Listen to this articleGuestboard is a flexible event management platform for group events. Big or small. Personal or professional. Virtual or in-person. They casually describe it as “Slack meets Facebook Events”. Below is our recent interview with Peter Vandendriesse, CEO & Founder of Guestboard:
Q: Peter, what is different and unique about Guestboard?
A: Top-tier event professionals might spend 6 months or more planning a big event. They think through every last detail, all of which generally revolve around the same goal– providing a smooth and valuable guest experience. Complex event software is used to reach this goal, offering organizers a way to both receive and distribute relevant information. It also gives the attendees a way to build connections, receive important updates, and generally organize their day.
We wanted to provide a similar level of organization and group connection to ANY event that requires more than just an invitation, not just the ones who had the deepest pockets or the savviest organizers.
So whether you’re trying to wrangle 20 people for a camping trip, or easily manage 1000 attendees for your annual leadership conference, we’ll get everyone on the same page.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your features?
A: One of the ways Guestboard is so user-friendly is our one-click customization– where organizers can pick and choose only the features (“widgets”) they want to enable, at no additional cost. For instance, if you’re planning a seminar, you may want your group to be able to separate conversations by topic (Message Board), create a detailed agenda (Schedule), and host some of the talks virtually (Video Chat). These can be enabled or disabled at any point in time.
No two events are the same, and by offering this completely modular system of plugins, we see Guestboard being utilized in creative new ways every day.
A newer feature that we’re particularly excited about is guest list’s Group Tags, which allow organizers to segment guests into custom groups, for example, “event staff” or “Wedding party”. These can be used for creating private schedule items or message board posts, and makes communication even easier.
Q: Who is your ideal user and why?
A: As I mentioned, there is this large (and under-served) market of events that require more than just a basic invite/RSVP, but don’t have the resources, time, or desire to adopt an enterprise software solution. Events such as:
• Small conferences and seminars
• Retreats (wellness, corporate, leadership, etc.)
• Weddings, Bachelorette/Bachelor parties
• Group Travel / Tour groups
• Reunions
• Fundraisers & more
Our typical user is someone who may not be an event professional, but has been tasked with putting one on. If you enjoy appearing like an organized person, you’re our ideal user.
When building a truly flexible product like ours, it is important to focus on your target users. However, we’ll always continue to listen to everyone. The users with the strangest use cases and varying degrees of tech savviness are often the ones who stumble upon the best ideas for improvement.
Q: Can you tell us something about your pricing plans?
A: Most event software is not only complicated to set up, but many essentially hide their lofty prices behind a contact form, so you’re forced to ask for a demo. Considering that our target audience is those who simply want to get everyone on the same page quickly, our pricing is much more transparent and flexible.
Guestboard uses an “organizer credits” pricing model. Every new event board starts with 30 free credits (meaning you can have a 30-person event without a nickel leaving your pocket).
You can purchase additional credits for $0.50/ea, in any quantity, at any time. These credits are deducted from your account whenever someone joins your event. Best of all, these credits stay with your organizer account forever, and can be used for any future event over 30 people.
When it comes to event technology pricing, we consider it the most organizer-friendly model on the market today.
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Q: What can we expect from Guestboard in the next 6 months?
A: On the product side of things, Guestboard’s Android app is releasing this week (Aug 2020), where users and admins can easily plan on the go, and switch between the different event boards they’ve joined. We also have a couple exiting new widgets on the roadmap – Group Polls, and Shared Expenses!
With the recent shift to virtual events, we’re leaning heavily on our Video Chat widget as we position ourselves against some bigger, clunkier, virtual conference players in the space. This is going to put us in an excellent position for 2021, as the pendulum swings back toward hybrid events, and as mid-sized physical events begin to ramp back up.
We firmly believe that video conferencing will remain popular in the events world, but act more as a supplemental offering to drive engagement before, during, and after an in-person event. You’ll begin to see a shift where the value a guest receives will soon be spread over the course of multiple weeks, as opposed to one or two days.
Last Updated on October 22, 2020
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