After two days of collaboration and learning at Launch 2021, Rocketspark's community of designers are more connected than ever.
Launch: Design Conference and Awards Dinner is an annual event filled with inspirational topics, speakers, workshops and celebration with the Rocketspark partner network.
Rocketspark’s epic network of design partners create websites for people all around the globe.
Kicking off the pre-event, Designwell’s Alexander Wastney spoke about his journey with design, a great precursor to the first day of Launch where keynote speakers Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, Jeremy Johnson, Rocketspark Head of Product, and Grant Johnson, Rocketspark CEO, spoke about the journey Rocketspark had been on so far and where they were headed.
To give back, Grant, after speaking on the company's 2021 vision which aimed to make the world a better place, announced Rocketspark would be giving each Design Partner a free not-for-profit website - for life - voucher, the movement is called Gift-it-forward. The partners would be able to choose who they designed and gave the website to.
“With over 750 registered partners, we expect this to have a big impact. If only 500 of those partners use this voucher, that would be $650,000 worth of value each year. We can’t wait to see what kind of impact that can have on the world,” Grant said.
Rocketspark held its first design conference in 2018 and this year, both days saw over 100 people take part.
There was an impressive lineup of industry specialists who spoke or ran workshops during the conference.
Tonia Hill, founder of Greenhouse Creative, spoke about the journey of how she's grown and streamlined her business to be in control of the projects she wants to do.
She said it was all about relationships and connections.
“Relationships are not just about what you can get, but what you can give. We give, they give, we get,” she said.
Another guest speaker was Kendyl Haultain, director of Make Social Click, who spoke about the need to humanise social media.
“A whole lot of evolution is happening in social media. We are selling person to person. There is someone at one end and someone at the other. We need to make it as human as possible.
“It’s also all about community. It’s about bringing those who have done business with you into a community. If we can create communities with likeminded people, we can market really well,” Kendyl said.
On day two, Kylie Rae, co-founder of Nature and Nosh shared her story of how her business started.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into taking the first step. I procrastinated for a very long time. I was comfortable. But at the end of the day, I just had to take the leap. I had to learn and fail, and learn and fail along the way.
“Once you get over the fact that no one launches the perfect business, you press the button and go live. It doesn’t all happen at once, but eventually things start to move. You climb a mountain by putting one foot in front of the other,” Kylie said.
Other speakers included Monica Shepherd - founder of Mark My Words, Nat White - creative director of Magic Fingers Graphics, Amanda Livingston - founder of Quick Brown Fox, Liora Pine - founder of The Little Acre, and Jo Jensen - director of Strictly Savvy.
One of the biggest highlights of the event was the Rocketspark Partner Awards, which saw eight deserving designers recognised for their incredible work in different areas.
The Grand Award - Partner of the Year, went to Tonia Hill of Greenhouse Creative.
Head of Partnerships Jason Tiller presented the award saying Greenhouse Creative was a stand out because of their incredible efforts over the year.
“What I love about Tonia, is that the way she works represents what we stand for in the wider world. Her level of business and design excellence is fantastic and I couldn’t be prouder to call her one of our partners,” Tiller said.
Hill said she was incredibly humbled by the award.
“Thank you so much, it means a lot to me. In the same way I’m invested in seeing my clients succeed, I feel that Rocketspark is invested in seeing me succeed,” she said.
For a full list of the winners check out the awards coverage here.
New Design Partner, Managing Director of The Renew Room, Claire Rawnsley said Launch was just what her and her team needed.
“The partners that work with Rocketspark were very friendly, switched on, knowledgeable and, in some cases, inspiring people.
“We have all walked away with many ideas for how to improve our processes and our profitability. But more so we have walked away with great memories, connections and even a few friends,” Claire said.
Kim Godfrey, Marketing Lead of Frank Communication and New Partner of the Year award winner, said it was a great chance to connect with other partners and the Rocketspark team.
“We’re taking away some nuggets of gold we can implement in our business. The theme of community and shared success really shone through.
“We were also really humbled and shocked to receive an award and it’s given us a huge boost to build on what’s been done so far,” she said.
According to the feedback forms, the design partners left with full bellies, new learnings and inspiration to take on new challenges.
“It was a good time, good food, great speakers and we learnt. What more can you ask for?” one feedback submission read.
Another read, “a great community of people! Awesome networking and learning opportunity.”
And one more said, “overall, it was a really enjoyable couple of days, and I'm sure everyone got some great value.”
For more information on Launch, check out the Launch website.
