About HeySummit

In 2019, CEO Rob Gelb launched the HeySummit platform aimed at removing all of the heavy lifting of creating, managing, and running virtual events.

When the Covid-19 pandemic shocked the world forcing entire industries to go virtual without necessarily knowing how, the HeySummit team of five employees suddenly saw a huge rise in demand for online events. From small events ranging from 200 people in size to massive digital conferences with more than 50k attendees for organizations like the Red Cross and the United Nations.

The Need

Add in-app messaging to their platform so event attendees can chat with each other in real-time.

• Has to be up-and-running quickly
• Has to be able to scale with the growing business
• Has to be built on modern framework so HeySummit can create different apps and groups ad hoc

The Challenge

Should they create a solution in-house from scratch or go with a ready-made solution?

The Solution

HeySummit needed to get up and running quickly, so they decided they needed a ready-made chat solution with plenty of shortcuts and customization features that would be easy to implement. They also needed something that was built on modern frameworks and that would be easy to adjust and maintain as the business grows.

They evaluated four options and eventually landed on CometChat. “When launching something as complex as live chat there are so many unknowns. Working with people who have been there and whose job it is to develop the product saves you not just a lot of dev time, but a lot of thinking time too," Rob said.

June 2020: HeySummit had their first call with the CometChat team.

August 2020: HeySummit ran their first event with CometChat for a company called InTouch Health.

CometChat allows HeySummit to create new apps (or groups) ad hoc, offering the critical flexibility necessary for virtual events to succeed.

Addressing Flexibility

The CometChat dashboard allows customers to easily address any problems.

Addressing Scalability

HeySummit has a lot of big goals for 2021:

• Introduce networking as a component
• Create light-touch ways for attendees to browse who else is at an event, and make those personal connections
• Make speakers available for office hours scheduling

CometChat features they’re excited to use to achieve these goals:

• One-on-one & threaded conversations
• Voice & video calling and conferencing
• Advanced moderation features like In-flight Message Moderation and Image Moderation

The Results

In 2020, HeySummit supported almost 5000 events, serving more than2 million attendees, and helping their customers generate more than $7.5 million USD in revenue, with plans to double or even triple that in 2021.

Check out the HeySummit website to learn more about the exciting things happening in the virtual events space this year.

‍Chat with us!

Connect with a member of CometChat's sales team today to see how we can help get your virtual event up and running.

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