Hi. I'm Bob. My background is over 30 years of engineering and IT. My lot in life was not necessarily to become a conference planner. But, over the years, it's become an important part of what I've done at different points in my career. Even going back to middle school, I've always been organizing, both people and content, and bringing those two aspects together. Whether it was the chess club in 7th grade, the poetry journal in high school, or the radio news department in college, organizing people around a common goal has just been a strong part of being me.
But it was during my 10-year tenure at Conversation International when organizing people overseas for a conference, either focused on saving the oceans, or supporting 100+ of our staff at the latest COP meeting on climate change that it became a part of my career and everyday business. It wasn't until 2009 when I really started organizing events and working for myself that it became a bigger focus. In June 2009, I happened to organize what was the first conference about social media on the east coast in Washington, DC. I then organized 20 conferences around the U.S. and Canada on the same subject during a 6-month period. It's a sight to see going through airport security with four laptops and two projectors.
Once I was focused solely on virtual reality and healthcare in 2017, I started organizing two annual conferences to support the industry. One in the U.S. and one in Europe. I've been around a while. I've tried and paid for many of the conference applications cited in our feature comparison. But around 2015 or so, there were more applications on the market, and they were all getting increasingly expensive.
And this is where my frustration started to occur. I personally don't produce giant size conferences. My events run an average of 100-400 attendees, depending on the location, the topic and the economy. Remember COVID? I moved my conference entirely online that year. But I made it work as best as I could. Conferences are a very tough business. At least for me, very often, I won't know whether I've broken even or not until just a couple of weeks before the conference starts. It creates a lot of stress, anxiety and uncertainty.
The last place I needed more stress was in choosing a platform to use with my attendees. But for a conference my size, having to spend more than $2000 USD just for the app was becoming unsustainable. And then, depending on the platform, they're increasing their prices every year. And their payment terms can be very unreasonable. And then I need to be able to accommodate exhibitors. Oh! That's an extra cost? Do you want to accommodate 10 exhibitors, or unlimited? The price varies. The same for sponsors.
I'm not going to call out individual platforms as much as I would like to. But you know who they are. They're part of our feature and price comparison. So, the costs had become untenable. And going from $2000+ to $3500+ and higher in just a couple of years was more than I could accommodate, for a conference with less than 500 attendees. So, I went without a year ago. And muddled through as best as possible.
I've thought about building my own platform for many, many years. At least 10+. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. I've been building EZConferences over the last year. My first goal was to ensure I had it ready and battled tested for our own 10th Annual Virtual Reality and Healthcare Global Symposium. But from the beginning, I designed it to be scalable and a platform that would serve the needs of at least 80% of all conference organizers. And most importantly, I wanted to do to others what you would have them do to you. The golden rule. Not a bad rule to live by. So, it's affordable. At least, I think it's affordable. But also feature rich. Without the need to nickel and dime. Without the need to guess what you need to budget. WYSIWYG.
Let me talk briefly about Ticket Revenue Capture. Personally, I think this is a revenue stream in which platforms take advantage of those with less knowledge than them, and perhaps for those that are scared of dealing with credit cards. It doesn't have to be that way. Anyone with a bank account can start a Stripe account. There's a reason Stripe is worth $159 billion today. They democratized, streamlined and made it super easy for anyone to take credit cards over the Internet. They've been doing it for 15 years. They're not the only option. There are others. There's absolutely no reason that you must give any extra percentage of your ticket revenue to a conference application platform. It's a lot of money, and it can add up fast. Knowledge is power. And in this case, significant amounts of revenue. And particularly when you're a small business, every dollar matters. If you have questions about this, I'm happy to help. Reach out under "Contact Us" in the footer.
So, that's my story. And I'm sticking with it.
It's very hard to be everything to everybody. And you can either provide a set of features that are fantastic, or you can try to support every bell and whistle under the sun and provide a mediocre experience. I'm not saying I have all the answers and know what every single conference planner wants or needs. But I've been doing it a long time, and I think I know what the majority need.
Of course, I want to provide new features and capabilities as they make sense. But if every aspect isn't killer, effective and efficient, then why build it? Again, not trying to be everything to everybody, just hopefully 80%. And I'm always happy to talk and hear from the other 20%.
Lastly, customer service is key. I try to make myself as available as possible. And I've listed my direct line so you can call or text me on the "Contact Us" page. I normally respond within a couple of hours unless I'm sleeping, sitting on a plane, or sick with a fever. But making sure you're happy with the platform and experience is my number one priority.
Thank you,
Bob