Tyler joins our expert sales team in the US to expand our global reach and awareness. Tyler brings with him a significant amount of experience to the business and has been in the event technology space for over 10 years.  We asked him to tell us a little more about himself:

Where have you worked previously?

I started my career with Active Network (acquired by Lanyon and merged with Cvent) where my role was to drive new business in Strategic Meetings Management and Registration products. From there, I moved to Zerista which at the time was a startup event app company. Over the 7+ years at Zerista, I helped take the business from a tiny $400K fledgling company to a reputable enterprise software company.  I love technology and helping event organizers drive better returns and engagement at their events.  

Three interesting facts about yourself?

1.  Soccer has been a part of my life since I was 3 years old and earned me a scholarship to The University of San Diego.2.  There was a time where my wife and I had 3 children under the age of 2 - chaos.3.  My first two jobs out of college were with companies I started. I love everything about business and entrepreneurship.

Why join Grip in 2020?

I joined Grip because I believe in what our Founder Tim and his team have been solving in the events space.I have been to too many events where I walked away questioning how much business I missed or left on the table by not meeting the right people.

Why does this matter? Because speeding up the sales cycle for companies drives new revenue.

Best virtual event you’ve attended this year and why?

The best virtual event I have attended was PlanetIMEX. It brought together leading event tech companies, including Grip, to deliver a highly innovative virtual event experience. The event included a fun and interactive experience, a variety of formats including live and pre recorded sessions, and amazing networking opportunities with event professionals from all over the world.

How do you feel the events industry has changed over the last year?

There is no doubt that the events space has been impacted dramatically due to COVID-19. It's incredibly difficult to replicate the organic buzz we all get from live events.

However technology has always been at the forefront of bringing people together. From social apps, to video conferencing to virtual events.

Delivering content virtually has been around for years. Over the last 12 months the real challenge has been, how does an event organizer continue to deliver value to vendors and sponsors, whilst also engaging their audience beyond just watching sessions.  The entire event infrastructure has evolved. We're working hard with our clients to help their events not only scale, but create valuable insights to learn about attendee behaviours which can then be translated into new revenue streams.In my opinion, it requires organizers to:

• Take a step back to think about their purpose for holding the event and whom it will be most valuable. No longer does an event have to be held once per year based on logistics.  

• Seize the opportunity to hold more intimate events many times throughout the year to a more targeted audience. This can drive both attendee traffic and the right event tech allows you to track digital KPI's to determine ROI.

How can Grip best serve the industry right now?

Grip can help the industry in providing analytics and overall satisfaction for event stakeholders in a virtual event. This doesn't have to be a one-time investment for virtual events alone, orgainzers have the opportunity to embed these analytics into their overall event strategy, which can also complement and help to scale their future live or hybrid events. Sales cycles are traditionally accelerated at live B2B events. Virtual events hosted on Grip can cut that time down even further.

If you already have the right audience in the room, whether that's online or in-person, exhibitors, sponsors and buyers will love the fact you've minimised the matchmaking headaches of the past and maximised lead generation potential.

Favourite feature of the platform?

If I had to choose, I’d say that our capabilities around a Hosted Buyer Experience as well as Speed Networking stand out as unique in the virtual event space.  

Never has it been so easy to meet with buyers and suppliers virtually on our platform. You can have 1:1 virtual meetings, and unlike others technology providers in the market, you can also invite additional users to the same meeting on the fly.

Not only that, but attendees can also leave feedback and track analytics in the background to determine how productive the meeting was. This is crucial insight for businesses as all of this analysis isn't traditionally tracked at live events.This is why I'm so proud of our platform, featuring sleek, simple and practical tools to enable all stakeholders to gain more from the shift to online events. Grip boasts quantifiable value to the hundreds of events we have run over the last two months. I’m excited to be on this journey!