Four years later, I still laugh thinking about the first @SMB_ash. We almost held it in one of those generic hotel conference rooms. You know the kind: fluorescent lights, beige walls, crappy coffee, and a room that feels like every conference you’ve ever attended. Instead, after nearly a month of searching, we stumbled onto a 2nd-floor speakeasy overlooking the bar scene in downtown Orlando. It was perfect. We rented couches, chairs, and enough seating for about 100 people. We built a makeshift stage. Then 125 people showed up. This was still the COVID era, so let’s just say I’m glad the fire marshal wasn’t counting too carefully! What I remember most was the bar sitting literally beside the main seating area. On the first afternoon, we asked the bartenders to start passing drinks to everyone—attendees and speakers included. I believe @BillDA and @kelceylehrich were on stage. The stories became a little less filtered. The laughs got a LOT louder. People stopped acting like conference attendees and started acting like old friends. That was the moment it hit me: We hadn’t built a conference. We had built a reunion for people who had never actually met IRL. Back then, the self-funded ETA / SMB community was still small, but it was exploding online. COVID had forced everyone home, and many of us were getting to know one another through @X (then known as Twitter ... oh the good ol days). Searchers, operators, investors, lenders, and aspiring business owners were sharing deals, lessons, mistakes, and advice. Some of us had built real friendships without ever shaking hands. A little-known detail about the name SMBash. Most people assume the event was named only after the SMB community. That was part of it... But “SMB” also happened to be the initials of the three original founders: Sam. Matt (@MatthewGHinson). Brandon (@laughridge). Looking back at the attendee list from that first SMBash is surreal! Many of the people who would become OGs of the modern self-funded ETA community were in that little speakeasy, introducing themselves to each other for the first time. @StrongpointRich. @CTW_SMB. @MikeBotkin_. @steveressler. @girdley. AJ Wasserstein. @WilsonCompanies. @darylbstarr. @J_M_Vogt. @LisaGForrest. @guessworkinvest. @chasemurdock. @nickfedele. @aebridgeman. Palmer Higgins. And many others I’m undoubtedly forgetting. At the time, they weren’t “the OGs.” They were just people obsessed with buying and building great small businesses, sharing ideas freely, and helping each other figure it out. None of us knew how much the community—or the broader ETA ecosystem—was about to grow. SMBash did not create the movement. The movement was already building online. But I do believe it was one of the early moments when that online community became a real-life community. And many of those relationships from the early days of SMBx/SMBash still exist today. Hearing this week that @BrentBeshore and his team are winding down Main Street Summit and Capital Camp made me nostalgic for that era. Running events is brutally hard. The economics often do not justify the months of planning, financial risk, logistics, and emotional energy required to create a great gathering. That is why I have so much respect for Brent and his team, @moseskagan with Reconvene, and every organizer who has taken on the work of bringing entrepreneurs together. The agenda matters. So do the speakers. But the real magic usually happens somewhere else: In the hallway after a session. At a dinner that runs three hours longer than planned. At the hotel bar. Or, in our case, inside an overcrowded speakeasy in Orlando, where 125 internet friends packed into a room built for 100, and helped turn an online network into a real community. I’m grateful to Matt and Brandon for taking that leap with me. And for @KHendersonCo & @TwoTeesSMB & @honestlytara84 for keeping it alive. And I’m grateful to everyone who showed up to that first SMBash and helped create something none of us fully understood at the time. Communities do not build themselves. They happen because people decide the relationships are worth the work. And four years later, that is still the part I’m most proud of. If you were there, I’d love to hear what you remember...