and to have people actually come and visit you.

Friday, 2nd February 2024 around 8:30 a.m.

As I started walking towards the booth of the company Axel Automotive, which I have co-founded and managing over last few years, at Las Vegas Convention Center which was hosting NADA 2024, I started having a weird feeling…

Is this real? Is it happening? How will it go? Will anybody visit us? As you can see the booth is in the secondary hall of the massive convention center in the rear corner of the building… there are close to 600 booths of various sizes with everyone from the Industry big and small attending… so it can be really busy or could be no activity … you can never tell. 

January 23rd, 2015, Moscone Center, San Francisco – my first time visiting NADA… never heard of it before, or had an idea of what it was really like. I just started working on Automotive Software and wanted to see what the world is really like. I was blown away by its size and participants. As I walked the floor, saw a bunch of software people, and realized it is BIG… and BROAD. I went to a booth that showed me their software and said they were awarded the Best New Automotive Software award in 2014. Hmm…. I want to be the next one to get the award, I thought… I want to have my own booth… bring guys in and show them how great our product is, and receive many accolades … so I left determined to be back soon.

So fast forward 9 years … it finally happened… your own booth… you realize how challenging it is to get here… you need to have a product, it needs to be good enough that people will use it and want to pay for it. It is not just a matter of having money to have a booth… you need a product, people, presentation and connections.

Without boring with more details… the booth summary is… we were very busy. We ranked 13 out of 582 booths in activity. We had a constant stream of people visiting and sitting through presentations. So my feelings are mixed, humbled, and excited. We finally arrived here… this is what you wanted to get to… now that you got here, focus, execute and grow it. No more looking back!

I had to think of all the people who helped me gain knowledge, give ideas, help create, provide finances, support, and their time… and I need to thank all of them for helping me reach this point.

axelautomotive.com