Meet BSEEN Live, an ambitious events agency that built a thriving startup community on Hopin

Forging meaningful connections between founders and funders

The startups were the stars of Demo Day, using the event to share their stories of challenge and success and the role TheVentury's ELEVATE program played in that journey. The conference was a chance for each startup to show investors their business model and pitch for investment. Four businesses showcased their work, ranging from a platform revolutionizing funding for farmers to a peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace.

Demo Day's agenda prioritized interaction. The conference opened for speed networking 30 minutes before it officially started, followed by a welcome from TheVentury's program managers Katharina Binder and Elisabeth Korshunova. The main stage program was short and sweet, with the next hour dedicated to startup pitches and audience interaction.

BSEEN Live was tasked with maximizing engagement on the day. While TheVentury’s team were on hand to help create an atmosphere by cheering startups on in the event chat, BSEEN worked diligently to spark real-time conversation around key topics via polls and Q&A sessions. BSEEN Live also built in breaks for attendees to network with each other in a more informal setting. This helped to break down barriers and facilitate the kind of conversations that can land those all-important investment dollars.

After answering questions about their pitch on the event's main stage, each startup moved into a pre-prepared booth in the Expo area where investors could follow up. In these booths, startups fielded questions from potential investors and chatted directly with the event's sponsors to understand what tools they offered and how they could help grow their business. BSEEN also set up a special booth for TheVentury to host discussions with other startups interested in joining its accelerator program as well as potential corporate partners and sponsors for future Demo Days. 

Potential corporate partners received a special abridged agenda to get a taste of what TheVentury does. After the startup pitches were finished, these attendees joined dedicated interview slots featuring two existing partners to discuss topics around innovation. Along with building relationships, these talks were specially planned to generate post-event marketing content.

"We had just opened up the program for corporate teams as well, not only startups, and so we wanted to give potential corporate partners for the future a glimpse of what we do. But we were also aware of the fact that maybe they're not interested in listening to all the startup pitches. So we created a special agenda for them after the startup pitches." –Katharina Binder, Head of Accelerator and Innovation Manager, TheVentury

The Hopin features that have helped BSEEN Live bring startups together with investors

These are some of the Hopin features that made Demo Day a success:

• Expo area: Startups used individual booths to showcase their businesses and connect with potential investors.
• Event stages: TheVentury invited startups onto the main stage to share their pitches and attract the investment their businesses need to grow.
• Chat: Interaction is a crucial feature of Demo Day, and TheVentury encouraged plenty of virtual networking using Hopin's Chat feature. 
• Transcripts: Hopin automatically recorded downloadable transcripts of the event's chat, giving TheVentury insight into the audience sentiment of attendees during each piece of content. 
• Q&A: Hopin's Q&A feature made it easy for investors to quiz each startup on the event's main stage during their pitches.
• Polls: The BSEEN Live team prepared polls ahead of the event to encourage conversation and engage attendees during presentations.
• Customizability: BSEEN Live created a consistent visual identity for the event, creating a clear brand that appeared in email, social media, the Hopin registration page, event stages, breakout sessions, and booths.
• Reporting: The reporting and analytics features of Hopin gave BSEEN Live and TheVentury insights into the best performing event content as well as where new leads for startups were coming.