1/ In this vein, let's talk about random in-person interactions that made dents in my career that otherwise wouldn't have happened. https://twitter.com/Shpigford/status/1308390322846695424

2/ April 2013 I was at @MicroConf. At the time I was building an online survey company (Baremetrics wasn't even an idea yet).

At lunch, I randomly ended up sitting next to @bsharpe. He was traveling full-time with his family in a renovated bus.

3/ 10 months later, I'd launched Baremetrics and was way in over my head on engineering stuff. Ben became my first hire and was with the team for years and laid a ton of groundwork for us.

4/ April 2014, again at @MicroConf. I was now there running @Baremetrics. Actually gave a talk that year and had two important interactions.

One evening I was walking to get pizza with @hnshah and a others. I'd recently made all our metrics public ( http://demo.baremetrics.com ).

5/ Hiten was an advisor to Buffer and suggested I talk to them about making their metrics public as well. He made the intro and a couple of weeks later, Buffer had made their entire dashboard public, which became a big source of new customers for years.

6/ That same evening, @Pv was there eating pizza w/ us & we were talking about things getting in my way of growing Baremetrics. He recommended Steven Pressfield's The War of Art which, 6 years later, is the only book I recommend to people for business. It was foundational for me.

7/ In 2014 at both @MicroConf and @BaconBizConf (which were within about a month of each other), I met folks like @nathanbarry, @brennandunn, @delk, @amyhoy, @patio11 and @jhooks who I've learned an inordinate amount from over the years, trading tips and sharing struggles.

8/ In 2013, at @LessConf, I randomly sat at a table with @alphacolin, who had recently started @customerio. We still keep in touch 7 years later and has been an important sounding board over the years as I've navigated building a company.

9/ There are dozens upon dozens of these interactions that have come out of spontaneous, in-person interactions. The type of interactions that are nearly impossible to replicate online as the crux of many of these is the laid-back, no-expectation nature of them.

10/ It's the random shop-talk that comes up while eating pizza. The idea someone had walking with a group of people down the streets of Las Vegas. The common bonds discovered while talking about similar interests your kids have over lunch.

11/ When it's all virtual, the spontaneity disappears. Everything is scheduled and time-boxed and the chances of running in to interesting people on a whim no longer exists.

Makes me wonder how many great ideas *won't* see the light of day b/c of those missed interactions.