Eventyard – An Events Platform With Big Ambitions

A few weeks ago, my attention was drawn to an events application for my iPhone – Eventyard. Later on, I learned that BETA is a platform that aims to deliver events based on the user’s interest and locations.

To be honest, I have been using so far only Lanyrd, which was recently acquired by Eventbrite. There I was tracking my IA and UX events. However, the platform was missing on other personal interests I have – music and sports. And although Eventyard is still in BETA, I hope it will soon start feeding me with a choice of events in my preferred areas.

Another reason for me to give Eventyard a try is that the guys behind it are Bulgarians. It always makes me feel good when I see something innovative coming out of my country. The company was created in September 2012 and has already received seed funding from eleven.

Eventyard features a simple but appealing design with a focus on functionality. The tasks available to perform are stripped down to the minimum. The user has the ability to create events, host and also to import from Facebook. There is also the usual discussion and share on the most important social networks effect. Check out this short video Eventyard intro!

Eventyard – Discover events you love! From Eventyard on Vimeo.

I took this opportunity to ask the team at Eventyard some questions and present the answers to my readers in the form of a short interview below…

BK: How did you come to the idea of creating Eventyard?

Eventyard: The idea for this startup came from one of Kiril Velkov a few years ago. He was abroad and didn’t know where to go to, so he got very frustrated, and suddenly the idea came up! He decided to work on his idea, later on, to share his thought with Oleg Kabakchiev and that’s how Eventyard was born back in 2009. So, if you love to travel a lot, like the founders of Eventyard, or you are an event organizer, you might love this service. In fact, we are building our network by targeting young people between 18 and 38 years, who travel a lot and are looking for entertaining events, like parties and other indie events. Also, event organizers who do not have big budgets for advertising can now have the opportunity to find a new audience and stand out of the crowd.

BK: Which are the biggest obstacles your team has encountered while building up the platform and the iOS app?

Eventyard: First of all, you have to gather the perfect team – people who are willing to quit their jobs and to risk almost everything just for an idea. They have to be one hundred per cent sure and persuaded that the idea will become lucrative. But when this step is fulfilled, everything happens slightly and steadily. In our case, the gathering of the team was the hardest thing. It’s been 3 years since we started working on the product and finally assembled the perfect team. It’s been hard years, we could say, but now we are steady and strong! The team is a perfect match of people with years of experience in different fields: Kiril and Oleg worked for a famous Bulgarian TV show as IT; Oleg is also a DJ and has two startups already; Alex is a certified marketer by CIM, worked as head of marketing in a company with more than 120 employees; Hristiyan has more than 7 years experience in programming. Our service gives precise and personal recommendations – we are focusing on the events discovery process. We are super flexible – our task is to work on the users’ experience all the time (and improve it).

BK: Any plans for the bigger Android market? What about Windows Mobile App?

Eventyard: By building our iOS application,, we wanted to deliver the basic but most vital functionalities of our platform in the users’ hands. So when you are on the move to get what you need. And as you already know, we started with a very simplified version, where you can see everything that is happening around you on the map (with the information about your friends, too) and events that match your interests together with your location. Future releases will gradually add only the most important and useful functions and improvements of the interface. We started with iOS because most of our mobile traffic comes from Apple devices, but we want to reach the maximum size of the market so we will definitely have an Android version in a couple of months.

BK: How do you plan to make money with the platform and satisfy investors and employees?

Eventyard: Unique discovery process, which is being developed for the past months. No one is trying to do an event discovery process, which takes your basic interests, long-term activity and location. Every event website and mobile application is doing the same thing: showing you everything and making you browse until get pissed off and tired of stupid events you will never attend or like. The team is also a strong advantage because we already possess a powerful network of venues and artists, constantly expanding. You can check it here: http://eventyard.net/promo. We target small local venues and signed/unsigned/independent artists and users between 16-40.

Regarding the “money-making” part, Eventyard takes the event management and promotion to the next level:

– We give the indie artists greater exposure at a reasonable price with advertisement and branding solutions in our social platform.

– We give them powerful insights to discover their events’ performance and understand their audience better via monthly subscriptions.

– Easy online ticketing system connected with PayPal – without complicated contracts.

BK: Are you taking part in any disrupt events around Europe or other parts of the world?

Eventyard: Yes, we are. We are currently in Lisbon participating in the Lisbon Challenge, the biggest startup accelerator and entrepreneurship challenge in Europe. But this is not all – we are amongst the finalists of How To Web 2013, which will take place in Bucharest this November.

BK: What’s next for Eventyard?

Eventyard: The future is clear, to invade the whole European market by showing the users that we really add value to their event experience.

Give it a try and do let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Image source: Eventyard.com