"Nothing there that is less than exceptional."

A room where everyone was at a different starting point.

Cabal is a UK founder community. Lisa Holdstock runs it, and she books events based on what she's actually hearing from members rather than what's trending.

"AI was coming up in almost every single session, but in such a wide and varied way. We had members who hadn't even started to think about what they could do with it, and others already using tools and recommending them."

That spread is the hard problem. A session pitched at the beginners bores the advanced members; one pitched at the advanced members loses everyone else. Lisa wanted something that worked for both.

"I wanted to create an event where our members could really start to get their hands on it."

Her expectations were met. Her members' were beaten.

"I don't think any of them had any idea that they would actually take away a product that could be used within their business at the end of it. And I know that that is what they've taken away."

On the scoring

"We always do a scoring system. If we host an event that has under four out of five stars, we'd be really disappointed. We got five out of fives all the way through, whether that's yourself as a host, or the event overall in terms of the value that they took out of it."

On what worked

"What worked well was the balance of instruction versus actual practical work. The fact that you introduced some of the things you had already done with that product enabled people to start to think about the art of the possible."

From the members

"I'm absolutely amazed at what I created with the software. This is extraordinary."

"It opened my eyes to what I can achieve in a very short space of time."