STARTUP STAGE: These days is an AI copilot that simplifies company occasion planning

What’s your 30-second pitch to buyers?

These days is an AI copilot that automates the boring elements of
company occasion planning. For instance, our AI can contact venues by e-mail
and cellphone to get availability, cope with back-and-forth negotiations and
current the very best choices. 

Describe each the enterprise and expertise features of your
startup.

• Enterprise: These days is a software program platform that
  leverages AI to streamline company occasion planning. Its AI handles venue
  sourcing, negotiations and logistics to make occasion planning quicker and extra
  cost-efficient.
• Know-how: The core expertise is a proprietary
  AI mannequin that interacts with venues, extracts the quotes from attachments, and
  negotiates charges and concessions. These days’ platform integrates with a world
  database of over 400,000 venues, which is frequently up to date by way of partnerships
  with occasion companies and venues.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Alternatives,
Threats) evaluation of the corporate.

• Strengths: We make planning less complicated by dealing with the outreach
  to venues and distributors with AI, saving our shoppers money and time for his or her
  occasions.
• Weaknesses: 100% dependence on AI and expertise for
  automation could current limitations, so we combine human-in-the-loop for
  sanity checks and to coach the AI.
• Alternatives: 
  • Increasing into new markets and verticals, comparable to wedding ceremony
    planning or non-corporate occasions.
  • Constructing partnerships with further occasion companies to
    develop attain.
• Threats: 
  • Competitors from established gamers within the house.
  • Speedy modifications within the AI panorama might disrupt our
    expertise or enterprise mannequin.

What are the journey ache factors you are attempting to alleviate
from each the shopper and the trade perspective?

Planning company occasions, whether or not a small workforce gathering or
large-scale convention, is commonly a logistical nightmare. Managing guide
emails, spreadsheets and callbacks may be extremely time-consuming and
expensive.

With These days, our AI can contact venues by e-mail and cellphone
to get availability, cope with back-and-forth negotiations, and current the
finest choices.

Our tech scales the affect of human occasion planners, so that they
can concentrate on creating memorable experiences as a substitute of getting slowed down by
logistics.

So you have received the product, now how will you get a lot of
prospects?

We’ve proudly deliberate occasions starting from Amazon’s 25-person
intimate government dinners in New York to Google’s offsite at Common for 375
staff.

Our present prospects are chiefs of employees, government
assistants, and company occasion planners of mid-size and enterprise tech
firms who’ve used These days to supercharge their workflow. Occasion companies
additionally white-label our answer to develop their occasion capability.

Our success isn’t simply in numbers; it’s within the belief and
satisfaction of our shoppers. Our robust inbound progress comes from referrals,
drawing on {our relationships} with high-profile shoppers like Supabase, Datadog,
and Notion. One instance is a senior supervisor at Google who used These days for a
workforce outing, liked his expertise and shared with a number of different administrators and
government assistants at Google, 4 of seven who transformed to paying prospects the subsequent week.

Inform us what course of you have gone by way of to ascertain a
real want in your firm and the dimensions of the addressable market.

In contrast to particular person occasions, company occasions are a superb
market, as a result of the shoppers have excessive willingness to pay and low churn. It’s such a very good market that Cvent, main occasion administration
software program, was just lately purchased for $4.6 billion.

There’s a $3 billion alternative with white-labeling alone utilizing
bottom-up sizing and our assumptions listed under.

How and when will you earn money?

We’re worthwhile! We cost an annual subscription payment or 5%
sourcing payment per occasion from the shopper and 7-10% fee from motels.

We’re IATA-certified and prospects love that These days is
capable of negotiate higher charges than they will on their very own.

What are the backgrounds and former achievements of the
founding workforce?

Anna Solar and Amy Yan are sisters who graduated from MIT and Johns
Hopkins. Each served as class presidents for his or her universities and arranged
3000+ particular person occasions.

Anna was beforehand a software program engineer at Datadog,
DoorDash and Amazon. She studied pc science at MIT and managed a $500,000 annual price range to prepare social occasions for
1300+ college students.

Previous to These days, Amy labored at Google, Meta and McKinsey
& Firm. Her in depth occasion administration expertise spans throughout 11
international locations, having orchestrated profitable gatherings with over 2,000 attendees. 

They’ve booked over $4 million in occasions with inspiring tech firms together with Google, Amazon, Notion and Supabase.

How have you ever addressed range and inclusion your
enterprise?

Variety, fairness and inclusion are foundational ideas at our firm. As a
women-founded firm, we’re proud to announce that we’re licensed by the Ladies’s Enterprise Enterprise Nationwide Council.

What’s been essentially the most tough a part of founding the enterprise
up to now?

Studying to say no to prospects. As very service-oriented
folks, we love saying sure and offering delight. We nonetheless say sure rather a lot, however
provided that it’s in scope and going in direction of our long-term mission.

Usually, journey startups face a reasonably robust time making
an affect – so why are you going to be one among fortunate ones?

Constructed by MIT engineers, we’re the primary AI-driven firm to
deal with this house with a software-first answer. Our moat lies in our
proprietary mannequin and international database of 400,000 venues constructed by partnerships with
venues and occasion companies. With unbeatable costs, quicker response instances and
30x extra stock than opponents, we assure top-tier entry and the very best
offers for our shoppers.

A yr from now, what state do you assume your startup will
be in?

A yr from now, we anticipate These days to have scaled to
tons of of company shoppers, with our AI-driven platform automating a wider
number of occasion planning duties. Our international community of venues can be expanded,
providing quicker, extra customized service and unique offers, positioning us
because the go-to answer for company occasion planners.

What’s your end-game? (Going public, acquisition, rising
and staying personal, and many others.)

Our mission is to construct the go-to platform that simplifies
occasion planning, with a concentrate on long-term progress and turning into the market chief
within the house. We’re working to create a world the place the enjoyment of occasions isn’t
overshadowed by the complexity of planning them, making memorable experiences
accessible to everybody, in all places.