Event stage POSH wants to democratize event planning

POSH is an event management and ticketing platform for event organizers, promoters, and people who just want to charge their friends for drinking all the expensive alcohol at their birthday party.

After October 2020’s beta, POSH launched Thursday.

The company launched and announced its $5 million seed round, co-led by Companyon Ventures and EPIC Ventures, with participation from Day One Ventures, Pareto Holdings, DoNotPay founder Joshua Browder, and others.

“We are thrilled to invest in [POSH co-founders Avante Price and Eli Taylor-Lemire] as they continue to redefine the live events management experience for organizers and attendees,” said Companyon Ventures co-founder and general partner Tom Lazay.

The funding will expand its team, develop new features, and update its mobile app.

POSH only has an iOS app for event curators. The Android app launches next month. In June, POSH will add an explore tab and social features for attendees/eventgoers.

Price and Taylor-Lemire (22) told that POSH wants to be “Shopify for all events.” The self-serve platform allows organizers to create white-labeled event pages, send unlimited text blasts and emails to attendees, access custom payment plans, community management features, and analytics like attendee demographics, tracking link data, and more.

Like Shopify, POSH integrates MailChimp, Stripe, and Twilio. The API lets organizers list POSH events on third-party marketplaces like EDMTrain. Webhooks provide real-time transaction updates.

POSH users can brand their own “marketplace” to stand out from other event platforms. This may help independent event organizers grow.

If you’re a big brand on Dice, Ticketmaster, or Eventbrite, their branding is all over your event page. “And your branding is basically not seen,” Taylor-Lemire said. We ask Dice and Ticketmaster attendees, ‘Hey, do you know the event production company that put together this event?’ They usually say, “No, I bought the tickets on Dice.”

Taylor-Lemire said POSH has more “subtle branding” so attendees can focus on the organizers.

Event page customization tools are available on the platform. This includes adding flyers, venue photos, artist line-ups, website code embeds, custom aerial seat maps, accent colors, and more.

Event organizers can promote their events on a profile. The top section lists the number of events and attendees.

POSH lets organizers pre-approve guests. They can also request attendees RSVP with their LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. They can password-protect the event.

POSH’s “Kickback” tool is noteworthy. The attendee-to-affiliate conversion tool lets guests invite friends and earn commission on ticket sales. Affiliates share links they receive. Connecting their debit card gives them instant cash back. The organizer determines reward percentage. Affiliates may receive 20% of ticket orders.

POSH wants to encourage ticket sales by showing attendees they can organize events.

“Micro-influencers get that soft introduction to bringing people to events. Our tools let you start your own event brand. Taylor-Lemire said that’s the tool’s goal.

Attendees rarely throw a huge party after attending several events. “You can monetize your social influence if you become a promoter, a photo/video person for a company, or a DJ,” he said.

Only event attendees with a link can see the Kickback offer. POSH will eventually display the offer on the explore tab.

Pre- and post-event chats are available on POSH. Partiful, a party RSVP website, allows event page comments.

Price said POSH may add a monetization feature where guests can anonymously “like” names on the guest list. Attendees would pay to see who liked them. The idea is intriguing, but we’re not sure many people would pay for that feature.

POSH claims over 500,000 users and $30 million in processed tickets. The company declined to share valuation or revenue run rate but claims profitability.

The launch and telling our story as young African American founders excites us. We had few role models when entering space. Taylor-Lemire said, “It was a struggle to get here.” “And so, we want to inspire any other young founders out there like us who were passionate about building but really didn’t know how to go about the venture or tech side of things that it is possible…You can create.”

After working as freelancers in NYC nightclubs, Price and Taylor-Lemire founded POSH in 2019. Price DJed and Taylor-Lemire shot and edited.

Price said people were late paying and making false promises. “The biggest thing was a lot of these brands were run by older people who didn’t really understand what college kids wanted, whether it’s the vibe, etc.

Price and Taylor-Lemire founded POSH to host college and young professional events.

“You apply with LinkedIn or Twitter, [tell us] what value you bring to the community, we accept, you come to our weekly events. Party on. No networking occurred. “But it was a little bit classier, and that’s kind of where the name POSH came from,” Price said.

It became a ticketing and management platform.

The 22-year-old NYU dropouts Price and Taylor-Lemire have tech and entertainment experience.

Price began entertaining early. His father, a vinyl DJ, taught him at five.

We initially doubted a child could mix and scratch a turntable. Price demonstrated that in the interview.

He founded ChoreBug, a TaskRabbit-like service for high schoolers, in high school.

Taylor-Lemire, who loved YouTube as a kid, started making music videos for local rappers.

He co-founded Stumped, a school community app, in high school.

He later started a freelance photo agency, shooting fashion magazines and Sony and ROC Nation artists. Taylor-Lemire created Music Video Express to book local videographers.