When I was working at my last job in an Online Marketing agency, I was attending quite some conferences. Most of them were nice, but I never felt like I "belonged" there. Sure there were big names and beverages were free and you could get more swag than you could carry. It just was not my crowd.
I think I found my people.
The MicroConf Europe this year was in Barcelona, which is worth a visit by itself. The conference just blew me away, I think that is what people refer to, when they talk about "the spirit".
Is MicroConf for you?
If you have a product or you are planning to, then this is your jam. I talked to so many great people about their products, products I could never dream up. And this is the most valuable thing I took from the conference, you can earn money with things you never thought you could.
You probably know that situation all to well, you come up with an idea and you tell it to your friends. They respond mostly with a "meh" and "who would buy that"? Well the answer is most likely, not you, but somewhere there is a group of people desperately in need for your product. You just need to find them.
Talks
I didn't speak with anybody about any talk, except for Peldi's talk, the founder of Balsamiq. That doesn't mean the talks were bad or anything, just that I didn't speak with anybody about any talk.
You can read a good summary on every talk on this site http://www.it-engelhardt.de/microconf-europe-2015-notes-and-noteworthy/
Would I come back?
Hell yea! I got a ton of value by talking to all the great people. All speakers were approachable and I even talked with a couple of them.
Awesome products, by awesome people
Here is a list of people I talked with and their products. Sorry if I forgot you.
Sam Nelson https://mergr.com He sells information about merger and acquisitions
Benedikt Deicke https://stagecms.com A Band CMS
Christoph Engelhardt https://www.linksspy.com Spy on your competitors links
Rob Percival http://www.completewebdevelopercourse.com He teaches you the complete Webstack and then some.
Julian Juenemann http://gtmtraining.com Learn everything there is to know about Google Tag Manager
David Kelly http://www.dkdo.co.uk I can't quite remember, but it had to do with football
Lukas Trötzmüller http://www.fwsim.com, http://copyrighthero.com A fireworks simulator and a service to find out if your copyrighted material is offered illegally
Enrico Talin https://zotsell.com I briefly talked with him during lunch. He has an app for sales orders. The amazing thing is his online marketing approach. Just ask him.
Chris Whyley and Brother http://www.zamzar.com Convert any file to any format
Peter van Hove http://www.isobuster.com/ A desktop! program to recover CDs, DVDs, SD, USB Drives, etc. A software from the days of shareware and still working!