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Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun, singer/songwriter Tori Kelly, IRL Productions’ Emily Gannett and billionaire / Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban at Conduit Corner @ SXSW 2013 (photo by Erica Gannett)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

This was my sophomore outing at SXSW (‘Spring Break for Nerds!’) and it was every bit as epic and intense as the first one. Five days of non-stop boozing ‘n schmoozing ‘n pool partying ‘n BBQing ‘n celeb meeting  ‘n concerts with little-to-no sleep can take its toll. I feel like a HERD of elephants ran over me! Now that I’ve put that mental picture in your head, let’s dive in.

My 2013 SXSW actually began right here at La Guardia airport, where I ran into bunch of local tech peeps en route to Austin, including Newscred CEO Shafqat Islam. There was a storm coming, but luckily we got out before it hit. In fact, my flight left half an hour EARLY, if you can believe that, so thank you, United. (Of course, the return flight was delayed by an hour, so there went all the hard-earned goodwill. Oh well.) Read More