Ok! I’ve finally figured out what’s next for Café Jana. This year, I started working a lot with founders building startups using the open-core model, and it has sparked my interest in diving into the history of open source. Understanding history helps inform how we got here and where we’re…

I woke up this morning feeling so inspired. Last night, I attended the Modern Angels Summit hosted by Robby, a partner at Cowboy Ventures. I was surrounded by 100 incredible women and non-binary angels and investors. I felt like crying. I was overcome with joy seeing so many people like…

Even from the very early days at HashiCorp, community building was deeply ingrained in our company’s ethos. I remember Mitchell Hashimoto, HashiCorp Co-Founder, telling the story of when he released Vagrant in 2009, HashiCorp’s first open source tool, it didn’t have much traction initially. Once he started speaking at events…

*I no longer work at PlanetScale as of July 2022. This week, I got to hang out with my colleagues in Austin, TX, for the PlanetScale Marketing Summit, which was an absolute blast. I had a 20-minute speaking slot where I was going to present the developer marketing team’s accomplishments…

A woman I admire posted a tweet today in celebration of Women’s International Day, and it inspired me to write this post. It seems fitting on this day to announce that I’ve officially kicked off changing my last name to “Iris.” For most of my life, I was a supporting…

HashiCorp, you were the best thing that ever happened to me and my career, but it’s time for me to say goodbye. I’ve been working in the tech industry for almost 15 years now. I’ve had experiences beyond anything I could have ever imagined, from helping build multiple companies from…

A love letter to my girlfriends — An important thing you should know about me is how much I cherish and value my female friends. I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of having strong female friendships in your life, and, for me, nothing is more important. Well, that and family. It became even clearer to…

In the second Café Jana video, I cover why it’s important to have contingency plans for all of your events moving forward. I also want to share with you a chapter from Digital-First Events where we cover in detail how to create contingency plans per event. These plans should…

So just as we finally figured out how to run engaging virtual events, it’s now time to figure out how to bring in person events back. I will admit I keep having these “Oh, shit!” moments as I’ve started putting together my team’s plans for next year. In the first Coffee Chats at Café Jana video, I dive into what I think are my four biggest challenges and hurdles for next year. Book Plug: If you’re planning virtual events, you should check out my book Digital-First Events. It’s a step-by-step guide on how to create engaging digital events and conferences for your community. You can use the code cafejana to purchase the book for $5!