Why Introverts Should Go to Conferences

Back in October 2025, I wrote you a really long post about how I was approaching attending a conference during the middle of a big work push. I was extremely stressed out and anxious because large crowds overwhelm me and so does travel, even if it's a short distance.

I promised to provide an update on my experience and so here I am a few months later with one. To say going to DC Start Up and Tech Week was worth it is the understatement of the century.

Here are a few of things I learned from this experience that I'll carry with me to my next conference:

1. I just have to accept that travel outside of my normal routines gives me anxiety. Once I actually got on the train to DC, everything was fine. But the anticipation of making the train and not missing it due to time blindness is real. And yes, I have missed the train before and it sucks. There's not a lot I can do about this anxiety other than accept it and know that it will go away the moment I'm on my way to getting to where I'm going.
2. Attend talks on subjects where you know you can be helpful. I went to a talk on intellectual property for startups, something I'm intimately familiar and I was able to field some of the audience questions better than the presenter. After the talk ended, tons of people came to talk to me and I made new connections and a couple of sales leads.
3. It's perfectly fine to take a minute. Conferences are wildly overstimulating. Luckily, this one had outdoor spaces and the weather was relatively nice so I took a few minutes every couple of hours to go outside, sit in the sun, and breathe deeply.
4. Have contingency plans for food and travel. Each day of the conference I attended, I packed snacks and a sandwich in case the food options sucked and I knew all the train times between 3:30pm and 8pm so I could plan my leave accordingly.
5. If there's a subsection/group of the conference you can participate in, do it. One of my friends runs what is essentially a conference within the conference for black folks in the ecosystem. I attended the big conference for one day, but the rest of the days I went to the smaller conference. It was one room of people instead of a building full of folks, which allowed me to make deeper 1:1 connections and be less overwhelmed.
6. People will talk to you even if you don't want them to. Honestly, you can be as awkward as you want to at a conference. You can stand in the corner staring at your feet and someone will come strike up a conversation with you. So if you're introverted and/or meeting new people gives you anxiety, trust that folks will find you. Turns out there's always some extrovert out there looking to take an introvert under their wing, lol.

As for what I got out of the conference, well that's a whole other story.

The Benefits of Going to a Conference

Like I mentioned above, I chose to go to talks where I could field questions from the audience. That got me on people's radar even though I wasn't a speaker, I had some good conversations. But the real magic happened at the conference within a conference. That's where my speaking gig was and it's where I did the most contact information exchanging.

Here are some of the biggest benefits I've clocked so far:

1. I connected with so many like-minded folks that I had a call with someone every week about potential business opportunities from the beginning of November to the week before Christmas. I still have some follow up calls with folks to discuss how we'll work together this year. I know I'll be able to trace some of my revenue this year directly to this conference.
2. I'm tapped into a national network. I exchanged contact info with folks all over the states and we reach out to each other when we need help. There's now a larger circle of people who have my back professionally and that feels good.
3. I got so many ideas. It turns out talking to people gets your creative juices flowing and a lot of the conversations I had during that conference and after are shaping how I'm approaching my business this year and what I'm offering.

The Day After Hangover

Overall, I attended 3 days of a 5 day conference and by the end of day 3 I was ready to go home and be nonverbal for a few days. I took a long bath, put on my wearable blanket, and proceeded to become one with my couch for a few days.

Next time I'll have to do a better job of building in a week of recovery post conference where I don't have any meetings so I can rest and integrate properly.

My Conference Plans for 2026

My goal this year is to attend three conference, even if it's a one day summit. Now that I know how much I can get out of them, it feels like an important experience and networking opportunity.

I know I'll go to DC Startup and Tech Week again because it's close to me and it's affordable.

If I can make it work financially, I'd love to go to SXSW. I've been invited to speak again by the folks who run the conference within a conference. I'd love to see what people are up to at SXSW since I haven't gone since 2014 when I lived in Austin. It'd also be a great opportunity to connect with more tech founders who I'm starting to work with more in an advisory role these days.

The last conference is yet to be discovered by me so we'll see what and who I cross paths with and where it takes me. Overall, I'm excited to continue my quest to put myself back out there after a long hiatus and 3 conferences feels doable without being super overwhelming.