Cyprus → Los Angeles: Heatwave at Create & Cultivate
This year I had the opportunity to attend Create & Cultivate in Los Angeles, not only as a founder travelling from Cyprus, but with a little piece of Heatwave there too.
Heatwave on the floor
We brought the Heatwave spirit to LA the only way we know how: through movement. Our activation was a giant branded hopscotch that invited attendees to jump in, play and discover the festival through a QR code.
Seeing it on the festival floor was one of those small moments that actually felt pretty big. When you're constantly building, planning the next event, chasing the next idea and solving the next problem, you don't always stop to realise how far something has travelled. Heatwave started on Molos, Limassol. Now I was standing in Los Angeles watching thousands of women walk past its name.
The real takeaway: the women in the room
Surprisingly, that wasn't my biggest takeaway from the weekend.
The room was full of founders, CEOs, creators and investors, with audiences ranging from a few hundred people to millions, and yet there was very little sense of hierarchy. Women introduced themselves, shared advice, made connections and complimented each other. They genuinely seemed excited to see another woman doing well. There were a LOT of girls' girls in that room. 🤍
As a female founder, that was incredibly refreshing. It reminded me that ambition and kindness aren't mutually exclusive. You can be competitive about what you're building without competing with every woman around you. Julia Broome, Senada Greca, Emma Grede and Christina Kirkman showed exactly that.
Hats off to the team
Huge congratulations to Jaclyn Johnson, Marina Middleton and the whole Create & Cultivate team for building an environment where that kind of connection can happen. Building an event at this scale is something I understand more than most. There are a thousand moving pieces behind every moment an attendee actually sees, and what they created in LA was seriously impressive.
The road ahead
I left LA inspired, with new connections, new ideas and an even bigger vision for where Heatwave can go next:
- Dubai: March 2027
- Limassol: April 2027, back home on Molos
- Los Angeles: November 2027
From a fitness festival on a little island in the Mediterranean to our first steps in the US, we're just getting started. 🌊
Follow @heatwave.world for every update, and wear the West Coast blues from our LA Exclusive capsule.