How HoneyBook CEO Oz Alon grew HoneyBook to $74.2M revenue and 55K customers in 2024.

foreign welcome back to 33 Founders I'm really excited that you're with us today because I'm here with Oz and shadia two of the co-founders of honeybook thank you guys so much for being with me thank you for inviting us thank you so one of my favorite things about honeybook is that your mission is to create Magic tell me how you're creating magic for users who are coming to plan an event and then for a partner who's coming to list their services on the site oh man you started good uh that's definitely our favorite topic creating Magic uh you want me to start are you gonna take it I think you should take this one you own the magic around here um so it's it's interesting you know we look at the events industry in general and we see how how you know every vendor in this industry if you look at a photographer for example promises his customers his clients that he's gonna you know he's gonna take beautiful pictures of the event he's going to document the event and actually that's very true the photographer in the event is gonna own your memory if you look two years back on your wedding day whatever you you remember is actually these beautiful photos Beautiful Moments so when you think about it this photographer is creating magic he's going to create your memory and then when you look at a florist it's the same thing right the florist will look at the concept of the event and we'll we'll in the end of the day we'll we'll choose like the right flower with the right color in the right like um a smell that that will make the the entrance this event uh an amazing experience so when we see all these vendors promise and and deliver magic to their um customers then we can't not notice the fact that at the very first moment when they meet with these customers uh the interaction and communication between them is far from Magic it's evolves contracts and signing them and sending it you know through email um and then it involves checks and cash printers and taxes and it's like it's exactly the opposite for Magic and this is not a world that we want to live in right and it is not a world that we I used to live in like I don't even know how to write a check um I just don't do it so when we went through this phase of getting married and that was kind of our entrance to the events industry which is you know the wedding is just part of this industry but but what we discovered is that we need to go through all this weird outdated process and when we we sat together and talked about it and we noticed that it's far from from Magic um we decided that we're gonna change this and we're gonna create Magic from every single part of this process from the booking through the planning through the events itself and and this is that's kind of our mission in the end of the day can you give us a couple of the events that you guys have helped your partners host because the pictures are gorgeous on the site yeah so we're um we're not necessarily we're an extension of the vendor right and of that entire process so while we're not on site and we're not necessarily responsible for being there on the day of the event um uh we we do help to enable the entire planning and collaboration and communication communicating process that happens to get to that magical moment right so for example we know that a lot of our customers who are um event professionals you know they're they're planning um you know corporate of uh Galas right they're they're doing um um non-profit fundraisers they're doing weddings they're doing birthday parties so any and anywhere where you have a lot of different um vendors um coming together to create this awesome um experience for the client honeybook is helping those vendors along the way great so what would you guys say are the top three problems that your customers are facing in that light and then how do you help them solve it so when you ask about our customers it's first of all we need to Define who are who is the customer and our customer when we looked at the events industry you know we look at the 300 billion dollar industry one of the biggest industries in the US but what was interesting is the Dynamics of this industry and the Dynamics was that the vendors the sellers in this industry are calling the shots and not the buyers this is very different from every any other industry and the reason is very simple the buyers normally are doing it you know once a year if it's a corporate or once in a lifetime if it's a wedding so when you do something once in a lifetime and you meet a vendor that does it every week you're not going to influence the way that he's doing business therefore we understood from the very beginning that our customer has to be the vendor has to be that person that does it on a weekly basis so when you ask um an example of how we solve our customers needs so that's again that's a very interesting question because we needed to Define what are these needs that are common to all the different vendors and one of the needs that we found out from the very beginning was actually you know managing these these clients the end clients the brides or corporates or Galas that that need attention from the vendor in the booking process so generating proposals signing the contracts getting paid from all these different clients making sure that I have leads that are coming in through my website and that I can track them and and making sure that I you know give the attention to this customer that requested my proposal so these kind of things you know from the get-go were were the pains that we solved at the very beginning and again obviously that's just the beginning because moving forward we're looking at the scope of all of the relationship between the vendors and the clients and even the vendors and the vendors which is another very interesting aspect of what we're doing which is you know tapping on the ecosystems of the vendors and their Networks how did you guys figure that out I love how you put it that from the outside so for me I would perceive that you're that I'm your customer because I'm coming to plan my event via honeybook to get connected to all these vendors but you guys learned early on that you really needed to Target the vendors what was that learning process like um well actually so for the the learning process was very personal but first I just I just want to clarify that as let's say you as the client you don't come to honeybook to plan your wedding right um right now there's there's not a way for you to do that what it is is that is that where we work with the vendor we then the vendor uses honeybook we enable the vendor to now communicate with you as your client right so if you're lucky your vendors will be on honeybook and and it's actually our job and our duty to make sure that all of the very best vendors are using honeybook so that so that next you know next year or two years from now when it's time for you to plan your next event you are going to ask these vendors are you on honeybook and that's actually going to mean something to you right it's going to be a stop of approval but let me go back to your question about how we were inspired so it was it was very personal right we um like how did we realize that actually that the consumer doesn't have a lot of power in this play well because I was married um to my husband and then Oz was married to his wife Nama who's also our co-founder um and and we we you know we sat down around coffee one day and we realized that the pain points of planning our own weddings were so similar mind you they got married in Israel I got married in the U.S we both plan our own weddings and we found the pain points were exactly the same and we thought how could it be and and we weren't the only ones right our friends anyone you go and ask they will moan about the fact that it's such a complicated outdated Antiquated process to just work with the vendors right The Wedding Date is beautiful but what about like the 9 to 12 months of schlepping through papers and emails and phone calls and faxes and so on so we thought gee if if all of these millions of consumers each year are moaning about this why why are things the way that they are what happened to the events industry that I got stuck in the 80s so that's when we started to examine the Dynamics here right we realized the vendors are at the core of the industry this is their livelihood they're doing this day in and day out and we went to the vendors and we asked them you know why don't you accept online you know I want to pay you uh with uh with I want to pay you by credit card and we've seen that vendors are reacting back and saying oh I don't do that and again you know it's just it's not that they that that the events and weddings Etc it's like it's on a different planet it's at the same day exactly that you would never think about paying something with cash like something else at the same day exactly you you or with a check you meet a vendor and suddenly you pay with a check and it's and so that's so that's how we came to a realization that probably the vendors are the ones that that kind of uh influencing this great so I want to shift gears for just a couple of minutes and talk about your journey to get where you guys are today so you started from Israel and you decided to come to Silicon Valley I'm sure that was a...