MagnoliaConf

Oct 2025

Hi, friends! I've been actively interviewing, attending conferences, and even gave my very first talk last week. Routines are back in place: 4am Club is happening, 5am gym, work, and family time. We'll make the new job magic happen soon. 🤞

Huge shout out and thank you to MagnoliaJS for allowing me to dip my toes into conference speaker life. The food was amazing, as promised, and everyone was so kind and supportive. Let's talk about the venue - an art museum??? Very unique and a lovely escape - adored the vibe. I am endlessly grateful for such a wonderful first experience. Even if I had to stand on a box (again). ha! :)

My talk meandered around the topic of shipping your MVP early and iterating along the way. I love having takeaways when I attend a talk, so I weaved 6 steps that might help someone "ship it first and fix it later." Step one was identifying a problem, and I went real deep into that portion of the talk. It included videos of my medically complex son, his struggles, and what led me to discovering the "problem." I tried to incorporate some humor along with the serious bits, and then got into the technical aspect of the web app and how I created a solution with VanillaJS...and eventually upgraded the web app with React, NextJS, Typescript, Tailwind, and OpenAI.

I'd like to watch the recording and reorganize things a bit, as well as expanding on the technical piece. While I loved the range of emotions (and it seemed like the audience responded accordingly) I want to tighten it up for sure.

Please feel free to offer constructive criticism if you happened to catch the talk or the recording. ❤️

#medicalmom #momswhocode #magnoliaconf #womenintech

[[shout out to the event photographer, ramsey, chappell. i borrowed a couple of her image previews from IG - chris and i and the 4-speaker shots against the white wall]]