Is my B2B Event Tech Business Changing or Ending?
I have been a technical co-founder in a startup called Leadme Inc (http://www.leadme.ca/). for the past 2 and a half years. We have built a cool technology for automatic lead capture and qualification on tradeshow floors. The tech includes a bluetooth hardware wristband component, progressive mobile app with offline capture functionality, and a web UI that is integrated with HubSpot. We saw the technology used in two big tradeshows by paying customers including Unitron Canada (https://unitron.com/ca/en_ca.html) and eZmax Solutions Inc (https://www.ezmax.ca/en). The business is changing direction now, as my other co-founders have decided to move on to regular 9-5 jobs. I still have the IP to our complete lead capture platform and am interested in seeing it live on somehow.
I do not have the capacity to run this entire startup on my own. So, I would be interested to hear what people in this community think they could do with the business and the tech. Is anyone in this community interested in learning more, and maybe helping the project to live on? Or, have any advice for me?
One idea: work with event organizers to get your platform included in their booth packages.
This is definitely a good idea, though it has been difficult to achieve for us. The most significant roadblock we have faced is finding the right people to work with in the industry. When shooting for large event organizers, we are consistently faced with unwillingness to upset the current set of vendors that event organizers work with to provide their lead capture tech, even when we can clearly demonstrate that we can provide a better technology than what they are doing. When shooting for smaller events, they don't see a fit for our complex lead capture and analytics tech because it is overkill.
It seems like you need to find someone who is well connected with event organizers and convince him to be your advocate. Then they can make right introductions for you and get the ball rolling. Don't think it will be a quick process, I saw processes like this taking months before you finally speak to someone who can make any decision.
As one of the possible vectors of attacks for that, I would think about going to the big conference, speak to all the big vendors at their booths, showing them your technology and how it is better that the default one, and asking for an introduction to their boss/manager (or whoever can make a decision to switch it over). Those bosses should know and speak to the conference organizers. Ask them to endorse you and introduce to conference organizers. Get multiple people onboard and reach out to conference organizers. Most likely, those people only knew their "booth-manager" (or whatever the title of that person), but you got your foot in the door and it is time to slowly open the damn door. With large corporations, it takes a while, but once you are in and signed the contract, look back at your journey to get there. Chances are, it will be a while until someone is able to repeat that. Especially, if you maintain a good relationship with stakeholders and deliver on the task you promise.
Cool, thanks for that perspective. I agree, it is a process that is going to take a while. This perseverant approach seems to be what is necessary to get things rolling.
Hi Marcus,
I think that this is a really good idea. The key here is to build a good sales and business models. I would think about sales from the following angles:
– Selling to the conference organizers. That will require to add some cool data insights for them but signing even one customer can be a huge win.
– Selling to individuals who are running booths. That seems that this is a model you're trying to pursue. Don't know much about it, but following conferences hashtags on Twitter can be a good source of qualified leads that you can target. Usually, if a company purchases a booth at a trade show they'll run some marketing ahead of time. Another thought, that you should probably charge per lead since companies aren't attending conferences every month.
– Piggyback on CRM marketplaces: add your product to their marketplaces and get leads from them. Hubspot for example: https://www.hubspot.com/integrations. That would require some bizdev with a company itself since the discoverability isn't great.
Feel free to reach out with more questions,
Sergey
Thanks Sergey, it is encouraging to hear that you think these are viable strategies. Conference organizers and individuals with booths have been our two targets. We have built an analytics portal for conference organizers that tries to provide "cool data insights" so you were spot on with that! Adding our app to a marketplace is a great idea, which we had not thought of.
Just an update for people interested: I ended up finding someone interested enough to buy the technology I developed. So it was a happy ending. 🙂