Most people leave a conference with a stack of business cards and nothing to show for it. Larry Chiang’s rule for conferences is blunt: attack the money, not the follow. He lays that logic out on video: spend a little, make more, and let that one transaction double as your marketing, sales, and distribution.
He is not chasing a sugar daddy in the room, meaning he is not hunting for likes, shares, or a viral moment from the stage. He is hunting for the person who can sign something before the coffee gets cold. Before he ever walks the floor, he runs PQRST: preview the speaker list and exhibitor map, question what he does not know about the room, and flag his fuzzy points so he is not guessing live.
He also treats the conference itself as an External API, he did not build the crowd, the organizers did, so he plugs his pitch into their distribution instead of throwing his own event. Austin Tech Week is a real test of this, it runs Oct 26-30, 2026, based out of Capital Factory at 701 Brazos St.
A room like that is packed with founders and buyers who already showed up ready to talk business, which is the whole point of an External API. Larry says karma is trackable in a setting like this too, a fast thank-you note after a good conversation keeps the door open longer than a follow-up email ever does.
He credits a thank-you note with landing Nike as a sponsor, by his own account, and treats every conference contact the same way. The goal walking out is not a fuller card holder, it is a next step with a date attached.
Details: Check Austin Tech Week’s schedule · 701 Brazos St, Austin, TX 78701
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