Reflections on XOXO Fest: A Lesson In Bravery

Portland, Oregon hosted the 2nd annual XOXO Fest from Sept. 19th to the 22th. XOXO was originally born from a successful Kickstarter project created by Andy Baio and Andy McMillan.  The conference is all about “independence” – shining a spotlight on independent creators and how they have turned traditional creation, business, and publishing models on their heads.

Thanks to innovations like crowd funding, home production, and self-publishing, makers have complete creative control throughout the entire process without the pressures and politics of being a VC-funded startup or taking the “traditional” route.

Of course, to be a successful independent creator you need to have equal parts intelligence, creativity, business sense, and dedication. But that can be said about any person or company trying to make and sell things – regardless of how they’re doing it or how big or small they are. Yet, what truly sets the speakers and people that I encountered at XOXO apart from everyone else is their bravery.

These people are putting it all out there. They expose everything and risk it all without much of a safety net or backup plan. Take Jack Conte who began maxing out his credit cards just to create something he hoped some people would enjoy and support so he can continue making more. Or Max Temkin who created Cards Against Humanity (now the #1 selling game on Amazon) and stood in front of all us at XOXO and essentially told us he had no idea what he was doing, but he knew what he believed in and he had the courage to take that risk. Or the writers and game designers and drone makers who, by creating things for a small group of people they felt might care, ended up reaching so many more.

For these creators, nothing is really seen as a “loss.”  Rather, every turn for the worse is seen as merely a lesson to help them find a better way of doing things as they continue on. They have the guts to do the ridiculous, the beautiful, the radical, the funny, and the inspiring; and to trust that real people out there in the real world will love what they do.

As somebody who has spent her career at agencies that serve established market leaders that can be slow to react, I find this bravery and vulnerability extremely refreshing.  At smaller scales where every decision is magnified these makers have nothing to hide behind when things go wrong.  But they’re brave enough to do it anyway.