Building Forward

Join us at Resend Forward on October 21 in San Francisco

Get your ticket for 20% off 👇

https://go.resend.com/building-fwd

Laracon started as a few dozen people getting together to talk about Laravel. Now it draws around a thousand, and the room still goes quiet for every talk. Sam Sappenfield and Abby Gilson, who run events at Laravel, explain how they keep it community-driven, why Laraprom happened, and why moving the conference to a new city every year is a pain but worth doing.

This is Episode 8 of Building Forward, a podcast about developer experience, community, and meetups from the DX team at Resend. Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington host, and we're learning in public as we build Resend Forward, our first tech conference.

## What's covered

- How Laracon went from a community-run event to a company-supported one without losing its community feel

- The story behind Laraprom, the dodgeball day, and the Denver golf tournament (and why not every side event works)

- Who goes to Laracon, from indie devs to CTOs, and how "everyone's a builder now" is changing who speaks on stage

- Choosing speakers 9+ months ahead when AI tooling changes every week

- Why Laracon attendees actually sit and listen to the talks, and still have a strong hallway track

- How the team decides whether a Laracon went well: surveys, X, internal feedback, and the overall vibe

- Why Laracon moves to a new city every year, and why hotel conference centers are the worst venues

## Guests

- Sam Sappenfield, Laravel events lead (X: @samsappenfield1)

- Abby Gilson, Field Marketing Manager at Laravel (X: @abbygilson28)

## Timestamps

0:00 Meet Sam and Abbyc

1:34 What Makes Laracon Unique

3:04 Co-Organizing With the Community

4:47 Laraprom and Dodgeball

6:52 The Denver Golf Tournament

9:22 Who Comes to Laracon

10:50 Everyone's a Builder Now

12:00 Picking Speakers in the AI Era

13:38 Why Everyone Sits and Listens

16:02 Measuring Event Success

19:01 Vibes Over Metrics

21:20 Why Laracon Changes Cities

24:00 Trends They Love and Hate

26:16 What's Next and Where to Find Them

Planning a tech conference and wondering who you actually need to pull it off? In this episode of Building Forward, Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington from the Resend developer experience team break down how to find, organize, and enable the people who make an event run.

Join us at Resend Forward on October 21 in San Francisco

Get your ticket for 20% off 👇

https://go.resend.com/building-fwd

## What's covered

- How to build a granular list of every role a conference needs, from MCs and speaker handlers to bathroom checkers and "vibes guys"

- The different types of help available: employees, volunteers, paid staffing agencies, and vendors

- Matching people to roles based on personality and strengths, so introverts and extroverts each land where they thrive

- Using team leads to avoid becoming a single point of failure as an organizer

- Preparing checklists, trainings, and inspiration guides (like a "how to post like a DX engineer" doc) to help staff operate outside their normal zone

## Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:14 Building Your Roles List

3:07 Getting Granular With Details

5:03 Types of Help Available

7:52 Matching People to Strengths

10:56 Roles Within a Tech Company

13:43 Enabling Staff With Checklists

15:10 How to Post Like a DX Engineer

17:20 Wrap Up

Join us at Resend Forward: https://go.resend.com/building-fwd

How do you market a developer conference (and a developer product) without making devs roll their eyes? In this episode of Building Forward, Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington sit down with Hank Taylor (advisor, co-host of the Code to Market podcast, ex-Vercel, Laravel, GitLab, Neo4j) to unpack the marketing and event strategies behind some of the most iconic dev conferences of the last few years.

## What's covered

- The story behind Next.js Conf 2020: how a viral ticket page turned a 5,000-person goal into 80,000 registrants (and moved the NPM download needle for Next.js)

- Why "developers hate marketing" is wrong and how to speak to a developer's identity, ego, and aspirations

- Balancing in-person and virtual experiences so both feel premium

- Why Laracon attendees stay in their seats while other conferences empty out

- The rise (and saturation) of side events, viral ticket generators, and "wrapped"-style campaigns

- Advice for anyone launching a first-time dev conference: find a meaningful theme beyond your product

## Connect with Hank

- Hank Taylor — https://codetomarket.fm

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## Timestamps

0:00 Intro and Meet Hank Taylor

2:52 Balancing Virtual and In-Person

5:22 Do Developers Really Hate Marketing?

7:51 The Viral Ticket That Broke Next.js Conf

12:26 Marketing a Product vs a Conference

15:13 Why LaraCon Attendees Stay Seated

17:44 Side Events and Viral Fatigue

21:33 Making Your Conference Stand Out

24:17 Where to Find Hank

Planning a tech conference? In this episode of Building Forward, Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington break down how they're crafting the content and speaker lineup for Resend Forward, their first-ever conference. Learn how to define your audience, balance technical depth with storytelling, and design a day that feels crafted for real humans.

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## Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:15 Listening Online

3:11 Real-Life Conversations At Meetups

6:32 Defining The Audience

8:33 Applying Guiding Principles

10:14 Content Style: Story Vs Technical

14:49 Speaker Experience And Skill Levels

16:13 Diversity And Balance

19:58 Designing The Full Day

20:41 Special Experiences And Wrap-Up

In this episode of Building Forward, Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington sit down with Carter Rabasa, organizer of Cascadia JS, to unpack 14 years of lessons on crafting intimate, high-quality tech events in an age of impersonal corporate conferences.https://cascadiajs.com/## What's covered- The origin story of Cascadia JS and how JSConf inspired a "by devs, for devs" philosophy- Why developer-run conferences beat professionally-produced ones — and how to acquire event organizing skills as an engineer- Building inclusive, safe communities through a code of conduct that applies to everyone (including organizers)- Running a conference as a family business, with Carter's wife and kids playing key roles- Curating talks thematically for a diverse audience and designing for the 75% of time attendees *aren't* watching talks- The wild origin of Cascadia's karaoke tradition (featuring a custom karaoke API built by Portland engineers)- Why remembering that "developers are people" is the most important principle for building events that matter## Timestamps0:00 Introducing Carter Rabasa1:12 The Origins of Cascadia JS4:37 By Devs, For Devs Philosophy7:38 How to Acquire Event Skills10:34 Code of Conduct and Inclusion14:23 Running It as a Family17:57 Curating the Speaker Lineup20:59 Extracurriculars and Regional Flavor24:29 The Karaoke Origin Story27:35 Remember Developers Are People29:14 How to Connect and Attend

Planning your first developer conference from scratch? In this episode of Building Forward, Chris Pennington and Christina Martinez from Resend share the exact steps they took when tasked with creating Resend's first tech conference, from gathering advice to defining a philosophy to picking the perfect venue (SF Jazz).

Join us at Resend Forward: https://resend.com/forward

## What's covered

- Where to actually start when your boss says "we're doing a conference"

- Why talking to experienced organizers (React Miami, Supabase, Cascadia JS, etc.) beats Googling

- How to write a philosophy document — including anti-goals — that drives every decision

- The venue hunt: touring in person, red flags to watch for, and knowing when it's "the one"

- Trade-offs between sponsor count, attendee experience, and staying true to your theme

- Why constraints (limited booths, focused theme) can actually improve your event

Ever wondered what makes a tech conference actually memorable? Rebecca Bakels, organizer of React Miami, shares the intentional design decisions, from lighting colors to 40-minute breaks, that turn a technical event into an unforgettable human experience.In this episode of Building Forward, hosts Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington from Resend sit down with Rebecca to unpack five years of lessons from running one of the most vibes-forward React conferences out there.## What's covered- How Rebecca got involved with React Miami and the story behind her sister Michelle Bakels co-founding it with G2i- Why the "hallway track" and human connection matter more than the talk lineup- Intentional design details most organizers overlook: signage, lighting, couch comfort, and attendee flow- How to plan the pace of a conference — long breaks, bottomless coffee, and a new "recovery morning" concept for 2025- What new conference organizers over-engineer vs. under-invest in- Why most technical meetups fail the social anxiety test, and what a great meetup (like Miami's Hack Night) actually looks like- Advice for anyone thinking about starting their own conference

Join us for Resend Forward

• OCT 21, 2026
• San Francisco, CA

Get your ticket 👇

https://resend.com/forward

Ever wondered what it takes to plan a developer conference from scratch? In this kickoff episode of Building Forward, Resend's developer experience team shares the messy, honest reality of crafting in-person events — from hot cocoa bars to poke bowl logistics fails — as they build toward their first-ever tech conference, Resend Forward.

Hosted by Christina Martinez and Chris Pennington, both DX engineers at Resend, this conversational two-host podcast is about learning in public as they figure out conferences, meetups, and what great developer experience really means.

What's covered

• Why Resend is launching its first conference, Resend Forward, and the "craft and intentionality" philosophy behind it
• What developer experience actually means — for human developers, AI agents, and everyone in between
• A behind-the-scenes recap of four 2025 meetups: Vercel SF, Utah Tech Week, YC SF, and Mux SF
• Lessons learned: Q&A formats, signup friction across venues, premium food presentation, check-in flow, and when ceramic dishes are a bad idea
• Treating every event as an experiment and what's coming next as they scale up to a full conference

0:00 Welcome to Building Forward

0:43 What Is Resend Forward

2:11 Why Build In Public

3:11 Defining Developer Experience

5:55 In-Person Events Matter More

7:50 The Unhappy Path

9:01 Meetup #1: Vercel SF

12:32 Meetup #2: Utah Tech Week

16:02 Meetup #3: YC San Francisco

19:15 Meetup #4: Mux SF and Poke Logistics

23:17 What We're Improving Next

24:28 What's Next for the Podcast

26:08 Question for Listeners