Two Nights in Frankfurt

Fly. Sleep. Sleep. Fly.

Feb 14, 2025

This is 3Bits & Change, an email about building a service and retail business. This one was written on a flight from FRA to DTW with free WIFI. Thanks Delta!

“Was it worth it?”

That was the question I got from my closest humans. I had to think about it for a bit before replying.

At first, I thought about the experience. I dig travel and exploration and learning. This trip was that. It was my first time to Germany and to this show. However, I’ve spent my fair share of solo travel days all over the world and I don’t particularly enjoy them like I once did. So, I’m conflicted on answering yes on this point alone.

And then I did some math. On just one of the handful of deals I made during the show, we’ll make back the cash cost of the trip in roughly 30 days, once the product arrives 3-5 months from now.

And that’s the trick with the retail side of this business. Not only does a retailer need to find cool product and build the relationships and execute really well and fund product well before it arrives… but it all needs to be done on a fairly long time horizon compared to other businesses I’ve run.

I used to think the 50% margin on products was nuts - as a consumer. I no longer hold that view.

//no.1 - Perceived lead value

From the manufacture/brand team member perspective, which of the following new customer leads would you be most excited about receiving?

A cold email arrives in your inbox from a prospective customer that wants to purchase from you on a Thursday afternoon when you’re trying to get other things done before you take Friday off for a long weekend.
A lead walks up to your booth during the first day of a conference that your team designed and planned for months and traveled multiple time-zones to exhibit at and it turns out the lead wants to buy from you on the spot.

I met folks in person at this conference that I’ve been trying to connect with and order from via digital/email for years. Somehow, standing in a tall ceiling conference center, in a country none of us are from, filled with stale air and sweaty people proved to be more productive for our business goals than the hours I’ve spent emailing folks.

//no.2 - Giant

Just massive. The Messe center in Frankfurt is tied with another German conference center in Hannover for the 3rd & 4th largest centers in the world.

Messe is ~500,000 square feet of space to fill up with humans and stuff. Some 12 buildings, some double and triple decker, are all included in the conference pass, packed with housewares or manufactures from the world over and serviced by a fantastic wayfinding system and a better than average app.

I went thinking I’d spend a day and bug out. Nope. After a day I had covered a room and a half. I bought a second day, walked the whole day second day and did not come close to covering the show.

//no.3 - Long flight hacks

Would you ever spent $3k+ to screw up your sleep?

Loads of people do when they snag those horizontal seats heading west. In my view the Europe to US long haul flights are an exercise in the will to stay awake. Drink coffee a few hours in to the flight, even if the flight attendant advises against it (this literally happened). Open a laptop and work. Watch a movie if you must. Just, don’t make it comfortable. Stay awake.

On this trip I found a new twist. I flew the long haul flight on the first of two flights both ways. I’ll do that again. It’s just easier. And, the upgrades are automatic once you’re back in the US. That’s better than being jammed in the tiny cheap euro jets. It’s better than the auto upgrades on the long haul flights too. All that does it ensure that the back of the plane has more space to spread out than those jammed up front.

I stayed on the US sleep schedule too. That ment that I woke up at 11AM local. That was A-OK. Just remember to not buy breakfast with the room package.

Sum

Go to more conferences. Make new biz friends with speed. Somehow, conferences produce more results faster than pushing pixels in this particular business.

Change

You replied with a few AI tools from the last 3 Bits issue. Here they are:

ChatGPT - everyday (Generative Pre-trained Transformer)
Granola.ai for meeting notes - amazing
Perplexity for research-y things
v0.edv, replit.com and cursor.com for concepting

I’ve recently started using:

elicit.com for searching scholarly articles
Duolingo’s new chat with Lilly feature is amazing.
Claude, Suno and Gemini (what a solid SB ad, BTW) are also on my phone but I’m not using them often.