it's a great segue
right we're what um two months-ish month and a half out from Rally or out of rally and I just really wanted to dive in Matt you've hosted hundred maybe thousands of events at this point hundreds at this point and I think there's so much talk about hosting good events and how do you make your event not be like the networking event where you show up and sling out business cards and how do you stand out so to first year conference rally I want to go back to the beginning and we're going to give the listeners a few quick tips about going from zero to one
it's I have the idea for an event how do I bring an event a conference to life so what is the first thing to consider when it when wanting to dive into an event or a conference what did you guys consider as you thought about getting into the event space the first thing that came to my mind the came to my mind for rally was differentiation and the world's changed vastly in 20 years 10 years 5 years and it's just a different world out there and this whole idea of when you bring a company to market today this idea of sector or verticals and and
silos is dissipating quickly if not nearly gone and so this idea of cross- sector something different value ad takeaway value it just seemed like was missing and there's a lot of great conferences out there right like sas's awesome yeah but it's vertical focused and I've been dis saster many times but it's vertical focused and so it just felt being an entrepreneur for 30 almost 30 years in in eight sectors SE eight companies seven verticals I've experienced this personally and usually if you're thinking it's like the old thing if you're thinking something in a room probably everybody else is too everybody's just afraid to say it
yep that's right somebody just got to go first that's right I I think that there's there's some magic there too right if there's one thing we've learned on this show talking to so many different people from so many different vertical different types of technology different types of funding structures Y is that kind of cross-pollination it's a lot of the magic that like made Silicon Valley take off in the first place as a as one of the original Innovation hubs but now when you think about all these other Innovation hubs that are growing and scaling like right here in the Crossroads of America by the way
we're the 15th fastest growing VC ecosystem entrepreneur ecosystem in the world per pitch book just I just saw that this morning it's a huge win for Indiana Indianapolis the whole nine yards I don't think everybody knows that they don't yeah yeah yeah one of the best kept secret so that that's one of the things I I love about rally too is there's a lot of different wise yeah I like this the podcast maybe need a tagline the worst kept secret we're not keeping this a secret anymore we need to not keep keep it a secret we need to blow this thing up what were the
other wies that you had when considering doing rally there were several high level big things that crossed my mind one was this idea of cross- sector the second was this idea of desperate stakeholders and you go back to Brad feld's book what was that book called U startup Community startup community and now startup Community Way and all the follow on books yep and and I think it's it's easy to say or write about but we really as communities across the globe have to intentionally think about what does that really mean and what that I personally believe what that really means is disperate stakeholders there's many
different types of people that make Innovation happen that make entrepreneurial ecosystems communities happen and so it's not just entrepreneurs and the founders or CEOs of Corporations or investors there's a whole another Pool out there and that's our K through 12 teachers yeah that is foundations that are doing various things various things in ecosystem that is our higher education leaders and professors and entrepreneurial professors and Majors like how we rethink the majors that we have in higher education it's all of these different our legislators our Mayors our Governors our heads of Economic Development corporations all of these people have a role to play and I just
didn't see out there where is a place that convenes cross- sector desperate stakeholders one place one time massive takeaway value I'm going to give a shout out to our rally cast and a few of the founders that we interviewed on stage live at rally when asking them they were from Argentina Canada San Francisco and when I talked to them about what makes Indiana appealing to you why are you here why are you pitching at rally so many of them said yeah money is nice but what about the community I get to plug into and there were some research like science more scientific like biotactics their
CEO said we want to have access to research universities like IU Notre Dame Purdue and the access there in Indiana to have this true cross- sector of all these different stakeholders that are actually engaged in the startup Community is is impactful and in one degree of separation it's easy to get from point A to point B here and one thing I'll add just to like that impact Mitch Fraser talks about this we have the number one highest value human health company in the world Lily yeah that's right and we have the number two largest animal health company in the world in the they're literally a
quarter mile apart from each other yeah that's a Lano right yeah Lano yeah and it's so you got David Ricks leading one you got Jeff Simmons leading the other and they're literally within a quarter mile of each other and you start adding up what you just said Nate right IU all the talent at IU at Purdue Rose homman all of our great Ball State all of our great universities norre Dame Etc and with those types of corporate citizens that is real power yeah yeah I I think it one of the other things that was magical about this particular conference one it came together very very
quickly so a lot of people think you got to have years of planning and getting stakeholders together and making sure everyone feels good about it before we start making any kind of progress and one of the things that was really cool to see was just how quickly everyone at the table everyone came to the table and said we want to make this happen and I think part of the magic was another thing that Brad Feld says in his book startup communities obviously he has so much experience in helping grow the boulder startup ecosystem being a founder of techar is the largest accelerator program in the
world and the number one thing for startup communities is it has to be founder Le yeah and I think your past experience starting eight different companies in seven different vertical in seven different vertical really position you well in this role as CEO at Elevate to be a Founder but in a position where you can help Galvanize everyone together to come together and create something that was really magical over the the course of three days I I want to dive just quick pause Matt you didn't host a global cross- sector Innovation conference for your first event but what you said was in backf people think there's
so much planning what were you doing when you when you held your first event what were you what was the thing that took you from I want to bring people together to we're actually meeting yeah talk about that first event how many people showed up and what were you thinking about it was a little bit more humble beginnings than to's Road on on events I think we had all of maybe 12 to 15 people at our first event 12 to that's not nothing no and it's not just were they just like friends of yours that are like oh I'm interested in this or were there
12 people 12 to 15 people that were interested in a topic yeah I I think having common ground with people is a really great way to get Buy in and all 12 to 15 of these people identified as entrepreneurs and they were interested in technology some of the amazing things that are being built with software specifically and for me it was very self-serving I I just wanted feedback on my startup that I was frankly struggling with at the time I sold the business I started in college invested most of that in the next startup after paying off my student loans and was struggling to get
that business off the ground and so I was just like there are smart people out there that know know know things better than I do let me just get these people in a room I'll tell them I'll buy you a drink let's get together what was magical about that event is two other guys and it was guys because it was frankly the people I knew it was pretty male dominated for that first event but they were like hey you're getting these guys together why don't we what can I present what I'm doing and get some feedback as well so that's how that's literally how it
started and I didn't even think of it as an event I just thought of it as we're we're grabbing beers just so happened that there was a projector screen and three people who were pitching their startup and getting feedback so that brings me to this kind of a point what comes first the people or the programming when hosting a good event the people yeah 100% yeah it has to be the people because I'll push back the first thing you said was cross sector Global Innovation or Global cross sector and that seems like programming to me how I about the first thing came was people yeah
the first thing went through my mind was people it was like like so we have one of the largest cohorts of Port Co in the country maybe the world right we got 400 and so I I watched the needs of these entrepreneurs on a daily basis I lived it for 30 years and and then in this current Ro I I interact with a lot of leaders of different types of organizations right Economic Development corporations foundations etc etc and everyone is looking for connective tissue yep and they're looking for connective tissue cross sector yeah with disperate stakeholders yep and it's just a common theme that kept
occurring that's it was the people what was the first big win right so if it's people then what was the first Big Win For You bringing rally to life yeah so the first big win was I I went to a disperate stakeholder an Economic Development Corporation the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and said hey I've got this idea we we got to do something bigger I think it's a big gap and but we need help getting this thing off the ground we you help with funding and they got it right away and they said absolutely we're in and that that was the first step and I
I don't think either rally would have never happened or come about um or certainly wouldn't have been as big as it was in year one without that desperate stakeholder getting it stepping up to the plate and said we will help and support I do think that's something really unique about Indiana in particular and I promise this whole uh episode won't be an infomercial for Indiana maybe it will be but more than a decade ago I hosted my first conference here in the state of Indiana now it was one track it wasn't cross sector it was very focused on software technology was called Powder Keg we
we were and that's literally where the name came from was like how do we take all of these raw resources put it together for a multi-day conference and ignite the untapped potential that are in these kind of unal tech hubs yeah much smaller in scale 300 400 people but iedc signed on and said we want to support this and I didn't even think to ask them Yep this I had to have other people who were sponsoring the event be like you should really be talking to IDC because they could really get behind this and then once they did it was like the scale complet completely
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Alden and his team they will take care of all your video needs so I want to share some numbers real quick I want to credit David Adams who's just an incredible individual he ran perf and turf for a number of years and that became impers and then he went to Cincinnati by the way before that he was with a unicorn before they were ever called unicorns nice and then he went over to and set up 400,000 ft of innovation space came back was over worked for development here Etc just an amazing individual and so we were talking and he was sharing some Stanford statistics and
so Stanford right incredible University highly Innovative Tech transfer all these things right over since Inception there's been 6,000 companies um I I I hope I have these stats right so forgive me if I'm wrong but very close we'll fact check in that six 6,000 companies that have spun out of Stanford in the last since Inception of when they started doing this 23% 1,440 check my math 1,440 roughly of those companies ever made a dollar oh my gosh 53 have made over a million dollars in Revenue so this is a long-term game yep and so the the economic development groups our our governmental bodies Our foundations
etc etc our universities we need to we have to understand that to build an entrepreneural ecosystem a strong Community it is a longterm game that that's my other big takeaway from Brad's book I know we keep calling that out but he studied so many startup communities and one of the top things he said for any entrepreneurial ecosystem you have to have a 20 plus year yeah view yep and I think largely we might only be into it here 15ish plus of like real concentrated effort yeah years our first event wasn't until 11 12 years ago yeah no maybe it was 14 years ago at this
point yeah you didn't call an event then it was just grabbing beers that's true speaking of which can I touch on that real quick event conference event uh Summit experience what are these things MH I think that's also Up For Debate yeah I don't think there will be a rally conference much longer or even in year two I think the word conference maybe we should stricken that word I think it's old school yeah it is old the way we innovate today is it's very vibrant it's very it's very fluid yeah conference feels a little static it feels like you're sitting in it just feels a
little static it feels a little old school if you're looking for someone to run the music festival piece of rally in the future yeah I might I might be able to book some talent for you let's roll step it up seriously another piece we're because no one says South by Southwest Conference they did I feel like people did say a little bit rally conference or going to or the rally which was really interesting and kind of I didn't hear that one I'm going to the rally and I was like oh okay pretty cool the but I think that all that what makes it what in
my mind from the 26y old perspective it's like South by Southwest I think of the there like some people don't even think of it as a like business e conference there's the music and the movies and because it started I think with music started with the Arts it started with the Arts yeah and then and the other stuff came in years later interactive later and now it's a f I think of it as a festival Festival yeah which is really that's fun for them and I've heard great things I haven't made it down but I think I'm going to go this March and check it
out and and go down there and we got to get you down there yeah I mean I've heard it's a good time boys at the Midwest house we post it up Yep this is more of a tactical one but were you talking about events conferences Summits the list goes on and on it's crowded especially getting people to your I'm GNA say that to your Suare right how do you get people what's your number one tip or couple tips or strategies to get people to show up because that's hard every every two days it's feel like new invite for this new invite for that how do
you get people to show up to your event I think we touched on it a little bit which is starting with the why like why show up why are we doing this why this event why now and if you don't answer those questions people aren't going to show up and I think one of the things that we can talk about marketing tactics and things like that I think R to a tremendous job with that but I think you can't all the best marketing tactics in the world won't work if you don't have the Y down and like your key messaging first you can have a
Tik Tok video go viral and put Powder Keg pitch Knight at the end but if it's not compelling and there's not supporting content as to like why come to this people aren't going to show up and so the I do think starting with the why is probably the most important thing and very frequently unfortunately in startup land people can like skip over that part the why just because startups I would say that's not a compelling why right it's not differentiated to to your point to you have to be def differentiated and say this doesn't exist yet yeah or it doesn't exist yet here that that's
part of how powder Kake came to be I was spending a lot of time on the west coast in New York and when we started really ramping up our pitch events I was getting a lot of inspiration from other markets where this stuff had maybe been going on I was in this ecosystem before you were right just age different yeah and I don't recall anything like what you started existing no before you started no it absolutely didn't and there's a group called hackers and Founders out in the Bay Area still being run by Jonathan Nelson out there and we were largely influenced by that let's
get the people building stuff the hackers quote unquote and the founders the people who are the CEOs and now those two people aren't it's not always it's not always two different people but that was a lot of the growth of the ecosystem came when we adopted that mentality of okay let's Bren this Beyond entrepreneurs and start like inviting Builders into the room and then eventually because those people were there guess who started to show up investors right because if this is where things are happening on the ground floor that's right where do you want to be if you're an investor you want to be on
the ground floor or you want to be trying to get into the round of funding yeah when it's too late and and not only meeting those people then also with the time savings you can go there in one night in 2 three hours and meet a dozen and like legitimately meet and have a chance to with a dozen people that would take you 3 months to try to schedule those coffee chats and this that and the other yeah I think that is a key thing to remember when you're being invited to events is yes you the initial Buy in is like the programming or the
person but there's it's like the iceberg right that's the little like 10% at the top but going to these events going to these conferences going to these whatever you want to call them right it's all the value happens like down Downstream below the surface in my opinion like just from going to a bunch of events it's the creative collisions yeah there's the there we go and I think our why in the early days before before we were even had 100 attendees during that first year I think the why was how do we make Indianapolis a place where it's fun collaborative and easier to start high
growth Venture scale startups yep and everyone got behind that and it wasn't just about them even though it started in a very self in a very selfish way of I wanted to pitch my startup and get feedback beyond that it was really hey I'm going to show up to this event and I'm going to get something out of it but the real why is I want to help my community yeah I love that Matt and and the way I think about rally is the concept of Open Source Code yeah when that started coming around and people like oh that's crazy open source code like why
would you do that for those that don't know what open source code is can you probably can do a better definition of it well open source is really cool because it's like the intersection of technology and Community yeah and open source is literally rather than a a technology being proprietary and a wall Garden where people don't really know what's going on and you have to pay to play open source is a collaborative concept where at least if you're thinking of like a software language or you're thinking a platform like WordPress is open source that means a whole community of technologists and Builders can contribute and
help make this a big better yeah yeah it's moving faster it's like the old days of Wikipedia was that like one of the original like open sources where everyone from open source content could just put exactly which by the way was started by an Indiana iug grad no way yeah found wikkipedia do you remember who I'm blanking on the name right now that's awesome but Nate's looking it up and I'm I'm going to be kicking myself the moment I I think I remember hear that actually yeah Jimmy Wales or Larry Sanger Jimmy Wales I ugrad all right well I'll I'll shoot him a d I
think I'm getting that right that's awesome but I I know I know he was he spoke down at the combine once which was a Bloomington Indiana conference that's been going for a few years that's great okay so so I want to draw a correlation real quick open source yeah let him finish open source I I stole the mic so the that's all good so the the same concept and when did that start 20 years which thing so open source code kind of Open Source Code really take off that's a great question it's been a while right yeah it's been it's a concept that's definitely been
around for a while it's been around for a long time the the concept back of community everybody can move fast more efficiently better and so that's how I Envision rally so Envision rally is an open-source experience an open source festival and and we already experienced this in the first year but rally is specifically built so if you have a your own brand your own event or conference or Summit or whatever it might be and you want that to be open sourced and part of something bigger if you're listening to this come on you're invited and and we're not trying we're not asking you to give
up your brand and so we already had this happen in year one where iwit where IA generators ad conference they all plugged into rally and we're part of our awards ceremony your awards for the powder Kake Awards which we did on our own for a number of years yeah so all those people plugging into something even bigger it just makes everything better yeah and so I've never been a fan of Thoms or people who want to maintain control at all costs that will suffocate anything good faster than anything than anything else I think this is the biggest challenge in Tech communities today Tech startup Innovation
communities today y having visited hundreds of communities not just in the US but worldwide the Thoms and Thoms is the biggest barrier to really unlocking growth yes in a community the people who have the power in the community don't open it up because they want to try to maintain control which is just impossible long term in a startup Community it's going to fail for sure sure it's just matter when is it tomorrow or next year exactly exactly right because that's not the age we're living in we're living in the age of the internet yep you don't need permission to make stuff happen you don't need
permission to host an event yeah you can just do it that's right and I love that about rally I think that is unlike any conference Festival whatever you want to call it that I've ever attended just how collaborative it wasn't just collaborative hey I if you want to do this you proactively and I see you the Royal you the Elevate team was proactive about saying hey high alpha do you want to be a part of this how do you want to contribute I would how do you want to contribute IA how do you want to we want you involved I thought that was really powerful
and and um compelling yeah I I I um I don't know how to operate any other way yeah I just don't um it's too hard to operate with your arms folded and your lips pursed it just is right think that there's something in human nature though that it's like you almost have to evolve past I I think humans haven't evolved past it yet let go of some predetermined unknown fear yeah I won't I think it's our primate or like lizard that's fight or flight yeah you think back even 150 years ago it's this is my land like I can't if you come onto my land
now I can't eat this winter and it's just I and so I don't want to dismiss it that's literally what it is it's like that concept of trying to constrain resources is like it's in our genes it's genetic but it's for a very different time we we are living in a Land of abundance right now in which open source code was started in 1998 there you go in case you years really hung up on that and was that was that a stat you looked up on Wikipedia no I just know that in the back of my yeah actually I do have Wikipedia up and I
looked up the founder of Wikipedia on Wikipedia and then I looked up wind did open source cord so 19 19 what did you say 19 98 so 1998 open source code was was founded and in 20 2023 the idea of Open Source events 25 years later 25 years later let's put that on Wikipedia was opened open source events let's talk about that then you're a year or what we are just passed but we said six weeks passed but the idea was probably around a year maybe a little less than a year from idea to activation less than a year so idea first conversation to go
time to to walk on stage was 10 months I should actually 10 months was 10 months the actual the the real Outreach um outside the community didn't start until late February March because we didn't have a website that's yeah so that's six months yeah okay six months in in the go time let's talk about for maybe there's other Community Builders that want to host an event a conference an experience what is and Matt for you as well what's a mistake that was made that if you could guide someone who's who's hosting a conference like hey I messed this up fix it like do this differently
I'll go first we doing a 4our podcast today where do I start where do I start no sorry go ahead T you got something I won't forget mine you go I would say probably my biggest mistake I made early on was just like oh yeah if you know me and we've met you should come and I wasn't as intentional about what you did with reality which is going to different stakeholders and groups now granted there weren't really that many groups in Indiana when we started hosting events but I could have been more intentional about saying how do I find more people who don't look exactly
like me how do I be more intentional about filling the room with getting outside of my immediate circle and asking more people to get into their circles and get outside of their circles and there was a time period where I had the AHA because a couple people who came to the events were like hey you ever noticed that there's not many women here at this event yeah I was like yeah I get that but what do you want me to do about it because I was a young 20s something I didn't know those young 20 something they're the worst those guys gals but it it
was really like looking in the mirror and being like okay yeah we are like hosting these events at that time it was like a keg in Solo cups cuz that was a cheap way to to get beer and it was exploding like hundreds of people were coming and I was making orell salary and trying to cover the tab for beers I'm like oh I'm just going to get a keg and some Solo cups it starts to look a lot like a party and that isn't necessarily A welcoming environment for everybody and so just making a few tweaks around being intentional about saying hey everybody is
welcome to this at at that point in time we were really hosting community events and being intentional about saying hey we want to get different people like plugged into Tech and plugged into entrepreneurship opportunities there the stage is big enough for everybody and just being a little bit intentional and that's now in the fabric of our DNA at powderkeg lit literally built into our core values at powderkeg and our culture but there was a time where it wasn't and it was just very not intentional it was just it was organic and I think that's okay to let those things happen you don't want to slow
down growth artificially but I would say that was my biggest mistake from day one was being intentional about getting diverse perspectives and and diversity in the room and now almost 15 years later obviously there's tons of research that shows how that's beneficial to Innovation having different pers perspectives is one of the most valuable things that you can have on a team in order to grow in scale as long as it's an inclusive environment diversity I I think that's a great way or a great lesson learned early on to what do you got I think sometimes when things are so clear in your mind um it's
easy to make the assumption that it will just be clear in everyone's mind and and when you're dealing with a short timeline um and you're so deeply driven by just passion you know you can go a little too fast for some stakeholders MH and and you just make the assumption that this is why this is going to be the world's largest cross- sector Innovation like event conference experience Festival we're GNA figure that word out here sare Nate sticking with sare you might have something there Nate um but like the why that's why it's a cross- sector for stakeholders creative collisions like bam let's roll and
and not everybody necessarily thinks that way or agrees with that and you try your best and what we said early on was hey we we use the word startup you got to think of this as a startup MH we are going to make mistakes people might get upset none of that is intentional and hey if you're upset just pick up the phone call it's all good yeah right and we'll try to accommodate whatever and then yeah I I would say that's that's probably the that's probably the biggest I think that's good less good learnings especially people that are moving fast that's just for Visionary CEOs
in general right sometimes it might be clear up in your head but you're moving fast and thinking it's just oh it should be self-explanatory to a lot of people it's not always that way I was about to say the same thing I I feel like I continue to learn that lesson over and over as a startup and by the way through the experience holy cow we had stakeholders come out of the woodwork and hey how about this how about that like great idea great idea boom incorporate we are I think I was about to just d click on that all of our best ideas at
powder cake came from the community 100% and that kind of attitude is really exciting because that's how you can build serious momentum yeah at pwder cake events we introduced the slow clap that just happened organically one time like someone hit their time while they were pitching and someone in the audience just starts that is awesome I know that yeah I didn't start doing that that was like just totally a community do you remember who that was I don't remember that was we need to bring that back I'm pretty sure it was a developer who was just like yeah I'm over this I love it guys
I switched up the lightning round today we're going to be super quick we're going to go to mat to Matt yeah you like that it's all about events bucket list or sorry lightning round all about events I like bucket list who is a bucket list event speaker for you that you haven't had already Michael Jordan bang Matt that's on my bucket list too no you can't copy Michael Jordan no retweets by the way Michael if you're listening MJ don't let all those Pacers games deter you Michael Jordan's a good one bucketless speaker John melan camp O he could get in Indiana got Matt bucket list
event venue bucket list event ven there is a new venue that just opened in Las Vegas that was like co-designed by you two it's literally built for music are you talking about the sphere it's the sphere yeah so many big arena tours can only go in like football stadiums but you having just gone to the Taylor Swift tour down in Nashville awesome experience Acoustics are terrible like you like it that venue is not where the Titans play is not built for music Yep this thing that YouTube created I think there's like thousands of speakers in there and there's like literally a 360 spherical LCD dope
it's crazy look it up I'll link something in the show this is awesome that's definitely my dream venue to dream event menu bucket list event menu you know I was going to say you mean to to host an event at to host an event at I'm just going to say the moon hell yeah let's go you totally Trump me with that one okay final the Moon Final question of the Lightning by the way there's a company in Austin Texas that's building they're trying to figure out right now how to use materials from the Moon is that called SpaceX no to build uh just on 60
Minutes did you see this I didn't see it it's amazing did you just say it's on 60 people still watch 60 minutes I was sitting there all right and final question of the light no no one my age watches 60 minutes but that's like the ultimate Sunday scary by the way minutes is beyond your attention it's the first 60 Minutes I probably watched in 5 years there go but I saw something cool come on you're building stuff on the Moon besides to besides your besides rally what is a must attend event the Super Bowl I love that absolutely I agree besides powder cake pitch night
Matt what is a must attend event don't say rally it's tough because you can't really get tickets right now at least for this year but pay attention for when tickets go on sale amazing event called tonic ball it's hosted in Fountain Square in Indianapolis it's literally I think four or five different music venues you can just hop between the Hi-Fi the White Rabbit radio and each stage is dedicated to an artist so like this year like Prince is one of the artists and I'm blank on what the other artists are but you see all of these kind of like locally regionally famous bands playing the
music of Prince or playing the music of like last year was Jimmy Hendrick at Radio just an amazing event and all the money from ticket sales goes to Second helpings just an amazing nonprofit here in Indianapolis awesome helping people fight hunger perfect tonic ball got to go gentlemen thank you for the for the time it was fun unpacking a little bit into the minds of two events organizers we're going to call event we're going to think of a I prefer just be called on that front my my focus is Elevate right pushing this ecosystem forward so just rally I'm going to sneak in one last
question one last question um how can people support the rally Suare and get involved yeah several ways so number one planning has already started for 2024 so be watching out for applying to be a speaker be watching out if you're a Founder entrepreneur be watching out for when you can apply for the pitch competition if you host an event or a Suare or a whatever it might be of any type or sort around cross- sector Innovation then we would love to have invite you to hold that within rally to make it all bigger and to raise your profile so feel free to reach out on
that front as well and then we want to spool up the music scene at rally and we would love to try to start that next year and it's just bandwidth so any volunteers that want to take and launch that component of it me on that board Sweet Water has reached out and and they want to see how they can get more involved there's a lot of if you're listening we're open to this we're excited about it so dates August 27th through the 29th 2024 mark your calendar you can go by early bird prices are available check out rally innovation.com check out the shirts get there
get in on rally the early bird prices are obscene too so like I think the price just went up October 1 now Now's the Time it's true just keep going up we did a 30 30-day crazy talk and I'm like I don't know if they should have I don't know that's pretty low but what is it now look real real time I clicked to 19940 149 that's student so 299 that's student 299 regular pric is $9.99 get there get in on rally gentlemen thanks for the time this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear
from you if you have suggestions for a guest or a segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder.com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered casted is the first and only podcast
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