Eventmate’s success story: “After the WE.Brave bootcamp we’ve built a financial model, got a clear plan for expanding to new markets, and received our first client from abroad”

From March 11 to 22, SET University team with the support of the USAID Competitive Economy Program held an intensive bootcamp for tech projects whose founders are women or whose core teams are 70% women. The bootcamp was called We. Brave and its goal was to provide participants with the necessary expertise and networking to successfully develop projects, create new jobs, and enter new markets. Twenty-five startup teams were selected for the bootcamp, including products from the following areas: EdTech, Recruitment & HRTech, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Wellness, Self-development, AR/VR, and Service sector. The three winning teams received an additional budget of $6500 for consulting and mentoring to further develop their businesses.

In this article, we tell you about one of the winners of the bootcamp, Eventmate, and share the impressions of its co-founder Veronika Medianyk.

Product Background

Eventmate is a multi-service platform for events that enables organizers and event creators to utilize popular messengers to engage with their audience and build a community. With the Eventmate mobile app, organizers can easily set up their own chatbot for automated registration and ticketing, scan tickets at the entrance, gather guest feedback, monitor event analytics, and communicate with guests through notifications. The platform is integrated with the most popular messengers, making it highly user-friendly. 

Eventmate was created by Veronika Medianyk and Ruslan Gazanfarov, both with backgrounds in product development. Initially, it was just a pet project that the partners worked on in their spare time as a hobby. However, over time, the demand for the product grew, and there was more and more positive feedback. Well-known Ukrainian companies and organizations from different sectors started using Eventmate, including Wtech, Lift99, Kooperativ, Skelar, Universe, BetterMe, and other famous IT, service, and community companies. The number of events organized with Eventmate has reached 30 per month.

Veronika and Ruslan faced new challenges related to product development, so they decided to participate in the We.Brave bootcamp. “As we expand into new markets, I strive to strengthen our digital marketing and sales strategy, ensuring our confidence and effectiveness. I also want to improve my pitching skills and get practical advice on investments and grants, as these skills will be key to our growth. I believe that your program is a crucial step in achieving these goals,” Veronika wrote in her motivation letter to the bootcamp.

Key takeaways from the bootcamp

During the boot camp, the Eventmate team managed to attract their first client from abroad. Within a week, the app processed nearly 300 transactions for purchasing tickets to an event in Brazil. “We have a B2B2C model, and the first collaboration in another market is a huge leap for us,” comments Veronika.

Besides, during the two weeks of the program, Veronika and Ruslan also managed to build a financial model and structure their thoughts on entering a new market into a marketing plan. 

“During the bootcamp, we were joined by a speaker, Florent Caudizer, an expert in product expansion. At the workshop and personal mentoring session, he shared key strategies and tools for preparing for expansion, provided many case studies, and advised on how to act in specific circumstances in the context of our business. Florent also arranged an introduction for us with a product manager who had launched in a similar niche and similar markets. As a result of the call, we gained many insights, validation of certain hypotheses, and a very useful contact!”

Another huge influence on our strategy was a workshop by Anna Magera on developing a financial model of our product with projections for the future. Anna helped us identify key economic indicators and build a financial strategy. This experience allowed us not only to systematize our assumptions but also to identify potential risks, areas for optimization, and opportunities for our growth as a business. I’m sure these and other workshops during the boot camp will play a crucial role in our goal to bring Eventmate to the international market,” Veronika shared with the SET University team

Moreover, the Eventmate founder added that, inspired by Jane Davidiuk’s speech, she and Ruslan plan to optimize their operations in the near future: “Jane clearly showed that business success and scaling are closely related to the structure and organization of internal processes. “In our case, team materials and documentation were scattered across different platforms: something in Notion, something in messengers, something in FigJam, something in emails, Google Drive, or some other third-party resources. “As a result, the number of processes is increasing, onboarding new people in the team is becoming more complicated, communication platforms are growing, etc. “So I plan to bring order to this chaos before it grows legs,” Veronika says.

Eventmate's founder Veronica on their bootcamp experience

Thanks to the We.Brave Bootcamp from the USAID Competitive Economy Program and SET University, we’ve received an invaluable resource. I mean knowledge and strong support to overcome new challenges in the technology and innovation world. We have already met some of the funders offline, exchanged contacts, and plan to support each other in building products even after the bootcamp.

Programs like We.Brave are crucial for stimulating the growth and development of the startup ecosystem, particularly in the tech sector. These are not just courses or trainings. It is a powerful platform for knowledge sharing, experience, and most importantly, for supporting and encouraging women to realize their potential in innovation. We are grateful for the opportunity to became a part of this inspiring initiative!

WE.Brave bootcamp was organized by SET University with the support of the USAID Competitive Economy Program

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USAID Competitive Economy Program supports Ukrainian businesses to improve their competitiveness in local and international markets, helps to develop a simplified and transparent business climate, and provides Ukrainian companies with opportunities to take advantage of international trade.

SET University is a Ukrainian educational institution that provides higher education to future leaders of the technology industry. SET University combines a modern approach to education with a focus on technology and entrepreneurship, the name SET is an acronym for Science, Entrepreneurship, and Technology. SET offers Master’s degree and Micromaster’s programs, as well as accelerators and bootcamps to support startups.