This article looks at the top tech entrepreneurs changing the way we attend and plan events for good.
It is no secret I love startups. The proliferation of startups in a particular industry can only be a positive sign.
More startups usually mean more innovation, more capitals and more tech friendly audience. This is quite a powerful combination.
I cover new event startups quite regularly on the blog, I’ve also collected approximately 860 startups on this Pinterest board.
I am also glad to announce that you can submit your startup for editorial consideration using our specific event startup submission form.
Event Startup Gotha
Despite the growing numbers of players only a few managed to disrupt the industry. Not all founders managed to grow to a successful business, attract investment and become household names.
While everyone who launches a startup in the event industry and manages to keep it commercially sound deserves credit, only a few become inspiration for others.
This is why you will find only a few names in the following list.
Let me also add a disclaimer, some of the people listed I know in person, some I never met. Some advertised with the blog in the past, some don’t even know what Event Manager Blog is. In essence this list is unsolicited in any way and the result of spending the last few years closely monitoring event startups.
Funding data is from Crunchbase.
Ready? In no particular order…
Reggie Aggarwal
If there is a 100% startup story it is definitely Cvent’s. They pretty much went under all the frustrations and successes entrepreneurs expect when embarking in starting a tech business.
I’ve listened to Reggie speaking at Cvent Corporate Meeting Summit. He told the story of how he almost shut down everything after the dot-com bubble and then resurrect the business to become one of the strongest event tech players.
Cvent received funding for $136M in 2011, then acquired CrowdCompass in 2012 and filed for $100M IPO last June and ended up its first week of trading up $30.99 from initial listing at $21.
That sounds like success to me.
Kevin and Julia Hartz
Kevin and Julia Hartz have been among the first event tech pioneers to actually define the existence of a long tail for the event industry.
Eventbrite has been incredibly successful. They raised two rounds of funding for a total of $80M $140M.
IPO has been rumoured for a while now and also acquisition from household names such as Facebook and Google.
Jayesh Parmar
I am a fan of Jayesh and how he provokes the event industry. His company Picatic has been among the first to launch crowdsourcing for events – one of the hot trends for this year – and recently announced a ‘pay what you want’ model for events.
The latter announcement being quite shocking for some. Allowing attendees to pay what they feel is surely a big bold step.
I don’t know yet whether it is going to be a successful move but Jay has the guts to adventure in areas avoided by the masses and that means being an entrepreneur to me.
Dan Berger
I admire those that approach the industry solving different problems than creating a me-too product that serves overcrowded markets.
This is Dan’s case with Social Tables.
They were capable to attract 3 rounds of seed, private equity and debt funding for a few $M. Quite remarkable.
Garth Koyle and Seth Shoultes
I share a lot of my tech vision with Seth and Garth. They created a WordPress plugin to manage registration called EventEspresso.
They disrupted the ticketing environment by giving full control back to event professionals. They grew the company to be sustainable and succesful.
In the small yet vibrant ecosystem of event tech for WordPress, they are a model for a lot of players.
Simon Willison | Natalie Downe
I remember the attention Lanyrd attracted when it was launched a few years ago. I love the approach these guys keep having, very tech driven and super open to integration.
This strategy has surely paid off as in 2011 Lanyrd attracted $1.4M in seed funding, surviving the battle with rival Plancast (which ended up being sold).
Kate Kendall
Kate surely knows a lot about publishing but she displayed great understanding of how event discovery works.
The Fetch has a human based approach to events that prefers curation over algorithms. While her business has not attracted investment yet, she managed to catalyse a lot of interest and impressive growth numbers.
Keep an eye on Kate.
Scott Heiferman
If there is a service that revolutionised events for good, this is Meetup.
Scott managed to create a platform that puts in touch event organisers with their relevant audience. Most of all he managed to build a profitable business out of it.
The company received more than $17M in funding, managing to survive the social media revolution.
Patrick Payne and Jim Udall
Patrick and Jim are among the pioneers of mobile event apps and surely this paid off. They created Quickmobile in 2006.
The business reached 8.8M in funding in 2011 and managed to keep impressing the industry with an evolving service and highly competitive offering.
Lawrence Coburn
Doubledutch is another very successful business who managed to secure funding in a very crowded market.
Over the past couple of years, DoubleDutch secured more than $7M in funding and an impressive client portfolio.
In Conclusion
This post looks at common traits of successful event tech entrepreneurs.
Being different, persistent, pioneering, innovative and lateral thinking has helped these tough leaders to create thriving businesses who investors like.
A common trait is that at no stage they pursued something others were trying to do – a big lesson if you are thinking to offer a tech solution to the event industry.
Photo Credits: techcrunch | jdlasica
