Laravel Worldwide Meetup - I'm a Marketer. Wait, I Can Build This?

This month we are joined by Samantha Sappenfield from the Laravel marketing team. Sam didn't set out to become a builder. She's a marketer! But when the Laravel community had Laracon photos and no easy way to share them, a little encouragement turned into "why don't we just build it ourselves?" Join Sam as she shares how she used AI to build the Laracon photos app, what she's built since, and how the experience changed her idea of what she could do. Through her story and demos, she'll explore why the code isn't the most important part - and how being around people who build can inspire you to try it yourself. Whether you're a developer, a marketer, or someone with an idea you haven't known how to bring to life, come see what a little curiosity and encouragement can lead to! Timestamps: 2:52 - Introduction 3:30 - Community Resources: https://laravel-news.com/ / https://podcast.laravel-news.com/ - Explore the Laravel News site & podcast for the latest updates and discussions https://laravelpodcast.com/ - Laravel and PHP discussions with Matt Stauffer https://laracasts.com - A great platform to check out to build your Laravel skills https://larajobs.com/ - The official Laravel Job Board https://community.laravel.com/ - Find upcoming Laravel conferences and events here https://laravel.com/stories - Laravel is looking to feature developers from every corner of the Community - submit your stories here! 5:23 - Host Sponsor - Reach out at go@vehikl.com || www.vehikl.com 5:38 - JetBrains Giveaway - please use the QR code at the end of the meetup! Enter anytime before October 6th for a chance to win one of two JetBrains coupons 6:01 - Samantha Sappenfield's Introduction 7:31 - Sam’s Slides Begin 8:00 - Intro 10:00 - The problem: there was no way to share Laracon photos 10:40 - The build with Claude + Laravel 12:44 - What ‘build it ourselves’ turned into: laracon.us/photos 14:16 - What else can I build? 15:25 - Builder framework 19:14 - What else she’s built 21:29 - When things break 23:50 - What is infra? 25:45 - How being a builder helped with marketing: a Hubspot MCP Proxy 28:27 - Consistency + progression 29:55 - Q & A with Sam 54:27:00 - End Slides Links Mentioned https://thesambrain.com/ ----- Thank you to our guest: -Samantha Sappenfield, follow her on X (https://x.com/samsappenfield1) and check out her website (https://thesambrain.com/) Sign up for reminders to stay up to date on the latest events @ https://meetup.laravel.com Follow our co-hosts: - Margaret Tavares on X (https://x.com/margarettavares) & LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarettavares/) - Dan Soppelsa on X (https://x.com/dansoppelsa) & LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansoppelsa/) Follow us on Bluesky: - LWWM on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/laravelwwmeetup.bsky.social) Looking for work? These companies are hiring: -Voxie: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/voxieinc -COS Systems: https://lnkd.in/p/gxV_CVBQ -Loop Returns: https://jobs.lever.co/loopreturns -Voices: https://www.voices.com/company/careers -iVisa: https://ivisa.kuali.ai/public-invitation/job/948