The Original Series Event from WisePass
WisePass is a Singaporean lifestyle app that started in Ho Chi Minh City and rapidly expanded across South East Asia in 2018. When the pandemic, everything crashed and we had to restructure the way we operate and how we would be able to grow back in such a turbulent environment.
I'm Lam Tran, founder and CEO of WisePass and this is a story I came up with the Originals Series Event as a concept by watching a lot of Netflix in November 2020. I'll share 3 main aspects of it in this article.
The ownership
Like every event, you'll need someone to create the format and set up the content. The founder's night is actually spin-off from Founder's Talk, a talk show I've done during the year 2020 when I was stuck in France.
The format consists in inviting a founder every month and sit down to discuss about the entrepreneur's journey and challenges. As a curious person I enjoy asking questions to different founders as they come with a different background, have different stories on how they managed to raise funds. You can learn so many things.
I decided then to make the format offline and select a venue where to hold the event every month.
What makes a WisePass Originals Series Event is that we create the concept and execute it. It is also possible in the future to have Non Originals Series Event created and executed by others. However, it was easier in November 2020 to start with our own concept and kickstart the WisePass to sell.
The access
WisePass used to hold many events where people could freely come over and interact with us to ask questions about our membership. During that time, the event was designed to address questions and concerns about if the membership was real in 2016.
In 2017 and 2018, we started to evolve the event for food so the membership wasn't just about drinking but also about food. It became successful as it went rapidly up to 50% of our redemptions turned into food while alcohol went all the way down to 20% versus 100% in the past.
The access to these events were free. It was open to everyone so we could reach the highest amount of people and engage them. The goal was eventually to have some to convert over time and we could track that by email since each attendee looking to enjoy had to download the app and sign up at least so we could let them redeem the lunch or drinks.
The difference today is that our Original Series Events are accessible only if people are subscribed to our app. That turns our regular event into an acquisition channel as every attendee would have to download, sign up AND subscribe. The price is less stiff though as it's now only 239,000 VND ( around 10$US ) per month.
The consistency
WisePass used to hold events but they were not really consistent in the past. Except from the boom event where it was a weekly drinking event.
The problem with the lack of consistency is that people attending an event will forget it after some time. People that didn't attend the event will simply miss it and move with their lives. What makes people trust and appreciate an event is that it can eventually build up a community.
Making sure the Originals Series Event to happen consistently and reported on social media and the news was something critical. In order to guarantee that, Each event is planned on a set day and week each month so it can be easy to remember. For Founder's Night, it is every 2nd Thursday of the month from 7pm til 10pm.
We now have done 6 editions of Founder's Night and are gearing toward our edition 7. Each event we upload the event on Facebook where we put a set banner of the location, sponsor and our logo on the right. That consistency in the design helps people to recognize immediately this is a WisePass event. By making the design simple and easy to recognize, it appeals to attract more and more people over time as we kept our CMGR ( Compounded Monthly Growth Rate ) was 50% for 5 straight months.
