The Guest – Matthias Heicke, CTO & Co-Founder, Sweap
Matthias Heicke is the CTO & Co-Founder at Sweap, a Berlin-based company on a mission to provide functional and innovative software solutions for organisations who want to make events an essential part of their marketing strategy. Matthias has 15 years of experience in the software industry and has been leading teams for 10+ years.
In-Person Events in the Post-Covid Era
The events industry has undergone a profound metamorphosis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with technology emerging as its steadfast ally. As traditional in-person gatherings faced unprecedented challenges, event organizers and attendees swiftly turned to virtual platforms to bridge the gap. Webinars and online events surged to the forefront, providing a lifeline for conferences and workshops that could no longer take place in physical spaces. As the world gets back to a new normal, what does the events landscape look like today, and where does the public stand with online events now?
Some of the topics covered in this episode include:
- The initial industry reaction to Covid-19
- Planning for the future of the business during unprecedented times
- Achieving technological readiness to adapt to the new market
- Business model flexibility and optimisation
Q: Is it becoming more of a norm that businesses take the social approach to selling?
I think that one of the trends in the last few years is switching from sales-driven to more community-driven companies. You see more and more platforms, especially in the SaaS market, which try to build up communities around their software… I mean, meetups aren’t new, but this whole approach of having spokespeople, even for software companies, having strong advocates on LinkedIn etc, and not running sales webinars, but just engaging people around some sort of content is very nice. It’s nice to keep it as a social thing, not trying to sell to people, but to interest them in something, and then either the product sells itself or not, but you don’t force it on people.
Matthias Heicke, CTO & Co-Founder at Sweap
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