The idea for this birthday party came when I was attending Hong Kong consensus and people were discussing the next round of crypto events – and Southeast Asia blockchain week was brought up. Looking at the dates, it fell right in the middle of my birthday – April 2.
So in that moment at the side event afterparty on a rooftop bar in Hong Kong, I said “I can do a side event birthday party and also promote our startup Hamza and the decom ecosystem”. The group encouraged it and it was a done deal.
Anyone following Mike’s Blog here knows, I always integrate business and personal – and this party was exactly that.
We rented an amazing space in downtown Bangkok – Escape, 3 DJs (my friend David one of them and helping a ton on the event planning), 3 birthday cakes, Thai traditional dancers, nice food, a ton of bottles, and a great group of people.
The earthquake really was a damper, with the main SEAblockchain week cancellation and confusion if we would still carry on with the event or not.
Of course we carry on, and carry on we did!
Janette my partner at Global From Asia and our GFA chapter leader of GFA Nexus flew in from Manila for it, and we had a good mix of both web2 / traditional ecommerce business owners and the web3 crypto/blockchain world together.
Have to admit, I was so nervous (a) too many people would come and there would be overcrowding, or (b) because of other side events happening, not enough people would come and it would be empty.
The majority of those who came were friends I knew and great people – and those who were new came for good vibes and were enjoying themselves.
I know there is a lot of comments that these side events are not worth the money, but this was a mix of a birthday and business and I wanted to help promote the Hamza startup, Global From Asia, and also bring together my friends from all different backgrounds in business and life.
Hard to believe I am typing this up at 44 years old. My brain still feels 25, and many say I look 25 – but life is just beginning. With the way technology, AI is going, who knows maybe we will live forever as an AI agent.