Last month, I had a great opportunity to get on stage at Laracon in Boston, and pitch a Laravel app I made.

I made Poker Friday for using with my friends - we used to schedule poker games in a group text, so everything was buried in a thread that was sometimes hundreds of message deep. Trying to organize a date, and have a good idea of who was even coming or not was a challenge.

On top of that, only one person kept track of things. All of the data, stats, and overall standings was hidden offline in a spreadsheet. So, I figured I would build a tool that would automate RSVPs, and keep track of a leaderboard that everyone could see, at any time.

Then, they were looking for people to pitch their apps onstage at Laracon. So, I threw my hat in the ring, because you can just do things!

They handpicked the presenters, and I got chosen to pitch to a panel of “sharks” (think Shark Tank) who would say “ship it!” or, not. Here I am explaining one of the features:

A few years ago, I found encouragement to start publishing more of my work (that’s how my podcast and YouTube channel were born), even if it’s just a fun little personal project like this one. Part of me never thought this project would ever see the light of day, and then I was talking about it all of a sudden on stage in front of a thousand people!

I hope it’s useful to someone - you never know unless you put your stuff out there.

Even though it’s live already, I’d love to have some people test it out so that I can get some additional feedback. If you (or someone you know who plays poker in a home group) might be interested, hit reply to let me know, and I get set up a free Pro account.

My encouragement to you today is to talk about your stuff too. Increase your “luck surface area” because you never know who might be interested in what you’re up to.