Airbook, a personal assistant for event organizers | Makers Festival 2018
I first learned about the Makers Festival through Abadesi Osunade, Head of Maker Outreach @ Product Hunt, during a Bay Area Women for Product Hunt event a couple weeks back.
Just 2 weeks prior to going to that event, I had left my tech job as a Senior Integrated Marketing Manager to start Airbook, a personal assistant for event organizers. I’ve been working on a similar idea part time for about a year prior to that, but I pivoted that idea to Airbook. Something clicked, the market felt right, and I felt a strong desire to pursue this idea seriously.
I’ve always been interested in community building and events, and as a marketer (& even in my personal life), I found myself to somehow end up being the planner of most social gatherings. Having met quite a few organizers throughout my professional and personal life, I realized a commonality amongst all organizers — We can all agree that planning sucks.
It was time consuming, and there was not a single tool to help organize all your event vendors and communications in one place. We’d use Excel, text, email, Google Docs, Facebook messenger, Typeform, Stripe, etc. For larger events, I found myself emailing the same questions, invoices, and requests to 15+ different speakers and vendors at a time. There was also not a single tool that was diverse enough to handle different event types, from smaller meetups to larger conferences. Most tools that were already available, like BandsInTown for live music, and Whova only supported specific types of events.
I’ve always wondered why Eventbrite, Meetup and all other event platforms only focused on the promotional and ticketing (post-planning) aspects, but not the pre-planning aspect. There weren’t a lot of tools out there to support organizers during the pre-plan stage, and I wanted to create a more efficient, streamlined way for organizers to plan events.
Which brings me to why I’ve decided to create Airbook. Air is light, and gives us breath. The concept behind Airbooks, is to help make planning feel light, easy, intuitive, and seamless, like Air. 🌀
Your personal assistant @ Airbook, Ava, helps respond to all your questions, inquiries and event needs via email. Step 1: Ava will then send you a short event planner form to fill out to help us best understand your vision for your event. From there, she’ll search for the best custom vendors for your event. You’ll receive a link to your personal event dashboard, where you can track all live updates, budget, and vendor information.
Step 2 is to select your favorite vendor, and then let Ava do the rest. She’ll contact the vendor, manage communication, negotiations, uncover hidden fees, and review all contracts for you. Step 2 is to review the contract, and confirm your vendor by signing the contract(s). You can contact Ava at anytime to change, add, or include additional details to your event.
Airbook takes away the hassle of planning, while still allowing organizers to add their personal touch and vision to their event.
Whether you have an ad-hoc request and want help with parts of your event or need help with a full-service planning, Ava is there.
Airbook is currently in beta. Check out our Product Hunt page, and subscribe to start hosting more events! ❤
Florence Kwok is the founder of Airbook, a personal assistant for event organizers. She was recently at App Annie as a Senior Integrated Marketing Manager, worked in the market research team at Intuit, and studied Psychology and Media Studies at UC Berkeley.
