Ever been to an event, let’s say via Meetup, and after the event you’ve found yourself lacking a way to continue networking with the individuals you met? Have you ever planned an event, and felt that afterwards you were not able to connect with as many individuals as you would have liked? Luckily for both event planners and attendees, there is a platform that is available and seeks to cater to our needs. It’s called Evolero.
Evolero is an event & conference management software that’s a one-stop-platform. It offers all online services and tools for conference planning and organizing that enables the event planner to engage the attendees before, during, and after the event. This startup is truly amazing, and that’s hardly surprising if you meet the team behind Evolero.
Evolero COO & Co-Founder Shany Peleg and Vice President of Business Development Ben Sack were kind enough to take some time out of their super busy schedules (and their awesome WeWork office) and sit down with Bizzvenue to give us an inside view.
Shany Peleg and Ben Sack pictured above at the Evolero HQ
How did it get started?
CEO & Co-Founder Tal Shoham and COO & Co-Founder Shany Peleg came from a rich background of event planning and organising. Approximately 4 years ago, they got together and decided to found Evolero. The company is currently going strong in Israel (where it was founded), and focus is now pointed towards the US. They are currently raising funds for Series A, so if you have deep pockets and a desire to finance promising startups, be sure to drop them a line.
What exactly does Evolero do?
Evolero is a one stop shop for event planning and conference management. With Evolero you can easily create an event site, do email marketing, manage your event ticketing and registration, offer your sponsors advanced marketing tools and your attendees powerful networking tools. All this is done with a very clever social twist.
Evolero is the dream for every marketer. If you’re planning an event without Evolero, there are only two possible options, either you’re clinically insane or you’re trying to fail.
What’s the deal with the Social Twist?
This is our favourite part. You can set a hashtag for the event you organise. Every time your hashtag is used on social media such as Instagram and Twitter, Evolero pulls the post into your event’s feed which attendees can then like and share with their own social networks. So basically you’re tapping into your community’s community.
Evolero told Bizzvenue that the real issue with events is what happens after the event, which is usually nothing at all. The hype and the buzz all die down the moment the event is over. Evolero keeps the momentum going. After the event day, most event pages on Evolero see visits jump by 150% for more than a month.
Event organizers invest a massive amount of time and money in each event. Evolero does not let this go to waste by generating a snow ball effect, building upon the successful event and keeping up the momentum even after the event has expired.
The business of Evolero
Ben Sack told Bizzvenue that Evolero is focusing heavily on functionality and the product itself.
We created an awesome product for event planning, but the key is to look into what we are actually helping our clients achieve. Why are these events being made in the first place? Evolero tries to offer a solution that looks beyond event logistics and in a very real way, builds community. We take all the networking and engagement attendees normally get in the real world and take it to the digital one as well.
Why isn’t there an app?
Most startup services these days either have an app to complement the main site or even better, some services are exclusive to the app platform. In China for instance, the vast majority of the population has skipped the computer all together and do everything on their smartphones. So how come Evolero is web based? Ben Sack explains that the site is fully mobile optimized and that both Android and iOS apps are cooking in the pipeline. Evolero had a quick launch once they hit the market, selling the product before it had even been released. They also explained that a lot of event organizers are very old school. They decided that because of these reasons they would focus on fine tuning their web platform. It was obvious to the team that the app would only come later on.
What feature isn’t used enough by organisers?
Evolero strongly encourages users to set up a dedicated hashtag for each event. Organisers should push the events with a hashtag on the social media front. As we mentioned above, the way Evolero is built, even if you’re only doing one tweet or Instagram post per day, it quickly racks up and makes for great looking event page on Evolero.
Could competitors such as Wix do the same?
The blunt answer is yes. Obviously Wix could replicate this, in the same way that technically a 10 year old could theoretically build an Instagram app in his mother’s basement. The real questions is not “Could a competitor replicate Evolero” but “Should they?”. At the end of the day, the industry is huge and there are a number of different products for different users. It’s a large market with millions of events happening each year. As of today, no one offers such a complete and well thought out package like Evolero. Starting from scratch would be insane. It isn’t a coincidence that TEDx, Microsoft, Yahoo, GM, DLD and many others are using Evolero.
“One more thing” Tips for entrepreneurs
COO & Co-Founder Shany Peleg was also kind enough to share her personal top tip for all entrepreneurs. She explained…
The most important thing is the relationship between the co founders. It all starts from there. For Evolero it was mostly luck, but it’s very critical. The relationship between the co-founders is the key to success.
