The events industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2019, it was valued at 1,134.5 billion, and this figure is expected to grow to 1,552.9 billion by 2028. Consequently, one would expect the outlook for companies like DoubleDutch, which creates event management software, to be extremely positive.
Unfortunately, events are also one of the industries that have been hit hardest by the global pandemic, with thousands of cancellations due to ongoing restrictions and safety concerns, leaving many companies in a position of great financial uncertainty.
While a significant number of companies have been forced to close due to a lack of income, those who can operate virtual events have come out of the pandemic stronger than ever. Likewise, DoubleDutch’s online event management software has allowed it to survive what has undoubtedly been a challenging time for the in-person events industry.
In many ways, this shows how crucial it is for companies to embrace the increasingly digital age in which we find ourselves.
DoubleDutch: An Overview
DoubleDutch, Inc. is an American company that provides cloud-based, mobile, and geosocial applications for events, sales teams, and enterprise workgroups. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and was founded in 2011.
By 2019, DoubleDutch raised almost $80 million in funding from investors, including Index Ventures, Enspire Capital, KKR, and Bullpen Capital. The journey to this point was rocky; in 2017, CEO Bryan Parker was replaced after only two months, and the year before, DoubleDutch laid off 25% of its workforce.
DoubleDutch announced that it had finally become cash-flow positive in 2018. It generates annual revenue of roughly $12.8 million.
The company’s mission statement is “DoubleDutch believes in the power of digitizing live engagement to supercharge business outcomes.” If you are interested in reading more about other companies’ values, we have compiled a list of the most powerful and enduring mission statements.
In 2019, DoubleDutch was acquired by Cvent, a similar SaaS company that specializes in meetings, events, and hospitality management technology.
The URL for DoubleDutch’s website has now been redirected to Cvent.
DoubleDutch Business Strategy
DoubleDutch’s business strategy involves a subscription-based revenue model through which it provides various digital event services to other companies.
According to DoubleDutch, its services include:
- Event promotion – a drag-and-drop website builder, customizable emails/CRM, no transaction fees, onsite management integrations, and marketing automation.
- Pre-event engagement – attendee logistics tools, program analytics, and third-party integrations.
- Onsite event management and engagement – promoted posts, push notifications, direct messages and topic channels, one-on-one meeting scheduling, and native surveys to gain insights from attendees.
- Post-event community and engagement – post-event surveys and polls, reporting tools, community dashboards, and community nurturing.
The company’s key value propositions are its facilitation of A/B testing and its large bank of events data which can be used for insights on new projects.
In 2017, after securing a significant amount of venture capital funding, DoubleDutch took its business strategy in a new direction, aiming to consolidate partnerships and focus on enterprise customers rather than those looking to hold a one-off event.
Lawrence Coburn, the CEO of DoubleDutch, explained in an interview, “We excel with customers that treat events as part of a campaign, run them year-round, and do the performance comparison.”
The company worked in tandem with American Express Meetings & Events to develop an app specifically for pharmaceutical events. Partnerships like these have the potential to boost awareness of DoubleDutch as a brand.
Crucially, DoubleDutch demonstrates an awareness of just how competitive the events software industry can be. To stand out, it aims to continually develop its phone app using analytics so that customers have the best possible user experience.
DoubleDutch SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis assesses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to a business. It is cost-effective and beneficial for generating business insights.
Strengths
- Funding.
DoubleDutch’s focus on attracting venture capital funding has paid off, with almost $80 million from investors like Enspire Capital. This allows the company to grow and develop its product.
- Innovation.
DoubleDutch is a highly innovative company that uses analytics and data to make cutting-edge events software. Its creation of a mobile app sets it apart from many competitors, giving event organizers easy on-the-go access to all the tools and information they need.
- Focused customer strategy.
In 2017, DoubleDutch decided to focus its marketing efforts on enterprise users who would be able to benefit from the full range of features offered by its products, including data collection and analytics. Identifying this sweet spot allowed product innovations to become more focused and effective.
Weaknesses
- Brand identity.
Since being acquired by Cvent, DoubleDutch has lost its unique brand identity and now relies solely on the reputation and branding of its parent company.
- Over-reliance on funding.
Like most startups, DoubleDutch relied on venture capital funding to get it off the ground. But, while it raised an impressive amount of funds, since 2017, it has had to fight to become profitable through revenue rather than investment.
Opportunities
- Bringing together teams.
Organizing events is a challenging job usually undertaken by several people who all have different roles to play. Live events technology can bring different teams together – say, marketing and sales – helping them coordinate and collaborate more effectively on events projects.
- App development/expansion.
Events is a pretty broad term that encompasses many different gatherings, from festivals and meetings to conferences and concerts. DoubleDutch has the opportunity to expand its app to attract customers from across the whole events spectrum, creating industry-specific features
Threats
- Security.
The nature of online software solutions means that data security is a real concern, particularly for a company like DoubleDutch that takes pride in collecting and analyzing data.
- Competition.
Because the events industry is so large, several competitors already offer similar software to that of DoubleDutch. The challenge, then, is how to innovate to stay ahead of the game continuously. In addition, to succeed in a saturated market, one’s product must significantly outperform those of other companies.
DoubleDutch Competitor Analysis
While DoubleDutch may once have seen a gap in the market for a virtual events platform, this market has quickly become oversaturated by companies with similar offerings. The fight to stand out is a difficult one, and companies must keep up with the latest tech developments to keep updating their products in line with marketing and event trends.
Below you can find an analysis of some of DoubleDutch’s top competitors.
EventMobi
Founded in 2008, EventMobi is an online integrated app platform for virtual, hybrid, and in-person events. It is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
EventMobi offers the following features to its users:
- Event registration – create event websites and email invitations, check-in attendees all in one platform.
- Event apps – build engaging mobile conference apps.
- Virtual space – a customizable home for all event/conference content.
- Event networking – 1:1 video chat and messaging, advanced livestream chat, group discussion tools.
- Appointment booking – 1:1 video or in-person meetings allow users to build stronger relationships.
- Engagement – polls & surveys and Q&A.
- Analytics – gather insights to understand attendee behavior.
By covering the full event cycle, EventMobi eliminates the need for customers to seek tools elsewhere; its solution is comprehensive, and for this reason, its platform is award-winning.
In 2018, EventMobi was named one of the Best Places to Work in Canada, and in 2017, the company won Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.
EventMobi is available across 72 countries and is currently used by over 20,000 clients.
When the covid pandemic hit, the company saw its annual $10 million revenue drop considerably as the need for in-person event management technology dried up. So EventMobi had to think fast, and it was this crisis ultimately catalyzed the creation of a platform for virtual, as well as in-person, events.
EventMobi’s customers include Visa, The World Bank, Cisco, and even Facebook.
In 2019, a new partnership was announced between EventMobi and Swoogo, allowing integration across two of the most powerful event marketing and event app platforms.
Attendify
Attendify is a California-based SaaS company that aims to bridge the gap between event marketing and digital marketing. On its website, the company claims to be building the future of EventTech. It was founded in 2011 and now has 35 team members working to streamline the experience of over 5.5 thousand customers.
Attendify’s offering is based on four key products focused on providing immersive online events, an events app, simplified event registration, and a data platform built for events. In this way, it is very similar to DoubleDutch.
In July 2021, Attendify was acquired by London-based virtual events company Hopin. The main advantage of this acquisition for Hopin was Attendify’s Audience CRM, which can automatically capture engagement from the attendee event platform. Hopin is valued at over $5.6 billion.
Like many SaaS companies, Attendify operates a subscription revenue model built around a series of flexible plans. For example, customers can get their first event hosted for free, after which plans begin at $83.25/month.
In 2020, Attendify made over $1.3 million in revenue and received $400,000 dollars in economic assistance from a US government program that helped small and medium businesses to pay their employees during the pandemic.
Eventbase
Eventbase is a leading mobile event technology company that was founded in 2009. Its head office is in Yaletown, Vancouver, but this company is truly global, serving some of the biggest brands in the world. Eventbase is used by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco, and in 2020, it was awarded “Best Event App” at the Event Technology Awards.
One of Eventbase’s greatest strengths is its strong business plan; it specifically targets enterprise customers, and in doing so, has been extremely successful. Eventbase offers several apps that are all tailored to the needs of large global businesses. These include:
- A sports events app.
- A festival app.
- A trade show app.
- A conference app.
- Corporate meeting apps.
- Digital and hybrid apps.
- Enterprise event apps.
By targeting the largest companies and best-known brands throughout the world, Eventbase has also paved the way for many successful partnerships. For example, in 2019, LiveSafe and Eventbase partnered to improve safety and security at large-scale conferences and events.
In 2021, EventBase hit $6.6 million in revenue.
The company is responsible for building the 2018 Commonwealth Games App and an app for the Sundance Film Festival and many other notable projects.
Eventbase aims to cultivate a diverse and representative workforce from across the globe. As a result, it offers its employees a number of perks, including flexible working, paid time off, compensation beyond salary, and health benefits.
Aventri
Formerly known as etouches, Aventri is a cloud-based event management company headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. It was founded in 1998, and its subsidiaries include TapCrowd NV, Zentila, and ITN International, Inc.
Aventri offers solutions for all kinds of events from start to finish, whether in-person, hybrid, or completely virtual. To date, it has supported over 40,000 event professionals, and it optimizes over 90,000 events annually, generating around $25 million in revenue.
Unsurprisingly, the tools and services offered by the company are extensive:
- Attendee networking.
- Attendee registration.
- Badging and credentials.
- Budget management.
- Content abstract management.
- Dedicated training programs.
- Email marketing.
- Event analytics and reporting.
- Integrations and API.
- Software development.
- Venue sourcing.
There are many more which you can read about on Aventri’s website.
Aventri has a strong set of values and a positive employee community. This is reflected by the company’s ongoing support for a number of different organizations over the last 10 years, including The Rise and Walk Foundation, Open Door Shelter, and Keep Orlando Beautiful.
As recently as August 2021, Aventri announced a new partnership with Brandlive to deliver TV-like virtual, hybrid events.
Socio
Socio is a platform that provides an end-to-end event management platform that facilitates the success of event professionals across over 70 countries worldwide. It was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a European office in Istanbul, Turkey.
The company’s unique selling point is the extensive support that it offers customers, no matter the size of their business. It is clear that Aventri values its customers and its employees alike; in 2019, it won a “Top Rated Culture” award from PowderKeg, and is a G2 leader in 2021.
Socio has a clear set of core company values and goals which allow it to forge positive relationships and consolidate its reputation as a desirable brand to work for and with:
- Bring great products to the planet.
- Value simplicity and avoid complexity.
- Stay focused and always be building.
- Listen first, then listen more.
- Be obsessed with customers.
- Default to transparency.
In 2021, Inc. Magazine revealed that Socio ranks 9th on its Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing companies in the area.
Socio has certainly seen an impressive amount of growth over the last few years, employing more than 43,000 people in 2019 alone and adding over $11 billion to the Midwest economy. The company’s growth rate for the period was an astounding 862%.
Among Socio’s customers are Google, Microsoft, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Purdue University.
In 2021, it was announced that Cisco would be acquiring Socio, though it would remain as its own separate platform. By joining forces, these companies intend to create “the world’s first completely end-to-end hybrid event and meeting suite.”
How DoubleDutch Stands Out
The acquisition of DoubleDutch by Cvent puts both companies in an advantageous position as they can combine their knowledge to create a truly unique and powerful event management product. Furthermore, this collaboration is even more important since Socio, one of DoubleDutch’s biggest competitors, has now been acquired by Cisco.
DoubleDutch has a proven track record of acquiring funding and utilizing it to create a successful product that is highly profitable. This resilience is one of the company’s most important strengths.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Which is the best event management platform?
Answer: Socio is currently the best platform because it has recently been acquired by Cisco. The combined knowledge of these two companies will be a powerful force in the industry in the next few years.
Question: What is DoubleDutch’s competitive advantage?
Answer: DoubleDutch’s competitive advantage comes from a large amount of funding it has raised, allowing it to develop an innovative product that utilizes events data to offer the kind of insights that professional event managers and marketers really value.
Question: Who is DoubleDutch’s biggest competitor?
Answer: While Socio looks set to grow rapidly in the coming years thanks to its collaboration with Cisco, DoubleDutch faces fierce competition from many angles. Many event management software companies are all trying to gain a significant market share and position themselves as industry leaders. Still, for any one company to do this, it will be a challenge.
Question: Why choose DoubleDutch?
Answer: DoubleDutch and Cvent have the combined knowledge and expertise to create a suite of truly powerful tools. Both companies have years of industry experience and can connect with customers by identifying their needs.
Conclusion
Increasingly, it seems that the best route for SaaS startups to become market leaders is by being acquired by larger and more established businesses. Making waves in the events industry requires more than just the right software; it requires a strong reputation and brand awareness, which are easier to acquire through collaboration and partnerships than they are to create organically.
If you are interested in reading about other businesses, take a look at the following articles:
- Siemens – Do they maintain a strong market share?
- Splunk – Who is their biggest competitor?
- Satya Nadella – Life overview of Microsoft’s CEO
Research
https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Interviews/Meetings-App-Maker-DoubleDutchs-New-Plan
https://www.eventmobi.com/about-eventmobi/
https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/pivot-strategy-and-pivot-to-growth/
https://www.eventbase.com/about-us
https://www.aventri.com/press-release/aventri-partners-with-brandlive
https://getlatka.com/companies/aventri
https://www.aventri.com/platform/all-products
https://www.aventri.com/press-release/aventri-partners-with-brandlive
https://socio.events/blog/socio-becomes-part-of-cisco
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