Mar 11, 2021 · 22m · top-founders
Events.com Should Have Been Hopin, Can They Acquire Their Way Back To Top?
Mitch Thrower · 13m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken Frank Bien · 4s spoken Eric Yuan · 4s spoken Vivek Bhaskaran · 2s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Nathan Latka interviews Mitch Thrower, co-founder and CEO of Events.com, on navigating pandemic disruptions, executing a rolling capital raise, and leveraging strategic acquisitions to scale an all-in-one event management platform.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 28.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.2 Guest teaching 2.2 Guest disagreement 1.7 Nathan pushing back 4.2
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:15 Thrower deflects missed virtual event opportunity
Thrower pushes back against Latka's accusation that Events.com missed the virtual boom, asserting their gateway approach while revealing Latka touched on a confidential acquisition.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 16:07 Latka challenges failure to pivot to virtual eventsLatka cuts in and refuses to accept the integration narrative, demanding why a company with a tier-one domain failed to make virtual events their top priority when lockdowns began.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:49 Thrower explains tactical rolling raises to foundersThrower redirects the conversation away from valuation disclosure to give an in-depth operational lesson on how founders should structure rolling fundraises to deploy capital faster.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:34 Latka reels off competitor growth numbersLatka demonstrates deep domain expertise by citing exact ARR growth milestones for competitors like Hopin and vFairs to challenge why Events.com shrunk instead of grew.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incubator Origins and Acquiring the Events.com Domain | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Latka probes the company's early venture studio structure and uncovers past funding rounds. Thrower explains the historical origins and the acquisition of the domain from CBS. | |
| Solving Event Management Fragmentation for the Mid-Market | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Latka cites specific Form D filing data to clarify early fundraising amounts. Thrower deflects giving current valuation figures while closing a round, instead lecturing on the mechanics and advantages of rolling fundraises. | |
| COVID-19 Fallout, Acquisition Pivots, and Industry Recovery | 5 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Latka repeatedly presses Thrower to disclose exact revenue contraction figures for 2020 following a 2019 baseline of $16.8M. Thrower refuses to give exact numbers, describing the blow generally and pivoting to industry rebound data. | |
| Video Strategy Debate: In-House Platform vs. Ecosystem Integrations | 8 | 3 | 4 | 8 | Latka aggressively challenges Thrower's platform strategy by rattling off explosive revenue metrics from competitors like Hopin and vFairs during COVID. Thrower defends their mid-market agnostic integration model and concedes Latka uncovered an upcoming acquisition. | |
| Customer Base, Monetization Model, and Software Architecture | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Latka asks about customer count, software tooling, monetization percentages, and engineering team size. Thrower provides straightforward metrics and details on their API-driven business model. | |
| The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Standard Famous Five round where Thrower shares his favorite books, CEO inspirations, and life advice about placing oneself where financial value moves rather than merely following passion. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Mitch Thrower: Events.com acquired its domain name from CBS
“And the events.com domain name is one that we acquired from CBS. Believe it or not, it was originally owned by Bill Gross, not Pimco Bill Gross, but Idealab Bill Gross.”
Events.com generated about $1.4M to $1.5M in its first 12 months
“So, I mean, in the first 12, we were probably in the maybe million and a half range, somewhere in there, 1,000,004.”
Events.com has raised over $50M and is closing a $70M+ total round
“We've raised over fifty million and we're about to announce a round that takes us over seventy million and that includes the acquisitions.”
Events.com plans to announce three acquisitions within two to three quarters
“One of which we did in 19 and didn't announce one of which actually the other three, which we're about to announce, I would say within the next two or three quarters.”
Mitch Thrower advises founders to use rolling raises to deploy capital immediately
“If you do a rolling raise, the difference is if you're raising capital and let's say raising ten million, you may only be able to use that ten million when you get it to ten million. If you do a rolling raise, you get the first million, you can use it and grow…”
Thrower: Events.com generated $16.8M combined revenue in 2019
“Combined entities were for 19, about 16.8... 16, 16.8 million.”
Thrower: COVID-19 caused a $3B drop in event management software
“You know, there's three billion dollar drop out of the event management software business.”
Thrower: 5% to 8% of global event organizers will fail post-COVID
“And some, we expect around five up to eight percent of the event organizers globally will actually just not make it through.”
Thrower: New Zealand broke 16-year event attendance records post-lockdown
“When New Zealand opened up again, After their first lockdown, which was abbreviated compared to the rest of the world, they broke 16 year attendance records at their events and have maintained like a 20 to 30% increase in the people that are going to out and e…”
Thrower: Events.com integrates external video stacks rather than building native video
“From a video tech stack, we actually, we refer folks and integrate with other video tech stacks. So when people are powering their event from a virtual perspective, they will use our system to do everything from registration, sponsorship management, marketing,…”
Latka: Hopin ARR grew from $3M to nearly $20M pre-StreamYard
“Hoppin grows from three million in ARR to almost twenty million in ARR pre-hop, pre-streamyard acquisition with their video tech stack.”
Latka: vFairs bootstrapped from $3M to $30M ARR during pandemic
“Vfair's bootstrapped goes from three million to thirty million in ARR during this period.”
Thrower: Prudential licenses Events.com via API to build custom applications
“There's some organizations that use our platform and will just license it as an API, like Prudential, that come and just use our program to build what they want on top of, similar to like a Shopify model.”
Mitch Thrower: 'Do what you love' advice is flawed without value flow
“That whole concept of do what you love and the money will follow is wrong. It's find what in the area that you love where value is moving from point A to B and insert yourself in the middle and help facilitate the process as opposed to just going out and rando…”