DealCon follow up has one job: get the capital partner, the seller and the serial acquirer you met to remember your deal, inside 48 hours, before the room scatters. Text the people tied to a live deal first, then your dinner table, then put everyone else on a 30 day touch.

Here is the scene. It is Friday, a little after 1:00 PM. The workshop track just ended. You had dinner with seven people on Tuesday, sat next to a lender at the marquee dinner on Thursday, and traded numbers with a founder who wants to sell in 18 months. You have notes for maybe two of them, and your flight boards in three hours.

What makes the DealCon room different

DealCon is not a broker conference or a searcher meetup. According to the official DealCon site, it is a private, closed room CEO M&A summit for 7 to 9 figure founders, hosted by Tom Shipley and Matt Bodnar. The next one is DealCon Miami 2027 at the Brickell Arch hotel: a welcome reception Tuesday, March 30, then sessions Wednesday, March 31 through Friday, April 2. Check the official site for the current schedule before you book.

The format shapes your follow up more than the speakers do.

1. The room is mostly buyers. The site breaks it down as roughly 70% making their first acquisition, 10% with one deal closed, 10% serial acquirers and 10% sellers. It also lists debt and equity partners, M&A attorneys, investment bankers and transaction advisors in the room. The scarce people are the sellers, the capital and the acquirers who have done it.
2. The dinners are curated. Tuesday night is small tables of eight founders, speakers and experts, matched on purpose. Thursday is a marquee dinner for all 150. Your table is a seven person shortlist someone else built for you. Treat it that way.
3. Solicitation is off the table. The site says active solicitation is reserved for sponsors. Your follow up has to be about their deal, not your offer.
4. The Slack has an expiration date. Every ticket includes a private event Slack channel. Post event access runs 30 days with GA and 60 days with DealMaker and VIP.

Before Miami: who to research and who to book

Do not walk in with a list of 40. Walk in with eight names and a reason for each.

• Capital that fits your deal size. The site describes the room as lower middle market deals. Know which debt or equity partners fund your size before you sit next to one.
• Two serial acquirers in or near your industry. They have the buy box and the integration scars. One conversation with them can save you a bad LOI.
• Sellers, if you are buying. One in ten. Know what kind of business you want, so a three minute conversation at the reception is enough to earn a second one.
• Buyers, if you are selling. Same logic, reversed.

If your ticket includes the pre event attendee directory (the site lists it with DealMaker and VIP), use it to pick those eight names. Book breakfast or coffee before you fly. The site says the real leverage happens between sessions, and that is where your eight names live.

Write one line next to each name about why. “Funds service businesses, $3M to $10M EBITDA, might fit the HVAC deal.” That line becomes your follow up later.

In the room: capture in 10 seconds

The conversation ends. Someone else sits down. You have about ten seconds before it blurs into the next one.

Capture three things: the name, the one specific thing they said, and what you promised. “Lender, Tuesday dinner, likes seller notes, I said I would send the teaser.” That is the whole note.

My view on this is simple. Do it standing up, between conversations, not at the hotel bar at midnight. By then you have had six more conversations and the dinner table has merged into one person. The full method is in how to remember everyone you meet at a conference.

The 48 hours after: who first

Sort by what is live. A seller with a timeline is a deal with a clock on it. A founder you liked at lunch can wait a week. The general framework is in who to follow up with first after a conference. For a DealCon room, the order looks like this.

1. Anyone tied to a live deal. The capital partner who heard your numbers. The seller who named a date.

[First name], great sitting together Thursday night. You said you like seller notes on deals our size. I have one at LOI stage. Worth 20 minutes next week?

2. Your Tuesday dinner table. Seven people matched to you on purpose. Text each one something only they would recognize.

[First name], still thinking about your point on buy boxes from dinner Tuesday. I tightened mine on the flight home. Want to compare notes in a month?

3. The serial acquirer who gave you real time.

[First name], thank you for walking me through how you sequenced deal two. I am looking at home services, $2M to $5M EBITDA. Can I send you my criteria?

4. Anyone you promised an intro to. This is the one people forget, and it is the one they remember you for.

[First name], here is the M&A attorney I mentioned at the reception. Texting you both now so you can find a time. She does exactly the structure you described.

Each one is under 40 words, names one real thing, and asks for one small next step. None of them pitch. More examples are in follow up text after a conference.

30 days after: before the Slack goes quiet

On a GA ticket, the site says post event Slack access lasts 30 days. Whatever ticket you hold, do not let a channel be the only place a relationship lives.

At day 30, go back through your list and do three things.

• Move the right people into your phone. Name, company, the one line from your note, and that you met at DealCon Miami.
• Send a second touch with a reason. A deal that fits their buy box. A note when they close. A capital partner they asked about.
• Close every intro you owe. Track them, because your network has a balance sheet.

The first text gets you remembered for a week. The second touch, a month later, is the one that makes you the founder they call when a seller in your industry comes up. The full post event system is in the conference follow up system.

The system that does this for you

FRONT OF MIND opens on your 10 minutes for today. After DealCon, each person you met shows up with one line on why today: you met at DealCon three days ago and never followed up, they posted about a close, a follow up is due. Each one comes with a drafted text, 40 words max, and nothing sends without your tap. It learns from your edits.

At the dinner table, say a name and a sentence out loud, snap a business card or badge, or take a selfie together, and it is filed under the event. Later, ask Liala “who do I know that funds service businesses” and get the right people with why. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who from the room comes up first.

See how it works