Late in 2006 Mark Daoust, received a call from a good friend and fellow entrepreneur who was considering selling his 8-year-old web hosting website. Just 10 months prior Mark had sold his own profitable website and was looking for a new direction. Quiet Light was founded with this phone call.

Fast forward a few years and Quiet Light is now a leading player in the business of selling and buying profitable online businesses and have sold over 600 online businesses with over $300,000,000 in total transaction value. In 2022 they sold over 100 companies.

Even though they’re recognized as one of the most successful M&A advisors in the marketplace, Quiet Light still take an attitude of continual improvement to their processes. This is where BoS and Quiet Light make magic.

Alex Osterwalder is probably best known as the creator of the Business Model Canvas and is undoubtably one of the world’s leading thinkers, experts and practitioners on business strategy and innovation. You might not think of him as an apprentice CEO.

One of the defining characteristics of the most successful entrepreneurs is their commitment to learning and growth and Alex is no exception.

In this online session, Alex spoke about his journey from well known author and speaker to what he describes as being a ‘real’ entrepreneur over the past 10 years.

He discussed what he feels are the most important aspects of his leadership journey and the five things he consider most important in his path to becoming the leader of a self-funded, fully remote, software company employing over 50 people. He discussed:

• Coaching
• Emotional Literacy
• Three Books That Shaped Alex Osterwalder’s Approach to Leadership
• Organisation Structure
• Explore and Exploit – OKRs vs AKIs

We’re sharing some notes below but if you want to watch the talk when it is published, you need to get on the BoS newsletter and you will be the first to know.

Meanwhile, you can watch Alex Osterwalder’s talks from previous BoS Conferences.

Sounds like a witch’s brew but is in fact our first selection of Europe speakers for 2023!

I was an avid traveler, lived on the road and full time RV’d with my family – building our business, schooling kids, & living as cheaply as possible. Full stop March 2020.

I’ve admittedly been afraid to leave the house since. I’ve been working up the courage recently, but found many excuses not to travel – even to nearby cities. I’ve attended BoS online conferences since 2020 and they have forever changed the way we work and run our business; the talks are welcoming, intimate, and – most importantly – the people and organizers of BoS are always there to help with anything. The BoS community is unlike anything I’ve come across.

I missed the first “post Covid” in-person spring European conference this year out of fear. I regretted it, and committed to the conference in the fall.

I decided a 9 – 12 hour drive from Ontario to Boston might be a better first step than a flight. So, that’s what I did!

This was my second time attending the BoS conference in-person, and I learned that’s a common denominator of the event. Bob Moesta told me, “you don’t ask ‘have you ever been to BoS’. You ask ‘how many times have you been?”

This event draws people in again and again, and for good reason. The content is of the highest quality, the people are friendly and approachable, and – as a woman traveling alone – I always feel safe at this event (and I can’t say that for other events). This time, I walked away with an explosion of inspiration, and I couldn’t wait until I got home to put things together.

Flying nearly 6000 miles to Boston and back in two and a half days to see some of the world’s most talented product, marketing, and startup leaders? Count me in!

You know when you go to a conference with all the intention of applying what you learn? You turn up, you get a good seat, and then you listen to the presenter sharing their take on a subject. You nod away in agreement to what they’re saying, and you take what seems like 100+ photos of their slides, all with the best intentions of applying the learnings when you get back to the office.

And then you don’t do a single thing with anything you’ve learned. Not a single thing.

For me, this is what made BoS a completely different conference to what I had attended previously.

That’s because it was the first conference I attended where I *actually* came home, applied what I learned, and have started to see results.

As a newbie, I was pleasantly surprised by the tight-knit feel and authenticity of the whole thing. And the questions from the audience were just… *chef’s kiss*.

But, what made it really worth it was when I got home I instantly put into practice a lot of my learnings, for both my own business and for my clients.

Over the course of the conference, I watched a number of speakers present, including Elizabeth O’Neill, April Dunford, Bob Moesta, Katherine Thompson, Bill Spruill, Asia Orangio, and Bruce McCarthy.  Some I had seen speak previously, others were new to me.

These are the three main takeaways for me:

There’s something about in-person events that are just different. Although I can rattle off a list of awesome things that happened ‘over the pond’, some of the most exciting moments for me certainly lay with seeing people connect with other like-minded people over coffee, dinner, and – most importantly – happy hour.

The magic may have happened in these moments but what really lifted the event were the world class speakers who nailed their sessions throughout the week.

After BoS Conf USA 2022, the BoS Team decided to head out to Fenway Park to watch the Boston Red Sox play against the Baltimore Orioles. Did we know anything about baseball? Did we know the names of the players? Did we realise it was going to be three+ hours and very little scoring? Did it matter?

In baseball you’ve got to not only hit the ball (which is very hard) but then make it to the first base before your opponent can get the ball to the first base ahead of you. You’ve then got to make a call of can you go further or will you wait for you team mate to also hit their ball and both of you can progress in hope of scoring points. 

We face the same issues in work life and in personal life. We might strike out a few times, but when we do hit the ball, we have to make quick decisions and trust our team mates can help us get round the diamond of life and help us make a difference.

Some of us are pitchers. Some of us are catchers. We all take our turn batting. We all need to be able to trust our team to have our backs.

“What’s this got to do with BoS USA 2022, Kirk?” I hear you ask. Well,

Jason Cohen of WP Engine fame introduced me to Jonathan Slain at Recession.com earlier this year. He and the WP Engine team work with Jonathan and he is a pretty interesting guy. We invited him on the podcast to discuss how SaaS and software companies can prepare for, and take advantage of, a recession.

We discuss:

• How you define a ‘recession’, beyond the standard economist’s answer about GDP. Have you ever considered your company’s GDP?
• The things that you should do to be prepared for a recession when they inevitably hit.
• The opportunities that a recession can offer for those that are prepared properly and how to take advantage of them.
• The common mistakes companies make when faced with a downturn.

You can take Jonathan’s recession readiness assessment here and see how you compare to over 1,500 other companies when it comes to being prepared for the next recession.

We’ve hunted down a selection of top local places to eat in the Seaport district for you to enjoy whilst at BoS Conf USA.

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