When AI made building software cheap, the hard part moved. From "can we build it?" to "should we build it, and what does it take?"
That one question became the theme of our 18th anniversary event: What's Worth Building? Products. Skills. Careers. Together. Every session on Nov 6 answered some version of it — for a product, a skill, a career, a team.
Planning it together
ProductCampRTP is a peer-led conference. No big-stage keynotes flown in from outside, no vendor pitches. The people in the room are the people who run products every day — and the planning team curates sessions so attendees learn from each other, not at them.
Our planning team — me, Cef Gonzalez (our CEO/Chairman), and Steve Johnson — started back in September. We debated charging $35–45 like other ProductCamps do. Then we made it free, with registration through Eventbrite. Kelaca in Raleigh hosted us again, like they did in 2024 and 2025.
We spoke with experts: Robbie Allen for the keynote, Dean Peters, Ryan Eade, Mark Hinkle, Allison Herbert, Gregory Ng, Jason Tanner, and Steve Johnson. Each one got briefed the same way: advanced use cases, working examples.
The mobile app — my favorite kind of pressure
Here's the part I'm most proud of, and I'll admit it was also the scariest.
We were sold out before we had a real check-in plan. Kelaca seats about 95–97. We had 110 attendees in Eventbrite, walk-ins expected, volunteers to manage, and a mixer after. Paper lists were not going to cut it.
So we built a web-based ProductCampRTP mobile app. No app store, no download friction — open a link, log in with your registration email, get a QR code for check-in.
What it did on event day:
- Digital check-in, three ways — attendees tap "I'm here" on their phone, a volunteer scans their QR code, or they walk up to the welcome desk and we find their name. Everyone gets a digital badge with a QR on their phone.
- Check-in desk screen for volunteers — live counts (registered, walk-ins, checked in), a searchable list, and a downloadable export so the email and survey lists stayed current.
- Walk-in registration built in — non-registered people couldn't log in, so we added a walk-in form with mandatory fields. Cef told me,
He was right.You'll be a hero to the check-in volunteers if you do this.
- Personal agenda — attendees pick sessions and build their own plan; each session can be added to their calendar.
- Session pages with live AI synopses — every session page linked to a live transcription and synopsis by Rozie Synopsis. Attendees who missed a talk could still get the summary, key takeaways, and recommendations — generated from the actual talk, not the abstract.
- Connect (networking that actually works) — on the People tab, every attendee has a Connect button. Tap it and we email them asking if they'd like to connect. Nothing is shared unless both sides say yes — then you both get each other's LinkedIn. No spam, no exposed emails.
- Job board — a full Jobs page in the app, because for job seekers this room is full of hiring managers.
- Survey and Product Pass — the post-event survey unlocked at 4:45 PM inside the app, and the Product Pass gave attendees limited-time free access to sponsor products.
- Push notifications — "the live session is starting, listen here" and later "key insights from this session are now available."
We launched it three days before the event via our email campaign, with QR codes at the venue. There was a bug the night before — a profile issue my team fixed by Friday morning. On event day, it just worked. Rain outside, a full room inside, QR codes at the door.
As someone who runs a product design firm, I'll say the honest lesson: we shipped this the way we tell our enterprise clients to ship. Small scope, real users (Cef tested it 50+ times and found every rough edge), fast fixes, one clear journey — arrive, scan, in the room.
Event day
Robbie Allen opened the keynote, "Unicorns Are No Longer Rare," at 1:10. He set the frame for the day: building is cheap now, so deciding what to build is the whole game.
Dean Peters followed at 1:30 with "ADLC: What It Is & What It Ain't, or How to Tame AI Agents So You Don't Get Vibe-Fired." In the downstairs room, Ryan Eade ran "Your Product, Inside Claude & ChatGPT: Building for AI App Marketplaces" at the same time. Two rooms, two tracks, and people had to choose. That's a good problem to have.
At 2:10, Allison Herbert brought "Offload the Plan, Keep the Friction" while Gregory Ng did "Relentless Iteration: When Code is Cheap, Product is Everything" upstairs.
Mark R. Hinkle took 2:50 downstairs with "Agent-Native Apps: Rethinking What We Build." Upstairs at the same slot — that was me. My talk: "Nobody Trusts Your AI: Ten Checks That Decide Trust."
After the snack break, the workshops. Jason Tanner ran "Postcards from December 2027: PM Edition" downstairs — attendees wrote from their future selves. Steve Johnson ran "Aspiring to Fractional CPO" upstairs. The workshops needed more facilitators than we had, and half the room drifted into networking. At a peer-led conference, that's not a failure — the hallway conversations are half the value.
At 4:45 we opened the Post-Event Mixer, sponsored by Allstacks — food, beer, wine, and grand prizes (a $500 cash drawing from AuctionWire and the LOOI robot companion from Allstacks). This is the part our attendees love most, every single year.
Thank you
To our eight speakers — Robbie, Dean, Ryan, Allison, Greg, Mark, Jason, Steve — thank you. Every one of you said yes to a free community event and brought real, advanced content. That's rare.
To Kelaca (Katie and Whitney), Allstacks, TekSystems, AuctionWire, Pendo, Productside, and the AIM Institute — this event doesn't happen without you.
And to Bhavani, Kelly, Shaifali, Tracy, Steffen, and every volunteer who ran check-in, rooms, and photos — you were the machine behind the day.
The takeaway
If I leave you with one thing: when AI made building cheap, the differentiator moved to judgment. What to build. What to trust. What to skip. That's what a sold-out room of product people spent a Friday talking about — and nobody wanted to leave at 4:45.
We'll be back. Same question, deeper answers.