NYC Trip: Finovate (Day Two)
We’re winding down our first full day in NYC for the Finovate Conference. It’s been an action-packed one and our 7-minutes on stage are less than 24 hours away (actually less than 18 hours — we’re scheduled to demo at around 3 pm EST).
The highlight of the afternoon was actually getting to check out the venue and take the stage for a rehearsal. It’s a phenomenal looking space with big screens and all the work s everywhere. A lot of time and effort has clearly been put into the planning of this event. The list of companies with which we’ll be presenting includes some heavy hitters including Mint, which was recently acquired by Intuit. And the audience is comprised of execs from Citibank, ING Direct, Wells Fargo, and other banks as well as a number of venture capitalists and influential press. This will certainly be our biggest stage to date — an opportunity that we’ve worked hard to gain and intend to make the most of.
The rehearsal went off without a hitch, which we can only suppose is a good thing (we’re actually assuming that the rehearsal was a minor disaster so as to keep us honest for tomorrow). We’re well prepared on this end and, more importantly, our innovation stands out on its own. CentsCity has a look and feel that’s distinct and our potential value to financial service institutions is tremendous.
After rehearsal, we had the opportunity to have crepes with Heather Marold Thomason of Bad Feather and Andy Hieb of Dtek Digital Media. These two companies have played major roles in the design and execution of the Skill-Life.com and CentsCity.com sites. It was a rare opportunity to sit down with them face to face. We got to talk shop (we’ve just put to print another round of 2,000 CentsCity Passports and are initiating another phase of development on the CentsCity beta that will include the introduction of our first in-world mini-game — the Ducket Dash!). And, as it turns out, all of us have dogs that we love immensely. Go Wendell!
For much of the evening, we met up with folks at a Finovate happy hour. Among the most notables were John Waupsh and Gabriel Krajicek of BancVue and FirstRoi. These guys were full of energy and personality. They had some very interesting and insightful perspectives on the industry and CentsCity’s value to financial service institutions. They also insisted that they would be hands-down the best demo tomorrow (turns out they lobbied to bring a lion on stage with them and/or a choir to hum the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”). Of course, we then let them know that they were up against a giant in CentsCity and the Skill-Life team this year — they’d have to settle on being a great opening act!
Otherwise, it was a southern-cooking dinner for the Skill-Life team. No need for details there aside from saying we tried to keep it light as much as is possible when choosing from a menu on which mac & cheese is a vegetable.
Now, it’s getting in game mode. More to come.
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