About the Lean Startup Machine

Lean Startup Machine (LSM) is a series of frequently occurring 3-day workshops in India and abroad. A brainchild of Eric Ries, author, entrepreneur and founder of the Lean Startup movement, LSM workshops mentor aspiring entrepreneurs on strategies to build a successful business. Considering that most startups fail from creating products that no one wants to use, LSM aims to teach aspiring entrepreneurs the right approach to entrepreneurship and success. Participants who have attended LSM workshops avow that these are not just workshops but life-changing experiences.

LSM has become a network that involves as many as 4,000 entrepreneurs, has grossed over 3.2MM USD in funding, and has been conducted in 6 continents. For the first time in India, LSM was conducted in April 2013, in Bangalore, the Mecca for startups in the country.

At a glance

Event Date & Time

19 – 21 Apr 2013, various timings

Event Venue

At Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure #9, Lavelle Road, Bangalore

Explara Checklist

  • Ticketing Solutions
  • Online Promotions
  • Payment Solutions
  • Last Minute Services

Driving Factors

  • Branded online registration page
  • Email marketing and promotion on social media channels
  • Payment Solution with online, offline and onsite payment options

Explara Experience

  • Registration: To begin with, Explara page whose page theme matched that of Lean Startup Machine. A user friendly URL (http://leanstartup.explara.com) was also created with information around the event.
  • Promotion: Subsequently, the event had to be promoted very effectively online through email marketing and social media channels.
  • Payment: A 360 degree payment solution was provided that factored online payment using debit/credit card and net banking. Offline payment through Cheque/DD was allowed. Finally, on-the-spot registration was allowed with cash on delivery (COD) option.
  • Onsite Services: On the days of the event, Explara’s team was prepared for last minute rush and entries which were handled very smoothly. People who bought tickets online had to be verified and authenticated. Explara’s team was ready with laptops and printers to hand-out passes for the 3-day program. All this helped start the program as per schedules and the Explara team received ample praise for the smooth and seamless management of the event.

Key Takeaways:

LSM – Bangalore, April 2013, was the first of an ongoing series of LSM workshops in India and was received well by the participants. Organizers who were evaluating the event from a benchmarking and future planning perspective were happy with Explara’s effort in making the debut edition a grand success. Early Bird and Super Early Bird discount tickets that were created to assess the enthusiasm of participants were well received and brought a smile on the faces of LSM India committee members.



Construkt Festival in a Nutshell

CONSTRUKT Festival is a flagship event of TIE Bangalore and Powered by Unstoppable India that unites thousands of entrepreneurs, students, professionals, heavyweights and 100s of partners under one brand catering to the need of networking for Startup Community. It was a 3-day program which happened across multiple venues across the Indian Silicon Valley Bangalore.

Business Challenges:

The major challenge for Construkt festival organizer was to find a technology driven ticketing solution partner that could allow attendees to register for the program using both online and offline modes of payments. Not only this, a platform that should be able to help organizer promote the event on social media. A platform that can enable maximum reach through digital medium. Explara came as a suitable solution partner for Construkt Festival and the association for online ticketing started.

At a glance

Event Date & Time

20Mar - 23 Mar 2014 10.00 AM to 10.00 PM

Event Venue

Bangalore

Explara Checklist

  • Ticketing & Registration
  • Payment Processing
  • Online Marketing & Publicity
  • Attendee Management

Driving Factors

  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Zero set-up time
  • Flexible configuration
  • Ease of customization

Favorite Capability

Ticketing platform support

The Explara Experience

Explara team worked out a plan. At first we focused on online presence of the event. So the event page was created on Explara with multiple ticket types were added.

The easy to use registration widget was integrated on the Construkt festival website.

Facebook ticketing was integrated in the official Startup festivals Facebook fan page to facilitate convenience for the attendees.

Apart from Bulk discount and Flat discounts, More than 50 discount codes were created and used through explara system for startup festival sponsor partners.

The integration and usage of explara was flawless.

Entry Management Support

Entry Management is one of the crucial aspects of any event. Managing the entry desk and making sure that only the registered members are getting entry was a crucial part of the event. Team Explara was present on all three days to support the Entry management for the program.

Sales Figures:

  • Number of registrants: 1000+
  • Single day Passes: 485
  • Merchandise ( T-Shirt ) – 350+
  • Organizing team: 7 core members, 20+ volunteers


Explara ensures Bangalore Midnight Marathon is up and Running

The Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor

RBITC is one of the chapters of Rotary International in Bangalore, is based out of Whitefield, and is engaged in various social initiatives in and around Bengaluru. Since its inception in 2006, the club has implemented and conducted various Community Service Projects. In 2013, it was one of the co-organizers of the Bangalore Midnight Marathon (BMM) along with the Title Sponsor - State Bank of India

State Bank of India

SBI is an MNC Bank and the largest Banking & Financial Services provider in India with an asset base of US$388 billion and a network of 17,000 branches in India and abroad. Headquartered at Mumbai, SBI is one of the largest and most profitable PSU's (Public Sector Units) of India. The bank supports hundreds of community initiatives routinely, and was an enthusiastic sponsor for the Bangalore Midnight Marathon.

At a glance

Event Date & Time

14 Dec - 15 Dec 2013,06.00 PM - 06:00 AM

Event Venue

Kickoff from KTPOWhitefield, Bangalore

Explara Checklist

  • Registration
  • Ticketing
  • Event Communication
  • Merchandize Distribution

Driving Factors

  • Online, Offline & Onsite Registration
  • Ticketing Integrated with Facebook page
  • Pre-event, event & post-event communication

Business Challenge

India’s most prominent global city – Bangalore is home to several marathon events on the likes of those conducted in the US and Europe. The BMM is an annual event held in December and the 2013 version was organized by RBITC. Being a voluntary organization, RBITC needed to augment its organizing bandwidth, to conduct an event of this scale. Explara being a market leader in 360 degrees Event Management was the first choice for RBITC.

The Dec 2013 BMM drew 7500 participants and featured four different race categories –

  • Marathon at 12 midnight
  • Half Marathon at 12 midnight
  • 10k Run at 10pm
  • IT City fun run at 8pm

BMM being an inclusive event that draws people from all age groups and social strata, the event required a whole lot of online and offline activities, coordination and management.


The Explara Experience

Explara was actively involved in driving all of these:

  1. REGISTRATION: Explara handled the online, offline and onsite registration for 7500 people. Explara widget was used in official BMM website for registration.
  2. TICKETING: While 22% of the registrants paid by cheque, remaining 78% paid online. An official Facebook page was created by the organizing team, and Explara integrated ticketing into the facebook page to help attendees book tickets through facebook without having to visit the official website. Final Ticket Verification was done by Explara team with the help of Ticket ID on day of the event and BIB Numbers were produced by the organizers and issued by Explara team at the venue stall.
  3. EVENT COMMUNICATION: In addition to the Facebook page, an official twitter account was created and managed by Explara. Explara also sent out a detailed mailer about the marathon to 50,000+ people before the event, an alert mailer to all 7,500 registrants on the day of the event and a feedback mailer to them after the event. UBER was empanelled as the official travel partner and an accommodation facilitator mailer was sent to all participants.
  4. MERCHANDIZE DISTRIBUTION: Explara also helped the organizers in distributing giveaways like T-shirts with as many as 5,600 T-shits sold at the stall.

Explara quickly assembled an organizing team of 18 members, 50 volunteers and 10 additional facilitators to handle the mega event.

Key Takeaways.

The BMM was a huge success with boisterous runners, eclectic music and dance performances, enthusiastic crowds, delectable food, and an amazing flea market. The event was widely covered in online and offline media and has raised the bar for the 2014 version of the event which will be managed by Explara again.

Facts & Figures

  • Number of registrants: 7500+
  • Organizing team: 18 members, 50 volunteers and 10 additional facilitators
  • Facebook page: 8000 likes in 2 months
  • Twitter page: 4, 823 tweets before the event and 39,218 tweets on the day of the event


BNI Overview

Business Network International (BNI) is an organization which helps business owners to create more word of mouth business, more referrals, than they ever had before. BNI is a 29 year old business and professional organization that allows only one person from each trade or profession to join a chapter.

BNI has over 160,000 members worldwide, in 55 different countries, from over 300 different types of profession. In 2013, BNI helped generate 5.4 million referrals which generated Rs. 40,000 crores (US$6.5 Billion) of business worldwide.

Last year, members of BNI passed millions of referrals that generated billions of dollars of business for each other. Belonging to BNI is like having dozens of salespeople representing your business, and in return you are representing their businesses. What goes around comes around. If I help you, you’ll help me and we will both benefit as

Event Summary

Event Date & Time

01 AUG - 02AUG 2014,09.00 AM to08.00 PM

Event Venue

Bangalore

Explara Checklist

  • Ticketing & Registration
  • Payment Processing
  • Online Marketing & Publicity
  • Attendee Management
  • Venue Registration

Driving Factors

  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Zero set-up time
  • Flexible configuration
  • Ease of customization

Favorite Capability

Ticketing platform support

Business Challenge

For the 10th Year Celebration of BNI India, BNI Bangalore chapter invited all it’s BNI Chapters India and Guests were also invited for this event. The organizing team wanted to make the registration process in a smoother way. So they wanted to create different types of tickets by giving Early Bird & Normal discounts for its members & for Guests. In marketing part they wanted to send mailers for all BNI India Chapter members to make their registration either through online or offline mode. They wanted a team to handle offline payment mode also.

Explara Experience

Exclusive Event Page: Explara team developed dedicated event page with various discount codes for different ticket types.

Payment: Explara team was handing Online Payments (Via Debit & Credit cards, Net banking) & Offline payments ( On Spot Registration Payments.)

Marketing Tool: Re-Engaging tool was developed by Explara team exclusively for BNI events to send out mailers with the event details & registration forms.

  • Onsite Service: On the days of the event, Explara team was present on the event venue to check whether people who bought tickets online had to be verified and authenticated. Explara team was ready with laptops and printers to hand-out passes for all the 2-day program. All this helped start the program as per schedules and the Explara team received ample praise for the smooth and seamless management of the event

Key Takeaways.

Being a high class business event, BNI helped its members to network with others who were into similar field. So many business motivations speeches were given by guests. As this was the national event, many BNI members across India helped each other to expand network with other members.



Kelloggs Alumni Club of India

KACI is run by a Managing Committee which is elected every three years. The Committee typically forms smaller sub-groups internally, which provides leadership opportunities for alums to organize city-specific social events and cross-business school mixers with peer MBA programs from the US, India and Europe. KSCI collaborate often with alumni from Harvard, Wharton, MIT and INSEAD, along with other top institutes. It serves as the primary point of contact with the Kellogg School of Management, as well as with Kellogg alumni globally who seek to engage in business opportunities with India.

KSCA Organize networking events with a view to provide professional growth as well as fill gaps in continuing education for the Kellogg alumni community. It also Provide opportunities for alumni to strengthen their ties to Kellogg and among India-based alumni through city-specific social mixers and the annual pan-India weekend offsite.

Business Challenge

As KACI is a one of the International reputed Alumni, they wanted all their member registration to be handled online. KACI wanted most of their event to be private, as most of their events are meant only for their members and some events to be open for all.

Explara being industry’s most popular event management partner was the first choice of the organizers. Explara took over management of the entire event and had to offer a comprehensive 360 solutions that covers:

  • Ticketing
  • Online Payment Collection
  • Exclusive Private event page ( Only seen by Invited attendees)
  • Mailer solution for sending invites to members about the event.

Explara Experience

Exclusive Ticketing Page – To begin with, Explara built an exclusive private event page for KACI, which was available to be used by invited members of KACI.

Payment: A 360 degree payment solution was provided that factored online payment using debit/ credit card and net banking.

Key Takeaways:

As KACI is one of the reputed alumni in India. The organizers were very happy with Explara product features as their event is showcased only for their targeted members and friendly support team. Instead of venue registration collusions, online registration provided convenience on time saving for both organizer and attendees.



TNPS Overview:

The New Born photography show is a workshop organized by highly trained professionals in the field of Newborn photography. The workshop also deals in handling and soothing newborns. These expert professionals have won many accolades in their own filed of newborn photography. The registration for this event was free. However, the various other workshops conducted by the team are paid.

Why TNPS used Explara?

The organizing team is from Birmingham UK. The team decided to use Explara leaving aside all other available ticketing platform because of the features that Explara provides, the ease to use and so on. More than 2000+ registrations happened through Explara without any issue.

The features provided by Explara such as easy to use FB app for ticketing and emailing event attendees through the dashboard was widely used by the event organizer. The emailing feature came pretty handy to the organizer as just on a click of a button, the email ids of all the attendees were getting loaded there by reducing the time in collating the email ids.

Support provided by team Explara was also lauded by the event organizer as any of their query(s) were answered in the shortest possible time. Support team was able to answer attendees query. Ask Organizer feature helped attendee reaching out to organizer directly and back and forth communication was possible between attendee and the Organizer.

Event Statistics

  • No of registrants: 2000+
  • No of events : 2
  • FB ticketing app used: YES
  • Ticket Widget Used: Yes


Explara elevates TiECon Pune conventions to a new level

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)

The Indus Entrepreneurs is one of the most prominent entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world. Founded in 1992, in the Silicon Valley, this network of entrepreneurs, corporate executives and successful professionals help identify, mentor, and fund promising ventures across both technology and non-technology sectors.

Their flagship event – TiECon is one of the largest conferences for entrepreneurs and brings them closer to the investor community and prominent industry luminaries. These conferences are held at various venues in India and abroad.

The Pune chapter of TiE organized such TiECons in Mar 2013 and April 2014, both of which were a huge success.

At a glance

Event Date & Time

12th April 2014, 9.00 am to 6.00 pm

Event Venue

The Westin, Pune

Explara Checklist

  • Ticketing & Registration
  • Payment Processing
  • Online Marketing & Publicity
  • Attendee Management

Driving Factors

  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Zero set-up time
  • Flexible configuration
  • Ease of customization

Favorite Capability

Ticketing platform support

Business Challenge

Pune being a prominent technovation hub like Bangalore, TiECon Pune 2013 and 2014 were expected to be mega events. The event provided a rare opportunity for entrepreneurs to interact with business leaders and explore new support systems to fructify the entrepreneurial journey. As such, registration and attendees were expected from all corners of the country, and across industry sectors.

Speakers at the 2014 version of the event included serial entrepreneurs like P.R. Ganapathy and K. Ganesh, Ravi Pandit, Chairman of KPIT Cummins, successful entrepreneurs like Manak Singh and Venky Iyer and Ravi Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto.

Earlier versions of TiECon which were also successful involved event management companies with a human interface to handle all registration and ticketing needs. In addition to human errors which one can expect, this approach increased the workload for registration staff.

TiE was looking for an automated, online system to handle various pre-event and post-event activities, as well as a mechanism to promote the event more effectively and increase registrations.

The Explara Experience

  • To begin with, a custom registration page was created. Registrants and attendees were segregated based on whether they were TiE members or non-members. One could register for multiple sessions as well as register as a group as in the case of startup founders.
  • Subsequently, one could make payments using credit/debit cards, or Paypal for payments in other currencies.
  • Attendees and organizers could promote the event through social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as through email blasts.

All these added various layers of granularity and flexibility to what TiE wanted to achieve, and turned out to be a pleasant surprise to them.

Explara personnel involved in the exercise were few in number, and clearly identified, in order to streamline communication and increase accountability. The organizers lauded them for their professional conduct, for accommodating changes up to the last minute, and delivering results on time.

Key Takeaways.

Explara combined both these requirements, and was the ideal choice for TiE. Explara’s Event Management platform makes organizing events and participating in them hassle-free by automating various tasks like: Ticketing & Registration, Payment Collection, Sales Management, Attendee Management and Marketing & Publicity

  • To begin with, a custom registration page was created. Registrants and attendees were segregated based on whether they were TiE members or non-members. One could register for multiple sessions as well as register as a group as in the case of startup founders.
  • Subsequently, one could make payments using credit/debit cards, or Paypal for payments in other currencies
  • Attendees and organizers could promote the event through social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as through email blasts.

All these added various layers of granularity and flexibility to what TiE wanted to achieve, and turned out to be a pleasant surprise to them.

Explara personnel involved in the exercise were few in number, and clearly identified, in order to streamline communication and increase accountability. The organizers lauded them for their professional conduct, for accommodating changes up to the last minute, and delivering results on time.



Explara puts Startup Weekend 2013 on a fast track

About the Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend (SW) is a registered not-for-profit organization based in Seattle, Washington, USA. It has an alumnus of 45,000 across 478 cities of the world.

Startup Weekend organizes 54-hour weekend events during which groups of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams around those ideas, and work to develop a working prototype, demo, or presentation by Sunday evening.

Startup Weekend has grown into an organization with a global presence. As of April 2013, 1068 events had been held, involving over 100,000 entrepreneurs across more than 400 cities in over 100 countries and over 8190 startups have been created.

The Bengaluru ‘Maker Edition’ held in Nov 2013 was the first of its kind in India and aimed at helping startups translate their ideas into a Proof of Concept using 3D-printers, microcontrollers and various software tools. Entrepreneurial experts and industry luminaries will evaluate the idea and help create go-to market strategies for the business. And all of this and more would happen in a 54-hour long weekend!

At a glance

Event Date & Time

22 – 24 Nov 2013, various timings

Event Venue

At Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure #9, Lavelle Road, Bangalore

Explara Checklist

  • Ticketing Solutions
  • Online Promotions
  • Payment Solutions
  • Last Minute Services

Driving Factors

  • Event page
  • Discount code
  • Re-engaging audience
  • Explara widget on SW registration page

Favorite Capability

Explara widget on SW registration page

Business Challenge

Being an event that draws the very cream of industry together with a large, aspiring startup community, Startup 2013 was expected to garner a lot of visibility. Startup Weekend (SW) is not limited to high-tech industries and is a more inclusive program that welcomes all industry verticals. The sizeable audience had to be managed efficiently and effectively to sustain the global brand image of SW. They were looking for an event management partner who combines technology skills with the earnestness and customer-friendly attributes of a service company.

Explara being industry’s most popular event management partner was the first choice of the organizers. Explara took over management of the entire event and had to offer a comprehensive 360 solutions that covers:

  • Ticketing
  • Online Promotion
  • Online & Offline Payment
  • Last Minute Services

The Explara Experience

  1. Registration: To begin with, Explara built a branded online registration page whose page theme matched that of Startup Weekend. A user-friendly sub-domain (http://startupweekend.ayojak.com) was also created with information around the event.
  2. TICKETING: While 22% of the registrants paid by cheque, remaining 78% paid online. An official Facebook page was created by the organizing team, and Explara integrated ticketing into the facebook page to help attendees book tickets through facebook without having to visit the official website. Final Ticket Verification was done by Explara team with the help of Ticket ID on day of the event and BIB Numbers were produced by the organizers and issued by Explara team at the venue stall.
  3. EVENT COMMUNICATION: In addition to the Facebook page, an official twitter account was created and managed by Explara. Explara also sent out a detailed mailer about the marathon to 50,000+ people before the event, an alert mailer to all 7,500 registrants on the day of the event and a feedback mailer to them after the event. UBER was empanelled as the official travel partner and an accommodation facilitator mailer was sent to all participants.
  4. MERCHANDIZE DISTRIBUTION: Explara also helped the organizers in distributing giveaways like T-shirts with as many as 5,600 T-shits sold at the stall.

Key Takeaways.

Being a global event, Startup Weekend was received well by the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ticketing started on a low note but picked up pace very quickly. Thanks to the online promotion efforts, interest about the event was enormous which made it a great success. It gave start-ups and new ideas a platform to get ahead of the curve and won the heart of designers, developers and the entrepreneur community. There were innumerable last minute entries, queries about the event and its venue, several judges and guests as a part of the event.