Kobie Fuller

We've known @DerekjAndersen for years and if there's anyone who can do this, it's him. We at @upfrontvc are excited to help build this category with him and the @bevylabs team.

Derek’s experience helping build Startup Grind, a platform that has organized a staggering 7K events reaching 2M entrepreneurs, makes him uniquely positioned to build this platform.

And of course, millennials and gen Z are prioritizing experiences more than anything else; smart brands have the opportunity to get ahead should they invest in these tactics.

Whether its an organization like Atlassian bringing their developers together or Duolingo helping people practice a language together, customer-driven, in-person connections are applicable to every brand on the planet.

It’s even more powerful and effective through events on a MASSIVE scale that are run by customers but powered by the brand owner, in a brand-aligned way.

But traditionally this is hard to scale because the marketing team can’t be everywhere at once - even though customers actually are!

It turns your customers into your best marketing, sales and support team.

The in-person experience is emotionally powerful on a level that pure digital touch-points can’t match. It builds your brand in a way that paid search or FB ads could never do.

Magic happens in bringing people physically together where the brand is the glue that binds them. It becomes electric when done correctly and helps bring more people outside of the customer base in.

Why is this important? Because customer to customer marketing is one of the most powerful and effective tactics any brand can do, period.