XLIVE is proud to present its first-ever list of Emerging Leaders in Event Tech. Our group of 2021 winners includes young event professionals — in both B2B and live events — whose innovation, creativity, and drive are pushing the industry forward. We will be featuring all of the winners over the coming weeks, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for what they do next!
While studying Information and Communication Technology in college, Vaibhav Jain, Founder and CEO of Hubilo Technologies, Inc., organized a series of events and gleaned important insights into the challenges of organizing and attending events. “While that was a small start, it laid the groundwork for what we’ve done at Hubilo,” he says.
He has since built Hubilo into a successful event tech company that experienced massive growth during the pandemic and recently completed a $125 million Series B funding round. Jain says that the foundations of Hubilo were in helping event organizers with attendee matchmaking, which helped improve the attendee experience at a live event by introducing them to people they should meet based on their interests.
“It was fortuitous,” he explains, “because not only did it give us even deeper insight about the needs of event organizers, but it also gave us a solid client base to sell to when suddenly, these event organizers needed to turn their live events into virtual ones overnight.”
Jain shares that the biggest challenge presented by the pandemic was adapting to the speed at which the organization was moving. “Earlier, I used to just play the catch-up game, but now I’m almost at the front of the organization trying to understand what I need to do over the next three months, six months, and a year,” he says.
Other challenges included working with global teams and clients, expanding the team, and fundraising, but Jain notes that these have all presented opportunities as well. “The three major learnings here have been how to hire your team, build cross-border culture, and fundraise,” he says.
As the CEO of an event tech startup, his days are predictably busy as he connects with team members worldwide and determines the business’s strategic objectives. He spends about 30% of his time on hiring, 30% on external meetings with clients and stakeholders, and 40% on internal meetings. He also makes time to read books, blogs, and podcasts to stay on top of the latest trends and make sure Hubilo remains as competitive as possible.
Over the next few years, Jain’s vision for the company is to make Hubilo the go-to source for virtual and hybrid event technology and redefine how people engage in many-to-many communications. “I don’t want to ever replace live events,” he says, “but I definitely want Hubilo to be considered an integral part of every organization's technology infrastructure as we deliver value across an entire organization: increased leads at a fraction of the cost for marketing events, better employee engagement through town halls, events, and training, and even attracting new, more diverse talent through online job fairs.”
In terms of the future of events as a whole, Jain notes that “the very definition of what an event is and how often you can host one is changing,” and although the industry hasn’t yet mastered hybrid, it’s getting there. “In the same way that sports has become a compelling experience whether you’re in-person, at a pub, or watching the game from a friends’ house,” he says, “events that cater to different interests will now get their own audiences watching from different venues. It’s no longer about the mass crowds but the crowds that are really interested in what you’re saying and creating a space for them to connect.”
Jain looks up to several other tech industry figures and entrepreneurs, including Satya Nadella for building a product innovation culture at Microsoft culture; the founders of Stripe, the Collison brothers, who were able to break through in a highly competitive space because of the speed by which they were able to implement their offerings; and Girish Mathrubootham as the first person from India to list a SaaS-based company on NASDAQ.
Jain notes that if he hadn’t been an entrepreneur, he would have likely been a history teacher. He loves to learn and watches a movie almost every day — usually dramas, biopics, and historical movies. In his free time, Jain also enjoys playing badminton, kickboxing, and poker.