I decided to start my first company during a global pandemic.
With an idea centred around face-to-face meetings.
I am a meeting planner who loves and hates finding venues for small, offsite meetings.
What I love: discovering venues.
What I hate: the entire discovery process.
A small meeting (2–30 attendees) can be held almost anywhere.
Maybe not anywhere per se, but the list is damn long.
Almost all hotels can accommodate that group size, and each hotel has multiple meeting spaces. Downtown Vancouver hotels alone offer hundreds of possible meeting spaces to choose from.
How long would it take to research and contact each hotel to suss out the best options for a meeting?
Quite some time.
Even restaurants can cater to small meetings in their private dining rooms, most equipped with basic AV services. These are some of my favourite venues to host corporate events in. They feel less “office-y” while still maintaining a professional decorum.
The list of potential meeting spaces to choose from is long and constantly changing, which is why many planners opt for repeat venues — to avoid the tedious discovery process.
The restaurant industry is known for its high turnover and hotel pricing varies with each season. It’s time consuming to stay up-to-date.
As an experienced meeting planner, I wanted to solve this problem. That’s how my new start-up company, Welcomely, was born.
Welcomely is an online marketplace for small, fully-equipped meeting spaces.
The platform features top meeting spaces in hospitality’s finest locales. It goes beyond listing just hotels and restaurants, by including unique hidden gems that are often overlooked.
Welcomely is a one-stop shop for planners to browse small meeting spaces based on location, availability and need — with the convenience of booking and paying on demand.
We are incredibly excited to launch in Vancouver, BC soon.
If you are a meeting planner, occasionally book small meetings, or you are a venue interested in learning more about Welcomely, please sign-up on our mailing list on www.welcomely.app.
#WeWillMeetAgain
