Sacramento Startup Profile: Michael Purnell of Sievent

Michael Purnell, founder of Sievent

A major goal of this website is to foster and cultivate the entrepreneurs and founders in the Sacramento region and a key component of that is featuring profiles of founders and other key players in our community. I first met Michael Purnell at a Startup Hustle Demo Night in May this year and I frequently run into him at local startup events. Following is an interview with Michael where he shares his journey as a founder of Sievent, some lessons-learned along the way, and thoughts on entrepreneurship and the Sacramento startup community.

What’s your 30 second pitch to describe your Sievent?

Sievent is an event experience app that changes that way event creators and attendees discover and engage each other. Our mission is to make it easier for communities to always stay Entertained, Connected, and Informed.
With our full event management solution that features social stream, we bring together all enterprises that generate events, touching a community to one app; thus, making it easier for people to discover events that are important to them all from the palm of their hands.

Tell us a little bit about your background and what took you down the entrepreneurial path.

We relocated to Sacramento initially to work for Intel where we met as colleagues and then eventually became friends. Our professional experiences extend from tech, law, business, and entrepreneurship. While we love the corporate experience, we are innovative people who wanted to use our skill-sets to build sustainable and profitable solutions that could influence positive outcomes in communities and people’s lives. Sievent provides us with a challenging opportunity to change people’s behaviors by using the smart phones as a daily vehicle for people to intimately discover all events happening their community – events which may impact them politically, socially, financially, educationally, environmentally, civic-ly, religiously, recreationally.

How did the idea for Sievent come about?

As a transplant to Sacramento, the idea stemmed from my frustration with learning about interesting events either an hour before the event or a few days after the event. I soon realized that my friends also had the same problem from California to North Carolina. I felt that a better way had to exist to discover and spread the word about all local events using technology. Unfortunately, a better way really did not exist at the time; as a result, I was always missing out on important local events from free concerts in the park, to school board elections to grand openings of new businesses to parades to honor our Veterans. For someone like myself, I am passionate about being entertained, connected and informed about community happenings; therefore, I felt compelled to do something. In aggregate, I felt that if people within a community are unaware about these events, then they miss out on a great opportunity to connect, to learn, to influence, to participate in the things impacting their quality of life. I wanted to change that because right now, today, if you asked someone what is the one place where everyone post their events or the one place to find events, people will have a million answers and that defeats the purpose. We need a leader in this space that addresses this problem. In short, I want to see all communities strive and that requires a go-to-medium, single platform where people can discover what is happening at all levels.

How did you validate that you had a market and your solution was viable?

We are explorers ourselves, always seeking something to do here with our families and friends. We noticed gaps in current offerings which required event creators and event seekers to use either 1) multiple platforms to create events, promote events, pay for events or 2) raffle tickets and paper for their end to end event management. We spoke to event goers and event creators and they validated to us their challenges and their wishes, and they confirmed to us that our proposed solution would address their challenges and simplify their event based needs. When we pitched our idea at different startup forums likes StartUp Grind Sacramento and 1MillionCups, so many organizations and individuals reached out to us about the need for a solution like Sievent.

What’s unique about Sievent that differentiates it from your competitors?

Sievent is unique because we enhance the event experience by curating interaction between attendees and event goers with our social display tool Social Stream. After all, events are an experience and we provide an opportunity for event creators and attendees to connect before, during, and post event, all within the app. Lastly, there is no need to use multiple platforms for your event since we are an end-to-end platform capable of handling all your event related needs, from promotion, ticketing, payment, event analytics, and social media management. Sievent ultimately makes it easier for the public because now they can confidently check one platform to discover, engage, and experience what is happening in their backyard all in the palm of their hands.

What stage is Sievent at as far as funding and growth?

We are in the third month of the launch stage where we have successfully launched our mvp version of the iOS app, website and social display solution. We are currently seeking our first angel or seed investment to scale our operations. We are very focused on executing our go-to-market strategy to acquire churches, businesses, non-profits, civic groups, and government agencies to use our app.

What are some big wins or milestones that you’ve had so far?

We presented to StartupGrind Sacramento and 1MillionCups within our first two months of launch. We were accepted into Founder’s Academy. We obtained our first paid events from Rancho Cordova Sunrise Rotary Club and Phi Beta Sigma which were both successful events. We have received the thumbs-up from Rancho Cordova Chamber of Commerce to try our solution for events.

What needs do you have to grow Sievent and take it to the next level?

We need introductions to any and all organizations, associations, non-profits, businesses, churches, mosques, synagogues, colleges and government agencies that produce events in Greater Sacramento or the Central Valley region, so we can confidently tell the community that they only need to check one app/platform to discover what is happening in their backyard.

What were some key lessons-learned so far?

Some key lessons we have learned so far is that acquiring funding is very challenging even if you are generating revenue and have a workable product. We were hopeful that we could get funded once we had a few customers and a product in production. While that is not the case so far, we are resilient and self-reliant and revenue-generating. Also, we learned that it is very important to tell the story of Sievent versus highlighting the features.

What’s next for Sievent?

We want to become the default Event Experience platform for Greater Sacramento and the Central Valley CA. We are based in Sacramento and want the community to support us and grow with us so we can re-invest in Sacramento. None of the other apps share our mission to essentially improve outcomes for communities which is why we are working hard to cultivate relationships with enterprises that create events so we can fulfill our mission. Once we can showcase a diversity of events to meet the diverse needs of each community, we can use data to illustrate the impact of Sievent and hopefully, penetrate other communities in California, the US, and the rest of the world one day.

Lots of people have great ideas but don’t pursue them. What traits or attributes do you think are necessary to go from the idea phase to starting down the road of entrepreneurship?

From our vantage point, discipline and commitment are essential. Of course, the great idea reveals itself rather quickly or spontaneously but the effort required to validate whether the idea has merit, to define the customer requirements and product requirements, to identify price points and Go To Market Strategy, to find/build a team, to invest in launching the business are all rather demanding in terms of time, money, effort, sleep, and even peace of mind. One also has to be comfortable with uncertainty while also managing the fine line of supreme confidence and humility since there is a lot to learn and do. Commitment, flexibility, and passion are key.

Do you have any words of advice, inspiration, or encouragement for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Make sure that if you are going to pursue entrepreneurship that your idea is a passion that you have and it’s bringing value to the world. There will be long days when things aren’t going your way but you have to have to be your own cheerleader at times to keep your startup alive. The best way to cope with it is connecting with other Entreprenusr out there because they often have been in your situation before and can offer advice on how to get through the rough days and make your business succeed.

What’s your take on the startup scene here in the Sacramento area?

The Startup scene is thriving in the Sacramento area, you’re starting to see more co-working spaces and more entrepreneur type events and activities happening around town. With the right investors, founders, and successful startups, It’s just a matter of time before that startup scene will be just as big in Sacramento as in the Bay area.

Anything else you’d like to share?

We are launching in the Central Valley, in particular Greater Sacramento, and welcome everyone to give Sievent a try today for your next event experience.

Thanks to Michael for taking the time for the interview. Check out more about Sievent in the video about it below and in Michael’s 1 Million Cups presentation, also below. I’d like to encourage everyone to support a local entrepreneur by downloading the Sievent app and telling your friends and family about it.