Why I decided to host an “all-women” event

This was originally going to be titled “What the Actual Fuck — I Suck.” But I realized that is super negative, and even though it rhymes, it’s actually not true. The origins of this post throwback to over a year and a half ago when I hosted my first Product Hunt meetup at Venture Café Miami. It was a huge success but I wasn’t celebrating.

Instead, I was making promises to never have an event like that again. Not taking any credit away from the amazing panelists that we had, but I had made an oversight that I myself frequently call out other organizations for doing.

I had put together a panel with zero women represented. 😳

I knew that this lack of intention was going to bug me because I had started to make excuses. I told myself “it was my “first time” and that in theory, I could count as the woman since I hosted the event. But I knew better. It was time to hold myself accountable. “Never again” would I do that I declared! I would write a post about how things like this were not ok, and yaddy yaddy yaddy.

I was a little dramatic, but in all seriousness, not only am I a woman myself, I live in a city with an overload of amazing women that are doing great work and have plenty of knowledge to share, so how did this happen? Over the course of the next year, each one of our events included women. It was never easy.

For some reason finding women always came with challenges, but since my standard MOO (mode of operation) is to GSD, I’ve been able to keep my promise to myself. What always came easy was getting men to be onboard. Take for example one of my co-organizers Dave Ostergren, aka Dave in Dade, He has volunteered his time and expertise, made key connections and been an amazing moderator. I’m so grateful!

Not a single man that I’ve asked for help with an event has said no. When it came to this upcoming all women event, not a single man has said no to helping promote it or get involved. Of course, many women have helped pull this event together as well.

Even though this event is celebrating women specifically, we all need to support each other, celebrate and share our successes. I hope that if you’re in Miami you’ll stop by for the event. You can RSVP by clicking here. For those of you that are not local or can’t make it your love is felt and appreciated in spirit. Thank you, and until next time,

Besos.