Side Hustles
FinCon 2024 Recap: Returning to the Conference After 5 Years
It’s hard to believe but, prior to the last week, it had been five long years since I attended a FinCon event in person. After going to my first event in 2018, I attended the 2019 conference in Washington D.C. — and then, well, you know. Even though FinCon had since returned, I was unable to attend subsequent events for one reason or another. But, finally, I made sure that I’d be in Atlanta for the 2024 edition.
So how was my first real FinCon experience in half a decade? Let’s get into it.
Recapping My FinCon 2024 Experience
The sessions
Before heading to ATL, I shared my list of the top sessions I was looking forward to. Well, thanks to scheduling, I was not only able to attend most of those but managed to add a few others as well. And while I won’t go into detail about each and every one of them, I did want to mark some highlights.
One of the ones I wanted to mention was Saturday’s chat on a recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau circular and what it means for creators. Specifically, those guidelines pertain to financial product aggregator tools and call out particular practices. Being unfamiliar with this update, I was happy to be enlightened about the CFPB’s guidelines and will definitely be scrutinizing platforms in the future (especially before partnering with them).
Another highlight (as expected) was the “Content Not Clickbait” session, which featured a discussion with Yanely Espinal. As it turns out, this convo was more about social media content, but the lessons definitely still apply to long-form video as well as blog posts.
For many of the talks, I came away with at least one idea (or nagging reminder) to carry with me. Thus, none of the sessions I attended felt like a waste of time. To me, that certainly sounds like the measure of a successful conference.
Making connections
Here’s the thing: I’m a certified introvert. Because of this, it is admittedly difficult for me to break out of my shell and take advantage of all that FinCon has to offer. Part of the problem is that, even if I do strike up a conversation with someone, once we cover the required “what do you do?” topic, I don’t really know where to go from there.
That’s one of the reasons why I truly appreciate the themed Community Meetups that FinCon schedules. Namely, the YouTubers get-together immediately gave me something to talk to my fellow attendees about. In fact, I walked away from this gathering with some new ideas and a few channels to follow.
I found similar results with the Creator Conversation sessions. Although these may have seemed like regular talks and were headed by a speaker, they also encouraged small group discussions. Again, having a specific topic to chat about made it much easier for me to talk to others and find common ground. Alas, I only ended up attending one of these Creator Conversations — but I’ll be sure to change that next time around.
FinCon Central
I’ve previously noted that FinCon Central has been my favorite part of each event. Sure enough, that held true again this year. As someone who reviews FinTech apps and platforms on a regular basis, being able to not only discover new tools but also chat with some of the people behind them is honestly a godsend. In particular, I love hearing from the creators themselves what about their app sets it apart from other offerings.
Needless to say, coming from the event, I now have a fresh list of tools I’ll be checking out and reviewing in the weeks/months ahead.
Exploring the city
As I mentioned in my preview of the event, despite spending countless hours at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport over the years, I haven’t had much of a chance to see the city itself. Luckily, that changed thanks to this trip. In addition to seeing the Downtown area near FinCon’s host hotel, my friend who lives in town was able to whisk me away to other parts of the Atlanta area. This was a ton of fun and made the whole event even more worthwhile.
With next year’s FinCon set to take place in Portland, Oregon, I’m already looking forward to visiting that city once again (the last time I was there was in high school — and also happened to be for a conference). This is why, while I know some attendees would prefer the event to be held in the same place each time, I personally love that it moves around the country, giving me a chance to check out more domestic locales.
Overall, my return to FinCon proved to be quite a success. Coming away from the conference, I have plenty of fresh ideas and, specifically, some new tools to review. Looking ahead, though, I really wish I were more outgoing and able to navigate social conversations that could help find future collaborators. So, when I do find myself at FinCon 2025 in Portland, I’ll be watching out for more Creator Conversations and Community Meetups.
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