Vator Box is our fast-paced show where entrepreneurs present their promising ideas or early-stage businesses in front of prominent angels or investors in Silicon Valley. In this episode, Ron Bloom, founder of Mevio, a video entertainment network, funded by Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia and Crosslink Capital, is our guest host, joining Ezra Roizen and me. We take a look at Confidantly, which helps professionals find and search for people they want to meet by aggregating information from events they attend. Winston Choe kicks it off with a 90-second pitch.
Then we jump into our five-minute Q&A, the panelists’ two-minute feedback, and Nicholas’ one-minute final word.
Here are a few highlights:
– Winston explains that Confidantly is integrated with Eventbrite and Meetup and can scan and search close to 500,000 events. The startup acquires customers through co-marketing with event organizers. It has a 10% conversion rate and 30% of visitors come back weekly.The startup is building interest graphs, based on events people attend and public profiles. The information is used to do social matching.
– Both Ron and Ezra like the idea that enough information on a person can allow someone to find them at an unlikely event. For instance, a VP of mobile who is a dog lover might be more approachable at a Chihuahua Meetup, rather than a tech conference. The question they ask is whether Confidantly is gathering enough intelligence. Winston explains that since there are 30 million events, he will be able to extrat enough data.
– Ezra calls Confidantly “commerce and eHarmony combined.”
– Winston says he will provide lead-gen reports to marketers seeking to find their target audience.
– Ron calls Confidantly a “social intelligence” tool and encourages him to be the “Switzerland of social intelligence.”
– Both Ron and Ezra encourage Confindantly to focus on the technology and get the girth of penetration.
