Good morning marketers and welcome to the, if you market podcast brought to you by Mountaintop Data. We are the only podcast that markets the ship out of it. I’m sky Cassidy and today we’ll be talking with Julius Solaris of Hoppin about virtual events and more specifically why no one cares about your virtual events and how to get the most out of them. Julius is an event industry expert with a focus on event technology, including virtual events on site and hybrid events. He’s currently the VP of marketing strategy and events at Hop Inn, which is the fastest growing european company ever and happens to be involved in events Julius. Thanks for coming on today. 

Julius Solaris

00:01:00 – 00:01:05

Thanks for having me Sky so excited to be here with you and your audience. 

Sky

00:01:05 – 00:01:40

So I want to kind of structure this a little bit right away for the audience. We’re talking about virtual events. I’m sure we’ll get some general event talking there as well. But that can be a whole ton of like we’re having an event right here. Um, now with zoom. Everybody considers almost everything an event. You have everything from you’re open meeting network type event to large corporate events and conferences and trade shows and stuff. So let’s kind of box it in. Can you tell us what we are and aren’t going to cover today. 

Julius Solaris

00:01:40 – 00:02:11

Absolutely. Well, I mean virtual events are are not new. First off right? There’s not, it’s not something that started with the pandemic and God they existed before and we were able to leverage on the existing technology to then build on top of it. So the first thing that the audience like marketers need to remember, um The technology as progress probably more in the past 20 months than in the past 20 years forced to 

Sky

00:02:11 – 00:02:12

write. 

Julius Solaris

00:02:12 – 00:02:29

Yeah right. Um I just looked at how many features we released that hop in the past year alone. It’s 165 features. Just ridiculous. So the amount of the pace at which these those are progressing is just unbelievable 

Sky

00:02:29 – 00:02:55

situation. Kind of, it seems like the technology was almost there, but it hadn’t been forced to really be there. Um, it could have been no ways away and we could have had very bad experiences for a while. But really things were for a lot of events right there already. And like you said, you added so many features so fast because you were that close. It was, it was kind of doable already. I guess it was a lucky break. This, this whole thing and that’s 

Julius Solaris

00:02:55 – 00:03:25

pretty much the story of open as well, which is an interesting interesting one because you feel if you think about pre pandemic, the best tool that we would sort of use for virtual events where webinars and we were used to webinars and our founder johnny buffer hat um he was actually in bed for two years with an autoimmune disease and it was like actually board about attending, you know webinars, he couldn’t 

Sky

00:03:25 – 00:03:25

kind of 

Julius Solaris

00:03:25 – 00:04:23

exactly like he was in that situation, developed the tool um you know the two years before The pandemic into 2019 He launched the soft launched it. So created the company in 2019, right in the space of two years we went from like uh six people 2000 so you can see the progression there. But like the when we define virtual events really I think the big distinction here to make is uh one way webinars but even meetings to a certain extent like and that’s that’s a different take on it To sort of connection and trying to replicate whatever happens in an event larger event environment, biggest mistake I see every time using technology that was meant for meetings. So smaller meetings say up to 20 people For an event that has 200 people so zoom 

Sky

00:04:23 – 00:04:28

for a trade show or something like that. Maybe not the best platform. 

Julius Solaris

00:04:28 – 00:05:18

Exactly. That’s where the alienation with virtual events starts. That’s where we’re setting the ground up for the topic of the conversation today. Why does it suck? Because most of the times is like we’re using the wrong type of tech for it and like you know more engaging, engagement driven type of platforms and it’s not just happen, there’s a bunch of them out there, you know, that provide that value of interacting with each other and like discover more about who’s there, that’s kind of the evolution of it. So we’re talking about those events, we’re talking about larger size business events. We’re not talking about sporting events, we’re not talking about weddings and funerals, which happened online as well these days unfortunately. Um, so we’re talking about businesses, brands that want to use 

Julius Solaris

00:05:18 – 00:05:38

events as demand generation tool or as a branding type of experience, whether it’s in person virtual hybrid and hoping we love virtual, but we love also the other things we acquired three companies in the past two years that do specifically in person. So we’re pretty much committed to that. 

Sky

00:05:38 – 00:06:15

It occurs to me that a big part of the event technology is, is probably around for, for the virtual thing. The networking part, even rape, Probably January of 2020. I was at a trade show in Las Vegas looking at the monitors, walking through the casino to the trade show, showing people in Hazmat suits and wondering if this was going to be some sort of resident evil movie. And I remember they had an app for this trade show and remember giving them feedback saying, hey, the app was awesome and I could see who was there, you could check in and say, 

Sky

00:06:15 – 00:06:54

but I couldn’t, there was no way to send them a message. Like, hey, I’m here, come check me out here. I had to then take their name. Go open the linkedin app, look them up there, send them a message. Try to jump to find some way around. It was like, as long as they’re in your app, you gotta have away. So it was, it was an in person meeting, but there was still this virtual aspect when you’re on the app and it was like, I want to be able to network with people virtually here and there’s this wall there is that a big part of the virtual experience being able to network outside of, like you say, a webinar, you can go, you can watch the people talk, you’re done. But that’s not really why you go to an in person meeting. 

Julius Solaris

00:06:54 – 00:07:32

Absolutely. You’re opening up their uh, perfect segue to what we discussed. Uh, and you know, I was shaking my head in disapproval for those listening in while you were saying there was no way to message people. That’s basic feature of mobile apps for events that have been around For 10 years plus. So it’s not something new. It was like something that many events have used through the years successfully because when you’re at a big trade show, there’s noise all over the place, there’s confusion, There’s a lot of information coming your way. So your life focused on like who should I meet? What session should I attend? Like help me filter the noise, Right? So I think 

Sky

00:07:32 – 00:07:43

the app was built all around that like oh here’s it’s gonna show you the trade show is going to show you. But they added this thing that was like oh people can check in so you can see who’s here, 

Julius Solaris

00:07:43 – 00:07:44

totally 

Sky

00:07:44 – 00:07:46

super Valuable 

Julius Solaris

00:07:46 – 00:08:08

but like you can build on top of it and part of the success, I feel, I feel that part of the success that made hoppin kind of viral in March 2020 because I was literally incredible. The growth at that stage was I feel one of the features that we have on the platform that kind of resembles what we all missed about in person events. 

Julius Solaris

00:08:08 – 00:08:53

That’s kind of the serendipity to a certain extent of meeting people randomly at a coffee break or stuff like that. So we have a module that we call networking shuffle and you can just, you just click on it and you get randomly matched to someone at the event and you connect with them for like three minutes and you can decide to extend it if you want it. Uh that’s a feature like literally I attended an event last week, I spent an hour on it, even meeting people and like I met so many interesting people. Virtual virtual, totally virtual. That’s the thing with hybrid, you can actually do like in person can meet virtual people right and connect. Why say you’re bored like in between sessions in the lounge at an event. 

Julius Solaris

00:08:53 – 00:08:59

Like you go to the app, you get matched to someone that is attending online, you can start trading stories, 

Sky

00:08:59 – 00:09:26

that’s what I was thinking, I would be sitting there and on that function on the app just kind of like swiping left or whatever. Those those dating apps were after my time but for right or whichever one is the right one. Um Yeah that sounds awesome. So that kind of, I remember being also at in person events where they had that in person, there was just a room and they were like everybody sits down here and then you all shift one to the left and talk to the next person. You have three minutes. 

Julius Solaris

00:09:26 – 00:09:26

Yeah 

Sky

00:09:26 – 00:09:56

it was this similar thing but the app kind of more convenient almost you don’t have all the noise, it was impossible to hear, You have to like lean in and scream in the person’s ear because everybody in the room is trying to yell at each other. Um Okay so we’re talking about larger events here uh primarily virtual events, let’s get down to the topic of why people don’t care about companies virtual events anymore. I think that’s the big worry for people, hey I’m gonna have this virtual event and people don’t give a sh it. 

Julius Solaris

00:09:56 – 00:10:21

Yeah I feel that one of the sort of all structures that we always go back to when we plan in person events is content. Right? So the first thing you think about is speakers, the keynote breakout, let’s secure these people because these are the ones that eventually are going to move our audience to R. S. V. P. And be there and attend, 

Sky

00:10:21 – 00:10:27

right, Snoop Dogg is going to be opening or closing whatever it’s people like oh I want, that sounds cool. 

Julius Solaris

00:10:27 – 00:11:16

So the biggest mistake is to think that that translates to them online as well. I mean it does to a certain extent but to the same level you would experience like watching a tv show right? Um so we have to switch the mentality when we go from in person to virtual from like something from a concert right? Watching the Super Bowl at the stadium in California and having the whole performance to watching it at home right with our friends or whatever by ourselves. It’s a completely different experience. So where we see most failure is like translating one to the other. Well maybe translating the virtual to in person actually would work better right now because it’s quicker. It’s faster. Like I went back to in person event last month, they made me sit for like an hour and a half in a dark room 

Julius Solaris

00:11:16 – 00:11:37

Waiting for a keynote. I wanted to kill myself. Like literally I couldn’t deal with that because like you know, I’m used to 20 minutes move on tidbits that I can use otherwise I can just go on YouTube but I don’t need to be on an event right to listen to someone speak. I can listen to a podcast like to go in depth right? Or the 

Sky

00:11:37 – 00:11:47

impersonal events going to have to adjust because people got used to virtual and they’re like oh we need more of that style kind of, we want shorter talks, we want 

Julius Solaris

00:11:47 – 00:12:42

that’s that’s one element and the second element that creates that sort of uniqueness about events, it’s connection. So when you connect people that are listening in in a virtual platform then you have something that for the marketers listening that creates a new level of engagement. That creates something that we all feel connected to. That. It’s stronger than social media where there’s a lot of noise around and like content being pushed at you. It’s more secluded you control it much better and people can start to interact. So if you have breakout sessions for example with like customers or um you know attendees connecting with each other or sponsors driving those conversations, open conversations if you have like polls. Q. And A. Is like ways to engage them. Like networking sessions created that horizontal connections. The power of that, it’s mind blowing. 

Julius Solaris

00:12:42 – 00:12:48

It creates the next value. The content starts it the connection sort of finishes. It 

Sky

00:12:48 – 00:13:29

is that the equivalent of like the in person event. You want to be able to have a beer with somebody, you want to see the musical performance, you want to in person, see whoever the big name is that’s opening the show or whatever it is. Um, the virtual, it seems like you’re saying has to have something equivalent that to draw people because I see much like with a webinar, you can get people to sign up on one hand and show up because they’re just like, oh yeah, I’m available now. Let me join that. Very high percentage of people. I get webinars and like that might be interesting. I’ll sign up. There’s maybe a 10% chance I attend if I find myself saying, oh, I have time right now and this just popped up on my calendar. But 

Sky

00:13:29 – 00:14:04

with the, with the virtual events, I feel like you probably get some of the same thing except for if you have to pay for it, people are like, well, there’s no urgency to buy the product basically. And so whereas with an in person, it’s like, oh, I need to set my schedule. We gotta get tickets. We got to get a hotel or, you know, to go do all this. So it’s a thing like how do you get people to sign up for a virtual event when there, when there is no urgency to sign up, there’s no need, there’s no limited amount of people. There’s no, any of that stuff. It’s just, hey, I could come and listen at the last minute, if I wanted to 

Julius Solaris

00:14:04 – 00:14:49

totally, um, you know, scarcity, scarcity is kind of the way to go, my go to tactic for virtual events. What creates scarcity is just like you know, invite only exclusive yes, you need to have like a hook always, it’s gonna, it’s gonna work like that, right? You’re gonna have a special performance, you’re gonna have surprises that are gonna pop up, you’re gonna make it a tv show like why do you bother to watch a tv show? Like I feel tv is going through the event space as well with netflix and on demand right? Where like you have everything available like TVs to reinvent themselves all the time to be relevant in the live environment. Like when you put on a live show and they’re suffering right? Even live shows on tv, they’re not doing as well as 

Sky

00:14:49 – 00:15:00

people either binge it all as soon as it’s available or there’s no urgency because you know you can watch it anytime so it doesn’t like if I miss this week’s episode, I’m not going to be able to see it. 

Julius Solaris

00:15:00 – 00:15:47

And what creates the difference there is like giving the ability to people to step up and like outside of their comfort zone and come on stage and start sharing and like experiment with sharing their content. That’s a big difference that is going to shift like a platform of one sort of one directional platform in a community feeling where people start to create the content start stepping on stage, we’ve had sessions like some of our clients for example, they would prompt the audience during a session to share their opinion and like the most motivated one they would be brought on stage to discuss in a panel, like from the audience, not plan like immediately in the moment you can, 

Sky

00:15:47 – 00:15:48

I’m talking 

Julius Solaris

00:15:48 – 00:16:31

virtual, I’m talking virtual, that’s so much easier. But I’ve done it in person as well. I’ve had people like you can do it both is like a design element here, like the tools that you have available right now, that’s the big news. I feel like the virtual platform, some of the things you can do today with the virtual platforms used to cost thousands and thousands of dollars two years ago. Like it wasn’t easy to implement something like okay, I have the member of the audience that wants to step on stage, come on stage, like on the back on the back end and bring and bring them in and have like a nice view of the four or five speakers and be flexible about it. You have to have a full production team with different software implementation to have different views, 

Julius Solaris

00:16:31 – 00:16:56

incredibly complex to do. One of the companies that we run is Stream Yard, which is like, you know the go to tool for content creators right now, the ability that you have to have multiple views transition super fast. It’s just like mind blowing, save my my butt last year when I wasn’t hopping yet and was running events and I run events for like 60,000 event planners, you have to put in perspective 

Julius Solaris

00:16:56 – 00:17:35

five times the size of the biggest show in the industry. So I did that and I didn’t know how to do it, I didn’t have a lot of budget, so streaming was a lifesaver for me because I was able to immediately create different views, share presentations on the go and that ability to kind of live stream and get the audience to participate. I could for example pick comments from facebook live or twitter, Display them in a lower 3rd while I was presented. I mean can you can think about that? Like it used to take like three people to do that. So now you have these tools that are like so readily available, you can engage with people like so easily 

Sky

00:17:35 – 00:18:07

I’m getting a little ptsd from being in a marketing agency early in the webinar days, like early two thousand’s when we had to have a whole team of people just to have a webinar able to be watched and then you’re worried about too many people showing up and it crashing and nobody being able to like just the logistics of a simple, simple webinar was, it seems like there’s the same thing for the, the virtual events. So question on the virtual events, there was an event that we wanted to go to, it was virtual and I had this idea of saying, hey 

Sky

00:18:07 – 00:18:53

I’d like to do a virtual reality room with this event, we were a sponsor and I said I want to sponsor a virtual reality room, we will ship everybody a VR headset the style you can just pop your phone into. And so we started looking for the software to do this not doable. And I said I don’t believe this is this is too simple. My kids are on this little roadblocks thing. It’s the same thing except for it’s not in a VR headset like you can move around in the space and it’s like oh there’s no audio, you can’t talk. How do you manage distance and who’s hearing who and but why is there no VR room available? There’s gonna be a multipart question. Is this what this facebook metaverse thing is going to be um what what’s up with having VR for 

Sky

00:18:53 – 00:19:06

These virtual events is 5G. Going to bring this into us where you can suddenly move around in the VR space and actually interact with people and and run into people virtually. 

Julius Solaris

00:19:06 – 00:19:10

So I loaded question right there scarred but I’ll try to give it like 10 

Sky

00:19:10 – 00:19:11

loaded questions. Yeah 

Julius Solaris

00:19:11 – 00:20:02

there is there’s quite a lot. But I try to give you the best possible answer to that. So um I feel that what we went through during the pandemic in terms of attendance to virtual events is the very first collective experience of what the matter verse looks like. So it’s a two D. Version of it. It’s not the three D interactive version where we can move around and and interact with people that’s to come. But right now like platforms like hopping are the closest version of what a to divert metaverse looks like, especially in terms of the connection which is which is happening for video right now. Right to the video. Um So that’s the first iteration. Um I feel that there are attempts on Oculus for example, for venues um right now or if you look at Fortnite for example, were like 

Julius Solaris

00:20:02 – 00:20:14

massive concerts like with our artists like doing performances just for that. It works very well with music and concerts because to a certain extent you’re just sitting there listening and that’s it. The Audio 

Sky

00:20:14 – 00:20:15

is one direction I guess, 

Julius Solaris

00:20:15 – 00:20:48

right? It’s more immersive than just like listening on tv. But even there like it depends on what tv and stereo, stereo system you have at home, right? But it is, it is a unique experience and people are loving it. But business events like, let’s define it again, right? Business events conferences and trade shows. It’s already awkward to meet people in person, right? Like you have to introduce yourself. You have to go out of your comfort zone and there’s like introverts and stuff like that. Are we comfortable with going with avatars and meeting people. Like we’re not there yet. I feel 

Sky

00:20:48 – 00:21:10

it’s kind of like being at a ball where you’re wearing a mask though, you can be more comfortable because you have the virtual mask on now. What I heard you say is if I want to have a virtual reality meeting, you just have to invite all your business people onto Fortnite, right? You know, somebody killed Stephen again, come on, stop killing them. I’m trying to 

Julius Solaris

00:21:10 – 00:21:53

talk. There are platforms that do it right now. Specifically for the event industry that’s like super awkward, feels like second life. I mean honestly like we’ve been, I’m old enough to remember second life and like brands like creating little venues in second. Like we’ve done it already, like it didn’t work, we didn’t like it. So I’m expecting like a big quantum leap of development of technology. I like to point your audience to what’s called Galloway says on twitter and on his writings on his podcast, talks about apple as the company that is actually going to master the metaverse and specifically points at one patent that they filed for the airpods to have cameras on it. 

Julius Solaris

00:21:53 – 00:22:09

So he thinks that that’s going to be the game changer, not what made a is going through right now, which e brands has just a marketing stunt, not as an actual um you know, willingness to change things. So interesting take on the matter versus 

Sky

00:22:09 – 00:22:26

just getting attention. Also the opportunity to rebrand away from the name facebook, which is uh come under some criticism. Um and maybe isn’t cool for the young crowd anymore, you know, you want to change the name so you can get these, uh, you know, the young kids not thinking facebook, that’s what my grandpa’s on. 

Julius Solaris

00:22:26 – 00:22:36

Yeah, but let me tell you, Sky was like so skeptical about it. Then I got an Oculus and like I found myself playing ping pong for like two hours. Like, you know, virtual reality, 

Sky

00:22:36 – 00:22:37

virtual reality, 

Julius Solaris

00:22:37 – 00:23:10

all this, uh, you know, quest and it was like on it. Like I felt like I was playing ping pong or too hard. So, you know, it’s like, I, I wouldn’t be, I’m not close minded to say some things. I love some things I don’t like as much and I feel like we need to work on. But like, here’s the thing, the trend for meeting for connecting is not going towards in person, right? It’s going towards technology, that’s where it’s going towards. But then again in person, that’s nothing, there’s nothing like in person, that’s the thing. 

Sky

00:23:10 – 00:23:49

Now that might actually give a premium to in person then, because now you do sales, you do it over the phone, you jump on a zoom call even before, um, even before coronavirus, there was a lot more of that. And then you have this and suddenly, oh, the events are all virtual. But now when there’s an in person meeting, it’s like, oh, I went in person to the in person meeting. It adds an extra premium because there’s that lower level option of, you know, in a lot of events for us, we’d see, we needed to be at the event just to show kind of, oh, if you have a booth at the event, then it’s the cover charge for the industry. People know, oh, this is a legitimate company because they have a booth 

Sky

00:23:49 – 00:24:05

and now your virtual event, virtual booth, it’s a lower tier cover charge, kind of, you’re not in the penthouse, you go to an in person event. You’re basically saying, we’re legit, look, we paid money just to show you just for the cover charge, which means we’re legit. 

Julius Solaris

00:24:05 – 00:24:51

Yeah, I was, I wasn’t an in person events and like, you know, I come from the in person industry, that’s originally my word as much as I love tech, I’m an in person type of person. Um, and uh, you know what, everybody the mantra for the impersonal industry is, there’s nothing like face to face, Okay. And I agree. But as a brand hopping investing in, in person events exhibiting at trade shows, I was at one where I was given like a tiny space in the back of the room shared with like 25 other companies, no traffic because it was like so poorly designed that it was like in a corner and I was like, I’m never gonna do this again, ever. 

Julius Solaris

00:24:51 – 00:25:07

Like I’m never going to spend a single dime again, if you don’t offer like content, for example, if you don’t offer like new ways to engage with the audience, this is a problem that’s in person Virtual Hybrid, it’s a design issue right? There are a lot of events deal with, 

Sky

00:25:07 – 00:25:33

I see the same, just work, are you working from home? Are you working in the office? Hybrid? It seems like everything now has just opened up to, you may have been working from home exclusively for the last two years, but things are going to go to Hybrid and then people are gonna be like, oh my gosh, I’m flying out to the headquarters for an in person and we’re gonna have meetings and so on. Like suddenly all of a sudden people excited to be in the office because 

Julius Solaris

00:25:33 – 00:25:34

it’s no longer 

Sky

00:25:34 – 00:26:12

the thing you have to do all the time. It seems like a good thing to me to have The two playing on each other both options there. Um, good for everyone. Can’t wait until everything is back on and then you actually do have the choice for all events for whether to go in person or hybrid. All right, I want to take a quick break when we come back. I want to talk a little bit more about you, You’re kind of a path to where you’re at now and and about about hopping and then we’ll get back so much more to talk about with with events and virtual events specifically. Really want to get some tips from you something to think about for after the break on, 

Sky

00:26:12 – 00:26:47

you know why people are having problems with their virtual events, getting people to sign up and then maybe some specific things on what they can do to um to improve their virtual event sign ups as well as the event itself probably go hand in hand. Alright, so you’re listening to the market podcast, we have Julius Solaris on and we’ll be right back 

Sky

00:26:47 – 00:27:14

321. Welcome back to the if you market podcast, we have Julia Solaris, we’re talking about virtual events, little general event talk and um you know how you can have better virtual events basically, but Julius before we get back to the event stuff want to dig into you and how you became the Julius Solaris we have today working at Hoppin, what was your, what was your path in this uh this event industry? 

Julius Solaris

00:27:14 – 00:28:05

Yeah, well I’m italian originally, as you can tell by my crazy accent, I’ve been um traveling for a while living in multiple countries and You know, in 2000, like more than 15 years ago um 17 years ago I blogging was the thing, I was like excited about it and uh you know, joining the, what what content creators are today, I guess back at the time, the virtual newspaper exactly, I started a blog um and uh you know, there was like this obsession with like make might make money blogging um and uh you know the only topic I had at the time were events. Like I had a passion for events and experiencing it. Um you know from high school to my first official gig in conferences and pharma 

Julius Solaris

00:28:05 – 00:28:21

and um yeah, I started writing about it rambling mostly, like not even my family could understand understand what I was talking about because they couldn’t speak english, so it was just you know, talking out loud Fast forward 10 years later, were you 

Sky

00:28:21 – 00:28:22

living in the US at the time? 

Julius Solaris

00:28:22 – 00:29:10

No, I was like actually in Australia and then I moved to Italy, then I moved to London while I was in London. I started the business um for my blog four years later that my hobby started And I sold that business in 2019 to publication in travel um travel media company. And uh actually last february I started my journey Moving from media to tech, which is, was the topic that I was talking about. I was talking about event technology for the past 10 years, did a lot of research and and therefore I made the jump and joined the dark force. Uh and it was, it was interesting changed completely in my career now I’m and hoping 

Sky

00:29:10 – 00:29:18

so you basically have been like studying and researching and talking about technology and events and then they were like, now I want to go and touch it and do it 

Julius Solaris

00:29:18 – 00:29:29

totally. Yeah, by by the time I was working as an editor in chief, I had worked with most of the event. Tech companies from eventbrite 

Sky

00:29:29 – 00:29:34

connections. Alright. You’ve already done like networked everything. You were embedded. 

Julius Solaris

00:29:34 – 00:30:09

Exactly. And then so yeah, during the pandemic we had this huge explosion with online events and with the event you have to think like a big round of funding in event technology was double dodged closed $30 million $1 billion dollars in funding. So you can imagine like this is the discrepancy between my life, pre pandemic and the current life I’m living in right now which has been challenging and tough for myself as everybody else, but also equally exciting. 

Sky

00:30:09 – 00:30:22

Yeah. So you started up in hopping in 2021 right? So they were kind of already exploding when they brought you on and they said we need more people who can do stuff were growing too fast, we have to spend this money 

Julius Solaris

00:30:22 – 00:30:54

and there’s a market in china I feel that a lot of your audience would understand understand here content becomes extremely important in the way companies like these market themselves and their transition into media companies almost creating A huge volume of content and therefore like a lot of people in media in events, transition to the same roles that I have today. It’s not just me. Like I can point like 10, 15 people that I used to work with that now recall like have some some sort of marketing role into tech companies and events. 

Sky

00:30:54 – 00:31:39

I also feel like maybe when hoppin comes to you, um I’ve had an episode on influencer marketing before and came to realize, oh, when people are hiring rather than paying influence or to tweet about you, maybe hire one and then you, you have them on staff rather than taking somebody in house like a farm league with baseball and uh and trying to develop them into an influencer, which then they’re going to just go play for another team probably at some point. Um just you just go get a free agent. So it seems like you were kind of a free agent that was, that was available and they said, why try to groom somebody into being this when we can just go and 

Sky

00:31:39 – 00:31:49

we’re just going to go and pay the free agent fee and get this guy and everything he brings to the table and his whole network and his content and his influence um Right out the gate. 

Julius Solaris

00:31:49 – 00:32:30

Yeah. I mean I feel that if you engage with content creators that really care about the content piece, I feel like you gotta be naturally more exposed to bigger marketing opportunities as opposed to someone that doesn’t have any clue of how content works. Um You know, I’m I’m not on podcasts like yours to plug hopping. I don’t care. I mean I talk about it if I have an example, but like I’m here to share value of stuff that I see, I’m genuinely excited about it and like it’s my passion. I’m a geek of like events and like I just like to talk about it for hours, so that’s where my passion started I guess like more companies are capitalizing on that. 

Sky

00:32:30 – 00:32:59

Yeah, well that’s not your purpose here, but that is what it’s time to do now. So let’s talk about hopping because the listeners, I think at this point probably want to know if they’re not familiar with you guys already, what exactly does happen? Do what what kind of do you guys offer as an event platform? That’s different, That’s advantageous and then we’ll let that bleed right into kind of what people can do to have better events, to attract people better um those kind of things, I’m sure some of those features cross over pretty easily. 

Julius Solaris

00:32:59 – 00:33:49

Yeah. One thing to keep in mind about hopping is there, there’s a million technologies to run virtual events today, like every day I see a new funding round with a new technology that does the same thing coming up. Um I feel that um you gotta understand to understand the scenario here where hoppin fits is literally have Apple versus other sort of providers of smartphones right now, it’s the experience, we just care about that, we’re not in the feature battle, we don’t care about giving a million features to the audience, we care about given the best possible experience for attendees online and make it easy. Simple. You just log in, you get engaged to it because we see there’s a direct correlation between the engagement level and success of the event program. 

Sky

00:33:49 – 00:34:09

Well, I feel as a virtual event go, er I don’t want a whole, um, airplane cockpit of options. I want the one button, like an iphone that does the one thing I want to do next kind of. Yes, you keep it simple streamlined like at it an in person event, you can simply decide what you want to do, kind of 

Julius Solaris

00:34:09 – 00:34:27

Exactly. And then our motto is like, just add up into any type of program. Like even if it’s just a pure marketing program that doesn’t have in person events, you can just add up in to make it a little bit more meaningful. If you have an in person events just add up and to have a little bit more reach. Right? Your 

Sky

00:34:27 – 00:34:40

accent was throwing me off there for listeners. He’s saying hoppin. Um, but it sounds like he’s dropping the h so at first I thought he said, oh, they should have 

Julius Solaris

00:34:40 – 00:34:41

before they 

Sky

00:34:41 – 00:34:46

hired you. They’ll be like, say hoppin, say it once, say it for me, okay, I have to practice 

Julius Solaris

00:34:46 – 00:35:35

more on my own brand. Um, so you know, it’s yeah, add hopping to the, to the, to the mix because it’s just so easy. Right? It’s just like, makes sense because you’re extending the reach, your cutting, the cost, you’re making it more engaging and therefore like yeah, it’s just about meeting right part of it is stream yard as well. I wanna I wanna put the attention on it of your audience because Stream yard is probably one of the best creative creator tools that you have right now to create video and live streaming on different platforms, integrates like in a snap with hopping, So you have all your speakers there and you can stream to hopping where everybody’s interacting in the chat, you have polls, you have Q and A’s, you have networking modules, you have booths for your exhibitors where you can present products. 

Julius Solaris

00:35:35 – 00:36:07

So all of a sudden you have this virtual venue where your event is happening. So think about the venue in person that has all the different areas, You have the same areas within the virtual environment. But the twist is that it happens also in person as well. So if your audience is planning about um doing doing in person events, that’s that’s the value of it because you have one dashboard for different experiences. So all the data is one is one place and then you can implement it in different places. So when 

Sky

00:36:07 – 00:36:22

you say virtual venue, you don’t mean virtual reality, but it’s like you can see an overview of the venue, see where the booths kind of like the in person booth chart but then you can actually like drill into a booth and go there virtually. We we 

Julius Solaris

00:36:22 – 00:36:26

don’t have virtual capabilities. Were using the 

Sky

00:36:26 – 00:36:28

virtual reality but you do have 

Julius Solaris

00:36:28 – 00:37:11

we’re using the most accepted sort of definition of online events which is virtual technically is not virtual. It’s two D. So there’s no three D. Avatars interacting and moving away Around. It’s just like your two d. version, you can turn your video on and interact with other people in breakouts and sessions right now, up to 20 people in break out groups. You can turn on the video and audio and have conversations like as we’re having right now so you have that option you can go and visit different boots is set up scheduled meetings, 1 to 1 with a salesperson from that company but there’s no navigation with avatars or stuff like that which is a little bit more 

Sky

00:37:11 – 00:37:15

so it’s interactive but not virtual reality interactive. 

Julius Solaris

00:37:15 – 00:37:16

Now when 

Sky

00:37:16 – 00:37:33

they do make that like Fortnite style virtuality can can you can your industry keep the ability to kill somebody at that event. I mean they’ll get they’ll regenerate right back. I just want to be able to like I don’t like this person saying their dad they fall apart and now you come back together. 

Julius Solaris

00:37:33 – 00:37:35

I’m gonna write it down in the feature requests 

Sky

00:37:35 – 00:37:45

a good feature to have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just have to be careful on the hybrid part on how you how you have these features. 

Julius Solaris

00:37:45 – 00:37:46

You want people to 

Sky

00:37:46 – 00:38:27

get confused. You’re playing one of these driving video games when you get in your own car and you forget where you’re at and start smashing into things. Uh, it’s got to be able to separate the virtual reality and the reality that’s at some level or it gets dangerous. Um, okay, so hop in any, what else should people know about hopping? What else did the listeners know about the platform? I know you say you don’t focus on features, but I’m sure there’s some key features that make things and there’s always a couple of features early iphone missing a couple of things. They had the feature for a reason because like, oh yeah, I would like to be able to answer a phone call and do something else at the same time or whatever it is. Um, so what are some of the key features 

Sky

00:38:27 – 00:38:34

that hopped in in, you know, any other platform, but that that help these virtual events be successful? 

Julius Solaris

00:38:34 – 00:39:07

Absolutely. So one of the ones that I love the most I talked about earlier is the networking shuffle and the ability to meet random people in uh, in an event. I feel that’s the most sort of serendipitous one that you can have in a virtual environment right now. It’s like you can, you can narrow it down to having specific groups meeting and we’re releasing more functionality in that sense. You can have, you know, more on the networking side in terms of how you search people, you connect with people more to come on that in that sense. 

Sky

00:39:07 – 00:39:15

So you can narrow the pool, download it and say, look, I don’t want to just meet anyone random. It’s like a dating app kind of, you can say, I only want to meet nonsmokers 

Julius Solaris

00:39:15 – 00:39:24

or think about startup investors and startup owners right being connected and someone pitching and someone listening. 

Sky

00:39:24 – 00:39:30

I feel like the startup investors would not classify themselves because they don’t want to be attacked by every company 

Julius Solaris

00:39:30 – 00:39:55

well. But you know, some, some investors attend like say TechCrunch disrupt that is like one of our events that we run on hope and that where, you know, you’re just there to listen to new ideas. So you’re open to that. You can narrow it down. You don’t have to make it intrusive. You can select a time and place to do it. So again, it’s a design issue than at that stage in terms of how you plan your event, it’s easier 

Sky

00:39:55 – 00:40:17

to run away virtually as well. It’s like, I feel like investors in a pool, like that would be like a porn star at a porn convention walking around on the floor. It’s just like, okay, the type of people who are here and the type of person I am, I’m going to be mobbed constantly and not be able to move around freely, but virtually the investors can just be like, I’m out. 

Julius Solaris

00:40:17 – 00:40:25

The thing is you have three minutes limit to this, these conversations so you can decide to leave or extend. So if you sort of enjoying it 

Sky

00:40:25 – 00:40:28

and again these investors, I bet you they like that kill function. 

Julius Solaris

00:40:28 – 00:40:33

Yeah, I mean just leave leave. I think it’s after a minute you can, you’re able to actually 

Sky

00:40:33 – 00:40:40

not just leave. They just want to be able to get out the sword. That’s how you leave aggressively. I 

Julius Solaris

00:40:40 – 00:41:20

love that. The other one is the integration with Stream yard and one of the features that streaming has is that sort of little lower third, bringing up comments from the chat directly on on screen so that you’re actually giving some feedback to the people that are participating in the event because the frustration a lot of times with chats and Q and a modules in these virtual events is that they get lost. Like people like keep chatting and they keep on going up and up. So, but if you have a moderator, even the speakers sometimes you can bring them up and show them to everybody and like address them publically. It almost like feels like a Gamification type of 

Julius Solaris

00:41:20 – 00:41:37

moment where like people start battling to make it to the live stage. I felt myself, I was in this type of situation and there was a person, I was like so interested in like having to answer one of my questions, kept on asking questions all the time in the hope to be on stage and never was brought in. Like I want to be 

Sky

00:41:37 – 00:41:39

seen. I want to put my question exactly, 

Julius Solaris

00:41:39 – 00:42:17

right, Because that’s the value to you, That’s where you feel engaged. Um and the 3rd 1, it’s in the making, I cannot talk about it, but like we’re releasing it in the next three months, right? I can sneak peek, it’s all about the data and like the data that matters. I feel that a lot of the metrics that we look at right now, our vanity metrics, they don’t mean anything. Um you know, we’re looking at the clicks but like, but so what, right and engagement is that the, is that the core of it? So we’re releasing more ways to actually measure that and people 

Sky

00:42:17 – 00:42:21

who are listening Julia started bouncing up and down his seat when he was just starting to talk. 

Julius Solaris

00:42:21 – 00:43:00

I’ve been talking about this feature for 15 years, like to see it, make it like to make it happen, like see a real time. I’m just mind blown. I was, I saw my ceo announcing it, I was like, wow, this is just gonna change the game more marketers specifically because this is the audience where you can validate like a lot of events. Events like I made a fresh air as they say in italian, they’re made of like nothingness. Like we’re talking to each other and we’re like saying, oh this is great, how do you measure that? So that’s where virtual is coming in giving you the tools to make it tangible 

Sky

00:43:00 – 00:43:20

did you just slip a word there that you weren’t supposed to, you said some virtual and virtual events. Okay. I thought you named the product or something maybe. Okay. Yeah, that sounds exciting. So keep an eye on that I guess for the check out, hop in and see what they’re up to. When do you think this uh top secret um feature here is going to be public 

Julius Solaris

00:43:20 – 00:43:21

soon. 

Sky

00:43:21 – 00:43:25

Soon. Okay so keep it, keep checking back for that. I don’t 

Julius Solaris

00:43:25 – 00:43:26

want to go to jail 

Sky

00:43:26 – 00:43:45

and data so soon. Soon. Okay let’s jump back. We got a little bit of time left. Let’s jump back to the virtual event talking just generally about these virtual events and um maybe give some people some tips for what does and doesn’t work when putting on a virtual event. 

Julius Solaris

00:43:45 – 00:44:00

Absolutely. Um so we feel that you know some events do better than others. Um I feel that so move to move quickly with virtual events is very important to be in the now 

Sky

00:44:00 – 00:44:02

saying some types of events do better than others. 

Julius Solaris

00:44:02 – 00:44:39

Yeah, some types of events do better and not just some virtual event programs are better than others. So we see that those events that do extremely well have some common features. So one of the ones that I love the most is like the ability to move quickly. I feel that virtual events there are on the money like they are on topic on trend able to deploy superfast and like are addressing an issue that we’re having right now. So for example like if you’re in finance you’re addressing the volatility of the market, you’re setting up a virtual event like in a week’s time that’s going to give you advantage 

Sky

00:44:39 – 00:44:41

so it’s not like it’s your annual trade show 

Julius Solaris

00:44:41 – 00:44:43

topical, it’s 

Sky

00:44:43 – 00:44:47

we wanna address this now boom create an event for the topical stuff, 

Julius Solaris

00:44:47 – 00:45:43

flexibility, make it fast, make it like the pace is so important like if you plan like six months in advance you can do that some many events to do that but we feel that with virtual for success moving quick quick enough it’s very important um than to be helpful like you have to actually provide actual value guidance with experts that answer tangible questions, not just like high level wishy washy Bania type of like implementation, like we’re past that we’re year three of a pandemic. I can’t deal with that anymore. Like make it practical tangible like we’ve seen a lot of implementation with experts being on open mic people coming on stage asking questions interacting or 1-1 sessions with sponsors just answering questions because like the beauty of virtual events they filter through the noise so they helped to avoid all this confusion of information. 

Sky

00:45:43 – 00:46:11

So I’ve seen with with in person events there’s always a big thing with who’s gonna be the featured speaker or the keynote speaker at the beginning of the event. Some celebrity, something like that. Usually have virtual events been able to just like get pay somebody to do a cameo for them and then play that in the virtual. It seems like, okay, why have Snoop Dogg on for a virtual event when you can just put him to do a cameo? Give him a script and then have him have him on like that. 

Julius Solaris

00:46:11 – 00:46:26

I I did it for five virtual events and we we had a special guest special surprise and we had Sort of Tony Robbins recording like five minutes of you know, acknowledgement of the distress the industry was going through. Was it specifically 

Sky

00:46:26 – 00:46:29

for your event or was it like a cameo because I’m thinking, 

Julius Solaris

00:46:29 – 00:46:29

I don’t even 

Sky

00:46:29 – 00:46:36

know they’re going to be featured an event. You just have them do a cameo. Here’s the script boom. And then you know that that 

Julius Solaris

00:46:36 – 00:46:39

my my lawyers would have killed 

Sky

00:46:39 – 00:46:41

And Tony Robbins lawyers too. 

Julius Solaris

00:46:41 – 00:47:15

Yeah. Oh my God, no, it was kind enough to record like five minutes and listen then planners. I I live off of the events so you know, it connected with the audience and everybody’s like mind blown. So also thinking about making it share worthy on social media is like so important. Make it visual as well, Like a lot of talking a lot of video but like what about visual? I’ve used a lot of graphic recorders, they’re called people that sketch live, like what’s being discussed, um and like create these beautiful infographics type of things that you can share during the event.