A SAAS Booking Platform
VenueBook
In 2016, the event booking space became highly competitive. The landscape was split into two beliefs; pursue and build software for the consumer to better shop for an all-in-one packaged event or to create a SaaS solution that allowed for the event booker to better run their day to day.
Plus, there were two types of inventory you were dealing with; food and beverage spaces and "raw" spaces. These two groups further segmented themselves by having a dedicated person to run an event business or those looking just to make extra money during their business’s down hours.
Finding Product/ Market/ Business Fit
VenueBook had a leading legacy software for the top hospitality groups in NYC. The power of the SaaS could be leveraged by any size operator to run an entire event management business. This set of tools expedited a 10 year industry know-how.
In order to scale the business, the platform would have to go beyond building tools for venue managers. It had to also focus on the lead generation and transactions to create a book-through marketplace.
A Leaky Marketplace + A Reluctant Adoption
Traditional marketplace offenses could not be applied since VenueBook’s inventory was public information. If one tried hard enough, a booker could eventually find exclusive inventory and connect with the venue manager off-platform. Many initial behaviors used VenueBook.com as an aggregator tool rather than a true book-through experience.
Second, the top hospitality groups had little to no tolerance for “fishers” (those that were only interested in quote shopping) rather than building a truly custom event experience. They began ignoring the leads from the marketplace altogether creating a horrid consumer experience that took the credibility away from the book-through platform very quickly.
Connecting Two Engines
First, we needed to build a sense of cohesion and connective tissue between the two softwares.
If we could increase the overall usage of the SaaS, it would directly impact the marketplace leads. As a booker becomes more educated about the transparency of a venue’s operation via the SaaS’ data, they would begin to develop a much more qualified query.
Availability and pricing are cornerstones of booking compatibility. However, strict “deal breakers” would quickly end the conversation. There needed to be education on both sides. They needed to speak the same language. It was important to standardize seasonality, the true budget of the booker, and the minimum price a venue manager was willing to entertain before getting into event details.
A booker who is planning a Bar Mitzvah is set on date and headcount may not be aware of a venue manager’s in-season calendar that is typically reserved 6 months in advance with high paying corporate parties. But, if there is room for a smaller venue and a slightly higher per person budget - the venue manager may be able to find a sister property to accommodate.
Without standardization, this conversation would usually show the other party as unwilling and uneducated.
We formed a combination of manual matching, formed three conversion tracks and created a standardized messaging script depending on how developed the booker’s query was. This resulted in overall SaaS usage, more qualified and higher volume leads, and significantly increased velocity of deal flow.
VenueBook raised it’s bridge round on Expressbook, a “one-click” transaction flow that would create events in record time. Standardization was a clear foundational precursor.
