The Exchanges

Q Okay. So you're, yeah, those guys are more like how to get your website set up with like a ticket checkout and a schedule and, and you're more what?

A We are more that you will have this exhibit hall where these three D virtual booths are going to be. And you can go and you can engage with them. You can have live text chat, audio chat, video chat with them. We also have online auditorium where you have this full agenda of the conference that's going on, and you can attend live webinars, have a Q&A, and so forth. We have this gamification metric in there, and trying to maximize engagement between visitors and, and, and exhibitors and, and these, you know, speakers. So ours is an end-to-end platform. Ticketing is just a very small component of it, right? But the idea is, you know, whatever you want to do in a physical event, We want to help you replicate online, but you know, from the comfort of your office or home.

AI assessment note: “We are more that you will have this exhibit hall where these three D virtual booths”

Q And what's the breakdown there? How many of those are engineers?

A So our engineers are around five or six only. But again, the big bulk of our team is, which is close to our 25 to 30 people, are purely post sales product managers. You know, they are your account managers who are going to work with you to help you run a very successful event. Because what we see, Nathan, here is that A lot of these new customers, they are going to run these online events for the very first time. We are not one of the companies who want to just keep the technology and walk away. We want that event to be successful. We want the consultants to work with them to make this event successful. So those are the kind of people we are hiring. So mostly post sales project managers slash consultants.

AI assessment note: “So our engineers are around five or six only.”

Q And what's the breakdown there? How many of those are engineers?

A So our engineers are around five or six only. But again, the big bulk of our team is, which is close to our 25 to 30 people, are purely post sales product managers. You know, they are your account managers who are going to work with you to help you run a very successful event. Because what we see, Nathan, here is that A lot of these new customers, they are going to run these online events for the very first time. We are not one of the companies who want to just keep the technology and walk away. We want that event to be successful. We want the consultants to work with them to make this event successful. So those are the kind of people we are hiring. So mostly post sales project managers slash consultants.

AI assessment note: “So our engineers are around five or six only.”

Q And let's for a second ignore the one-off folks. People on an, how many, how many customers do you have on an annual basis today?

A So, uh, see, we have over one, 60 to one 70 customers, so close to 60 to 70 of them at least are annual contracts. Those who do one-time events with us, I have to say that you can, you can think of them as more, a good 80% of them, they have seasonal events with us. So, you know, someone who runs a virtual benefits fair with us will always run a virtual benefits fair with us in October, right? It runs for a month, it's over, They will come back next year, October time again to run another virtual benefit spray with us. So, so yeah, so, so almost 40 to 50% are annual, which is again close to 60 to 70 customers. And then we have around a hundred plus for single events who comes seasonally.

AI assessment note: “close to 60 to 70 of them at least are annual contracts”

Q Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, so, so, And, and for people, we jumped right into this very quickly. For people that missed your first interview, pitch the products here for a second. So what are you guys focused on doing?

A So we help companies run online events. Um, there are, you know, three, four different types of use cases. Uh, a lot of fortune, 500 companies work with us to do online career fairs where they want to connect with prospective candidates. Um, a lot of universities, they work with us because they want to connect Want to connect with prospective students who want to enroll in their university. And then again, we have always been serving those customers who want to do both hybrid events, physical and virtual. But again, given, given the situation we all are, we all are in debt has taken just a really high, you know, kind of a jump between the amount of incoming that we're getting right now. So again, anyone who wants to do physical event also want to do online. We help them with what we call virtual conferences.

AI assessment note: “we help companies run online events”

Q Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, so, so, And, and for people, we jumped right into this very quickly. For people that missed your first interview, pitch the products here for a second. So what are you guys focused on doing?

A So we help companies run online events. Um, there are, you know, three, four different types of use cases. Uh, a lot of fortune, 500 companies work with us to do online career fairs where they want to connect with prospective candidates. Um, a lot of universities, they work with us because they want to connect Want to connect with prospective students who want to enroll in their university. And then again, we have always been serving those customers who want to do both hybrid events, physical and virtual. But again, given, given the situation we all are, we all are in debt has taken just a really high, you know, kind of a jump between the amount of incoming that we're getting right now. So again, anyone who wants to do physical event also want to do online. We help them with what we call virtual conferences.

AI assessment note: “we help companies run online events”

Q Okay. So you're, yeah, those guys are more like how to get your website set up with like a ticket checkout and a schedule and, and you're more what?

A We are more that you will have this exhibit hall where these three D virtual booths are going to be. And you can go and you can engage with them. You can have live text chat, audio chat, video chat with them. We also have online auditorium where you have this full agenda of the conference that's going on, and you can attend live webinars, have a Q&A, and so forth. We have this gamification metric in there, and trying to maximize engagement between visitors and, and, and exhibitors and, and these, you know, speakers. So ours is an end-to-end platform. Ticketing is just a very small component of it, right? But the idea is, you know, whatever you want to do in a physical event, We want to help you replicate online, but you know, from the comfort of your office or home.

AI assessment note: “whatever you want to do in a physical event, We want to help you replicate online”

Q Yeah, that's great. Talk to me about, talk to me about how you're driving this growth. How are you signing up these new paid accounts? I mean, these are big deals.

A So, so, uh, most of them are, uh, they're incoming leads. I have to say, I think in our case, we have been extremely lucky. We have had some great customers, you know, who, who has been really happy with our services. And as you know, they kind of speak with other HR executives, you know, people who want to do virtual events with us, they eventually keep on knocking on our doors and ask us, you know, how we can have something similar to, let's say what AT&T is doing or what T-Mobile is doing or what Nestle is doing, right? So, so almost 80% of our business is purely incoming, you know? So, so people call us, people reach out to us, people, Come to our website to ask for our services. 20% is outbound where we reach out to other customers.

AI assessment note: “most of them are, uh, they're incoming leads... 80% of our business is purely incoming”

Q Well, and so what drove that? I mean, there's hard, COVID is obviously important, but there's also a lot of hard work there.

A Absolutely. See, there are two things, right? First of all, uh, I think prior to COVID, you have to be a very forward looking organization to try out virtual events. So you have to be one of those fortune, 500 fortune, 2000 companies in order to do something unique. Now with COVID, What has happened is that everyone is, you know, forced to learn about virtual events, to do virtual events, and when they went out there trying to look for a platform, we were one of the most trusted platform out there. So if you go on G two, you know, again, with all respect to all the other people who have raised tons of money, you will see us as number one when it comes to the highest rated platform. Uh, so no one, no one, and I see that with a lot of confidence, no one can beat us on customer support. Uh, so as much as a software play, uh, one thing where we just, uh, you know, we are better than anyone else out there is, you know, uh, how, how great our customer support is versus anyone else out there. Uh, that's one. Then again, you know, when they were researching, uh, who's the most, uh, you know, trusted player, most, uh, you know, the player with, uh, a lot of, um, great reviews. And then again, you know, player with, with a bit of a, you know, who can help you run event that is highly memorable. We came out there at the top, right? So we were the one who got a lot of that influx of new bu…

AI assessment note: “when they went out there trying to look for a platform, we were one of the most trusted”

Q Any challenges? I mean, it sounds like it's all working. Any challenges scaling that sales team?

A The challenge, uh, I think at that time was really we We strive in being extremely transparent, and when there's a lot of money coming to you, you want to be make sure that, you know, as much as you want to win the customer, you also sometimes want to just be careful of what you're signing up with, right? Because the way we have been able to scale is that we have been absolutely clear what our platform does, how we can support you, how we can help you, right? During the COVID times, a lot of customers would just want to sign up with you without even telling what they're looking for, you know, and again, we were very careful of Again, not having salespeople who are just out there for money. We care about just, again, we don't, we don't want to get a customer for first year. We want to get a customer for the next three to five years, and we just want to make sure that we are signing up with the right customer. So just having that transparency, having that, like, you know, extreme honesty within salespeople, that's what we typically look for when we are trying to hire someone.

AI assessment note: “extreme honesty within salespeople, that's what we typically look for when we are trying to hire”

Q Well, and so what drove that? I mean, there's hard, COVID is obviously important, but there's also a lot of hard work there.

A Absolutely. See, there are two things, right? First of all, uh, I think prior to COVID, you have to be a very forward looking organization to try out virtual events. So you have to be one of those fortune, 500 fortune, 2000 companies in order to do something unique. Now with COVID, What has happened is that everyone is, you know, forced to learn about virtual events, to do virtual events, and when they went out there trying to look for a platform, we were one of the most trusted platform out there. So if you go on G two, you know, again, with all respect to all the other people who have raised tons of money, you will see us as number one when it comes to the highest rated platform. Uh, so no one, no one, and I see that with a lot of confidence, no one can beat us on customer support. Uh, so as much as a software play, uh, one thing where we just, uh, you know, we are better than anyone else out there is, you know, uh, how, how great our customer support is versus anyone else out there. Uh, that's one. Then again, you know, when they were researching, uh, who's the most, uh, you know, trusted player, most, uh, you know, the player with, uh, a lot of, um, great reviews. And then again, you know, player with, with a bit of a, you know, who can help you run event that is highly memorable. We came out there at the top, right? So we were the one who got a lot of that influx of new bu…

AI assessment note: “one thing where we just, uh, you know, we are better than anyone else out there is, you know, uh, how, how great our customer support is”

Q Any challenges? I mean, it sounds like it's all working. Any challenges scaling that sales team?

A The challenge, uh, I think at that time was really we We strive in being extremely transparent, and when there's a lot of money coming to you, you want to be make sure that, you know, as much as you want to win the customer, you also sometimes want to just be careful of what you're signing up with, right? Because the way we have been able to scale is that we have been absolutely clear what our platform does, how we can support you, how we can help you, right? During the COVID times, a lot of customers would just want to sign up with you without even telling what they're looking for, you know, and again, we were very careful of Again, not having salespeople who are just out there for money. We care about just, again, we don't, we don't want to get a customer for first year. We want to get a customer for the next three to five years, and we just want to make sure that we are signing up with the right customer. So just having that transparency, having that, like, you know, extreme honesty within salespeople, that's what we typically look for when we are trying to hire someone.

AI assessment note: “not having salespeople who are just out there for money”

Q say March first, you guys were at about a 159,000. Now today you're up at ranking, you know, a 104,000, which is a sign that again, your website traffic is drastically increasing. Take me down to one level. So web website traffic, Pre-virus, post-virus is obviously increasing. How many new, you know, in a day you said you were signing up four or five new trials pre-virus? Was that right?

A So again, yeah, that, that used to be the incoming leads that you used to get, you know, four or five. Right now, honestly, I don't even have the exact number. On literally every minute, we are getting a phone call and a lead. And again, I have to say, you know, just, just as a company, we're trying as much as we can to serve all of those requests. But again, just to give you a rough number, you know, when we go back to one 19, we were signing around, on average, you know, between new and renewals, around 10 to 12 customers a day, a month, right? Right now, that has already turned into a week, whereby, you know, rather than 10 customers in a month, we will have at least 40 to 50 customers a month. And again, I'm talking about February and March already. And we'll see, like, you know, how we can take, you know, from here and, you know, see, you know, how much we can We can help the customers out there with what they're facing right now.

AI assessment note: “rather than 10 customers in a month, we will have at least 40 to 50”

Q You have 562 reviews on G two, which means you probably get a lot of organic traffic from there, maybe some paid as well, but the playbook you run to make sure when you impress a customer, they actually take the time to go leave a review is an important playbook. What does that sound like?

A Yeah, no, I think, uh, see, uh, within the events industry, what happened is that anytime a customer is coming to any vendor, including us, I think they, they, they know that they're going to work for, uh, weeks, if not months for that one day, that one day, that one day for a virtual event has to go just perfectly well. And they would always go ahead and do their research. So they will, they want that social proof. So they will see G too. They will ask us, can you give us social proofs? They will ask us for references. And then, you know, once, once, They are done doing a virtual event with VFairs. They know how much, how much those reviews have helped them. So again, just by default, they go out there and, and, and post some of those reviews. Of course we encourage them, you know, as well that, you know, if you feel that you, whatever, you know, whether it's good or bad service, we would love you to kind of go ahead and share that internally as well externally with the world.

AI assessment note: “just by default, they go out there and, and, and post some of those reviews.”

Q You have 562 reviews on G two, which means you probably get a lot of organic traffic from there, maybe some paid as well, but the playbook you run to make sure when you impress a customer, they actually take the time to go leave a review is an important playbook. What does that sound like?

A Yeah, no, I think, uh, see, uh, within the events industry, what happened is that anytime a customer is coming to any vendor, including us, I think they, they, they know that they're going to work for, uh, weeks, if not months for that one day, that one day, that one day for a virtual event has to go just perfectly well. And they would always go ahead and do their research. So they will, they want that social proof. So they will see G too. They will ask us, can you give us social proofs? They will ask us for references. And then, you know, once, once, They are done doing a virtual event with VFairs. They know how much, how much those reviews have helped them. So again, just by default, they go out there and, and, and post some of those reviews. Of course we encourage them, you know, as well that, you know, if you feel that you, whatever, you know, whether it's good or bad service, we would love you to kind of go ahead and share that internally as well externally with the world.

AI assessment note: “just by default, they go out there and, and, and post some of those reviews”