Helping great venues book more corporate events.
We started Event Captain because we saw great restaurants and venues missing out on corporate events simply because local companies didn't know they were an option.
How It All Started
It started with a friend who owned a small brewery and coffee shop on the ground floor of an office tower. He asked for help booking more holiday parties.
Despite having hundreds of people working in the offices right above him, he was struggling to get private event bookings.
The idea was simple: email the office managers upstairs, let them know the spot where they grabbed their morning coffee could also host their holiday party, and invite them down for a beer and a look at the event space.
Within six weeks, he booked four events.
Many of the office managers even thanked him for reaching out. They had no idea they could host events there.
That got us thinking.
We'd both spent over a decade in the software industry, where outbound sales and prospecting are standard ways to grow a business. But we realized most local hospitality businesses had never even tried it.
And it wasn't hard to understand why.
Hiring an outbound sales team is expensive, prospecting tools are complicated, and most venue owners are too busy running their businesses.
Venues already have great spaces, great food, and people who know how to put on a great event. They just need more opportunities to get in front of the right people.
That's why we started Event Captain.
We wanted to make the sales tools and processes we'd spent our careers working with affordable and accessible to local hospitality businesses. All without the cost of hiring a sales team.
Today, we work with over 150 venues, helping them connect with local companies and book more corporate events.
Meet the Founders
Kevin Ho
Kevin has over a decade of experience building and leading sales and marketing teams at software companies.
Most recently, he was General Manager of Viral Loops, a VC-backed referral marketing platform.
Before that, he joined a software company as employee #30 and rose to VP of Sales & Marketing. He helped build its outbound sales team from 0 to 50 people as the company grew to over 300 employees and went public.
He's also a Captain at Launch Academy, Western Canada's leading tech incubator, where he mentors entrepreneurs on sales, marketing, and growth.
At Event Captain, Kevin leads sales, marketing, and customer success.
Nick Steeves
Nick has over 15 years of experience building and scaling software businesses.
Most recently, he was General Manager of PersistIQ, a Y Combinator-backed outbound sales platform, where he helped grow the company to over 50 people and over $9 million in annual revenue.
He also served as Chief Product Officer at Wishpond, a marketing software company that went public in 2020, where he led product development and design.
His background spans sales technology, automation, and operations, with a focus on making complex technology simple and effective.
At Event Captain, Nick leads product development and operations.
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