Can You Vibe Code Your Way to Real Event Technology?

[00:00:07] Hi everybody, welcome back to Event About It, the Dynamic Dialogue After Show. I'm your host, Megan Martin, and I am here today with the fabulous Hong Nguyen. And for anyone just joining us in the After Show, we'll owe you a quick introduction. Hong is a two-time CEO founder of Shiloh Events and the brand new Alethean AI-powered intelligence platform built for event operations. She's run many large-scale corporate tech events over the last 13 years.

[00:00:36] She even co-founded Zoomtopia, which is Zoom's annual flagship conference. And she grew Shiloh from zero to a multi-million dollar revenue within three years, which is incredibly impressive. And before any of that, she produced events for NASA. And my favorite fun fact about you is that you named your company Shiloh, which is Hebrew for Peace, and now you're building technology to give peace to planners. So I just love that. I love that. Yeah.

[00:01:06] Welcome, welcome. And I really want to start on how in the world did you work for NASA? Like, how did that come to be? And what kind of events were you doing? Yeah. So I was an undergrad at San Jose State, and they have a really robust event management program. They call it Hospitality Recreational Tourism. And so I enrolled in that to get my degree in event management. And then part of that is that I was a graduate student.

[00:01:33] Is to do an internship. And so really cool with this college is instead of like saying, oh, you go and you find your own internship, they actually connect with different partners and companies in the Silicon Valley within to offer event management internship within those companies. And NASA was one of them. And so I was like, oh, hell yeah, I'm going to totally sign up for NASA because I love space. I love astronomy. And I love the, you know, just understanding like different science behind that.

[00:02:03] But what's really cool too is at the time when I started, there wasn't a lot of like igniting of young people for science. And one of their mission was to bring forth this science technology engineering math initiative for the young folks and like people in high school and middle school. And I thought that was really neat. So I wanted to partake in that. So I signed up for an internship with them.

[00:02:30] And then it was either that or the PG&E Pro-Am like golf tournament in Monterey Bay, Pebble Beach, where, you know, Tiger Woods was there and Justin Timberlake would attend. And I wanted that. But then I also wanted to be part of like this new initiative for young people. So I joined that. And then one of the first program I did was to plan an event with, at the time, Twitter influencers for a shuttle launch in Orlando.

[00:03:00] And it was so cool to like plan hotel rooms, to plan bus transportation, inviting these influencers to come out, giving them like an entire program of content that they could. We encourage them to post about doing public relations stuff, working with the media. And like it was so great to be able to have personal connection with the local news, the news anchors. Right.

[00:03:24] And so like seeing them in person when I've watched them like 11 o'clock news and I'm like, oh, my God, you're you know, like you're this person. I listen to you all the time for news and then inviting them and then they wanting to come and like being reached out to because, you know, I can give them access. Like there's a lot of like this self and like self power, the sense of self power that I was given a program to manage.

[00:03:48] And so I wanted that, you know, and I think that's what event planners like we have that characteristic of wanting to feel in control. We're all type A. We're all control free. Every single one of us. So I was like, wait, this is way better than serving concession at a stand, you know, at the golf tournament. And yeah, so I took that opportunity, even though it's not as glam. It's still glam in some ways for sure.

[00:04:14] I mean, I think it is. I would have picked a NASA before a golf tournament for sure. Being in the same situation where, you know, the golf tournament and seeing celebrities, all that super sexy. But I think the longevity of your career, like working for NASA and the programs you did probably served you a lot better than going to a golf tournament. Yeah. And I think this is a note for the up and coming generation and young professionals is when you're thinking about the events industry, it's not all about the glitz and glam of a program.

[00:04:44] It's, you know, it's not about the F1 and we do that too or the awards dinner, but there's a lot of critical thinking and strategy and technique that goes into planning that you don't really get unless you immerse yourself in those bigger roles and like more planning roles. Right. Yeah, I completely agree. So you finish up school, you finish with NASA and then you went into ServiceNow, which ServiceNow was very different than NASA.

[00:05:13] Yeah. Yeah. So walk through your time after NASA. Yeah. So after I was at NASA for like four or five years between that and I felt like NASA, I think it still is very stagnant. There's not a lot of like innovation growth, especially when it comes to like community outreach and events and marketing. They don't have a lot of budget for that.

[00:05:39] So anything that I wanted to do to ignite the youth, the answer would be there's no budget. And I'm like, well, OK, I can't do anything here with with my ambition. So let me go into the corporate world. And then I got a job at ServiceNow working on their flagship program called Knowledge. And that this was like 2013 or like this is a long time ago. Oh, my God. I can't believe it.

[00:06:05] But like being on a bigger team, working on one small portion of that event, you know, whereas at NASA, I was owning an entire program. So like working on one small program, one small portion and then which is a community virtual online, but also like the community events at Knowledge. And it was really neat. Like I had a really great supervisor that gave me autonomy and trust. But what I learned about that is and this is interesting to.

[00:06:34] Community events is still events, right? Like like there's a lot of planners in the corporate world called corporate, sorry, called community event managers. And they're they organize user groups in different region. But that still is very important because that ties in into the broader culmination of all of the conferences. Right. So that's what I was in charge of. I loved it.

[00:06:59] But very challenging because it was intimate, you know, groups of like 50 in like 50 regions versus planning for one larger conference. But that was when I learned that intimate gathering is just as impactful, if not more than the flagship program that, you know, the larger event groups were planning. Yeah, I completely agree. Well, and then from there, you kind of went back to school, got your MBA.

[00:07:28] And then in between after your MBA, you kind of took a little bit of a break. And then that's when Shiloh started to be through schooling. And then why start Shiloh instead of just going back into the corporate space? Yeah. So during ServiceNow, I did enroll in an MBA program for two years. I busted my ass off to finish in two years because I was like, I'm done with case studies. I'm done reading Harvard case studies. I want to actually do some shit. But so once I got my MBA, it was so funny.

[00:07:57] I thought, oh, I could get a job so easily. Right. I got MBA on my resume. I got NASA like and I had made all these friends in the Silicon Valley and everybody was referring me. But I couldn't get a job. And sometimes the universe be universing like the universe will totally universe by either blocking you or doing whatever to teach you a lesson or kind of nudging you in certain different direction of life.

[00:08:24] And at that time, I couldn't get a job. I was like, what the fuck? Like, I know I'm smart. I know I'm super I'm capable. And I would go into interviews and they'd be like, oh, you're great. And then all of a sudden the budget gets taken away or someone, you know, is much better. And I'm like, what the fuck is happening? And so I spent like six months soul searching. And then finally, this voice in my head, call me crazy, call me delusional, whatever. We'll call it Delulu is like, OK, let's start an events agency.

[00:08:53] And I'm like, girl, I was 23. I was like, I don't know anything about events agency. I've never even worked in events agency. What the hell are you thinking? And then I was like, OK, well, I know business. Let's start with a business plan. And I know some friends and you know that are in the events team. So let me reach out to them and do work for free. So I worked for free for six months. I would plan events for free.

[00:09:21] And then just in the stroke of luck, the donor of a nonprofit organization that I was planning events for, he worked at a like a large eight, like a large company. And he was like one of the senior VP of marketing. And he's like, OK, let me give you like I'll bring you in. You can do this event. And then also when I worked at NASA, I made friends with people who were at Microsoft. So then they gave me their events.

[00:09:49] And then from there, I was able to secure Microsoft as a logo. And I kind of just wrote that. I wrote that logo all the way to Zoom. I wrote that logo. Then stroke of luck, I got Philips, which is a really great. You keep saying stroke of luck, but this is not luck. You hustled for that. Yeah, I did. I mean, I hustled. I worked for free and I made friends. Then they spread my, you know, the word around. And then people started to trust and have credibility in you.

[00:10:19] But this one is a stroke of luck for sure. I was able to secure Grace Hopper Conference, which is 20,000 people in Houston. And the lady who interviewed me just so happened to see me as her daughter. And I was 24. And she's like, oh, my God, you're so young and you have this agency. Like, let me give you a try. And she and this is a lot some a large sum of money back in 2013.

[00:10:50] It was half a million dollar contract. I was like, what? Still a lot of money today. Oh, my gosh. You kidding me? Any agency would be lucky to get a half a mil contract. But I got a half a mil contract one year in. And I was like, whoa. OK, so then I started hiring. I we did really well with that program. But then that gal who hired me left for something else and then someone else came in and they had a relationship with either GPJ or Opus at the time. I forgot. And then they took over the business.

[00:11:18] So I wasn't able to, you know, get the business again. But note for anyone listening. Larger agency doesn't mean better than smaller agency. I've had people who've left me for larger agency and then come back around and be like, yeah, they gave me the C team. Whereas smaller agency, I got the A team. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we try to warn you. You know, larger isn't always better. So that happened twice already this year where they came back and they're like, yeah, we like Chilo the way that you work because you're so attention to detail and you pay.

[00:11:48] You know, you give us like we're like the Nike logo to you versus like if I were to go with a larger agency, we're like small fish. Right. So, yeah. But I didn't know what I was doing. And then I just I hustled girl for so long. I think I was in the trenches for 10 plus years, 10 plus years. I only recently felt like I was out of the trenches three years ago. And that's when I was able to pick up the hobby climbing and then traveling a lot, speaking to a lot of people and speaking in the industry.

[00:12:17] I then realized there was a tech that's missing. And when we were all in COVID, that's when AI came out. Right. And so I learned more about AI and I'm like, holy crap, like you could do a lot more with AI than what planners realize. And we were also worried, like, am I going to lose my job? You know, is this going to replace? And I realized it's not. It's not going to replace your job. It's just a tool to help you do things much more efficiently and smarter.

[00:12:43] And when I was testing it, I was like, it takes a lot of time to engineer the prompts myself. I wish there was a platform that already pre-engineered this, that understood what the workflows are. And I can just plug it in and be like, I'm looking for a budget. And then the system would already understand the making or the process of building a budget.

[00:13:05] And that's when I came up with that idea, Alethea, is like, we can execute a lot of tasks with AI if the prompts are already engineered in such a way that planners don't have to, like, spend time working through it. And then Alethea came about and I became delusional 2.0. Well, okay, before we get into Alethea and building tech, I want to go back to some of the founding story of Shiloh and the hustle.

[00:13:33] And one thing, especially now, today's day and age, people feel like you have to speak. You have to be online. You have to be the thought leader to, like, sell your business and your product or whatever it is. No, no, no, no, no. You were basically underground for 10 years. We were. Oh, girl. Yeah. I don't think you knew about me before 2023. I was underground. No, definitely not. Yeah, I was underground. The logos I got were Samsung, Underground, Philips.

[00:14:00] I also got Hitachi, Fujitsu, LG, Zoom is one of them, then Uber, then Google. Like, it was all underground. So the myth that you need to get out there and be a credible leader before you can actually earn business is an absolute false myth. I was able to do it without putting myself. In fact, in fact, I think because I hustled and worked on retention of clients, that's why I was able to be so successful.

[00:14:28] Most entrepreneurs think, you know, when I started out, I need more clients. I need, you know, expansion. I need more, more, more, more. But in reality, just do well with what you have already. And that's what I did. Like, I just said, okay, I have Zoom. I'm going to do really well on Zoom. And they retained me up until now. We've been with them for seven years because I was so focused on making sure that they're happy. Then Zoom referred me to Uber. Then Uber referred me to Google.

[00:14:55] So just work on what you have and do that really well. Because then from a business perspective, you have a baseline of revenue that you can rely on. Year over year, you know that that's going to be a repeat, right? But if you kept on getting new clients, you don't know if they're going to renew your contract next year. And they may not. And a lot of times I have clients who don't renew. And I'm like, oh, shit. Like, what do I do?

[00:15:18] But thank God I have a very strong baseline of retained clients that are with me to at least cover my operation costs. And anytime anything after that is just profit, right? And so don't make the mistake of like more is better. No. Like, just focus on what you have. Do that really well. Treat your employees really well so that they don't leave. Because if they start leaving, then you're, you know, you're stuck with doing the work yourself. So, yeah. Quality over quantity really speaks volume here.

[00:15:48] And that's what I did. And then after 10 years of doing it, I was like, okay. I think now I have enough experience. I have enough stories. I have enough scars to actually put myself out there. Because, you know, I don't want to get on stage and not have like actual real life experience that I can lean on. Because then it just doesn't do me good. And I get anxious. And I'm like, well, what do I talk about? Or, you know, even being able to share with someone like some real life experiences. Right?

[00:16:16] So, I think, no. Not getting out there first. I'm sorry to say this. Not to be mean. But like that's vanity. Right? Focus on you. A lot of it is vanity. And then, sorry. If I may. I love all my planners. But there are some influencers out there that I see where I'm like, how many years have you been? You know, what programs have you really been working on? What are you? You know, then it makes me question like, what truth are you really speaking?

[00:16:47] And I want to be able to offer truth that is backed by real experiences. And then, plus, you know, I already know a lot of people in the industry by that point. I'm like, oh, you know, you need help with this. Let me introduce you to this person. Oh, you need a job. Let me introduce you to this person. Right? And then, I'm not really competing with anybody because I'm already secured in who I am. Right? Like, for an example, I met with someone at Opus at a conference. And they were going after my client.

[00:17:15] And we kind of, I was like, oh, you worked. Oh, I have this guy. And she's like, oh, yeah. We're bidding on that. I'm like, you're bidding on my client? And we kind of just laughed about it. And she ended up winning that year. But then she lost the following year to me. And we, you know, we're still texting. And we're like, haha, like, you know. We can be in front of me. We can be in front of me. It's really fine. Right? But that comes from a place of security and confidence in yourself.

[00:17:42] But if you don't have that sense of security and you go out there, then you become, you know, competitive. Like, jealousy, envy, you know, not supporting one another. And that is not conducive to the stress that we're already experiencing as a whole from our job. Right? So I want to see each other show up with a sense of security. But anyways. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think you make a great point, though, in true thought leadership to be impactful as a thought leader. You have to have the lived experience.

[00:18:12] Because we've all seen the influencers or content creators, like, in our space that don't actually live and breathe events every day. Or don't live and breathe marketing. And they just get out there and talk about stuff. But they don't have the lived experience to, like, back up what they're saying. And being on stage and sharing what you're doing and being the connector, that's all great. And we all should be doing that as an industry anyway. But to really have the biggest impact, you have to have lived experience. And that's where the trust comes from.

[00:18:41] People trust you and they trust Shiloh because they know you've been through the shit that they're going through. Yeah. Believe in you because you're not just someone talking about it. You're actually walking the walk as well. Yes. Yeah. And it takes time. It takes time to get here, ladies. And gentlemen, like, it's not an overnight thing. I mean, if you want to start an agency, I absolutely think you should because there's a lot of reward in it. But don't expect, like, overnight success.

[00:19:08] Like, there are times, even in COVID, I was like, holy shit, what am I going to do? You know what I mean? And then because we did so well with what we have, our clients did not leave us. And we pivoted together. Yeah. I love that trust. And they had so much faith in you that they didn't leave. And the retention, you made a point about staff leaving, not just internally, you add the work, but then you do start losing trusting clients. Because they're like, why are you leaving employees?

[00:19:37] Why are you leaving? Why are you leaving? I was going to go to person. Like, then you have to, like, build those relationships with clients again. And then you potentially leave retention. Anyway, there's a whole trickle down effect of that. Yeah. I'm like, one of my biggest fear, because I care a lot about what people think and I probably shouldn't, but I do. But one of my biggest fear is when someone leaves and then a client reaches out to them and they're like, hey, I heard you left. How's everything?

[00:20:05] And then they start sharing their distaste or their negative experience with me. That's a bad reflection on me as a leader. Right? And then let's say they go to another agency and they take that client with them. So I make it a huge point to ensure that my people are happy, even if I give them a raise and that takes away from my revenue.

[00:20:34] Like, I will 100% go out of my way to give them bonuses, raise. But monetary compensation isn't always a solution either. So I will encourage them to take a week off, two weeks off. We've given people, like, a month off if they're stressed out and they come back. We've also, you know, at our company, which is, you don't hear this in corporate world, okay, or any other agency, I'm sure. But every anniversary, we give them a gift.

[00:21:03] Every birthday, we give them a gift. If they're home sick, we send them a gift. If they're getting married, we give them a gift. If they're having babies, we give them a gift. If they're moving, we're giving them a gift. So literally, they would get, like, five different gifts throughout the year because we care about them. And then on top of that, everyone gets flexible time off, like, even flexible work hours, right? Like, I tell them all the time. And we all work from home. You can set your own schedule.

[00:21:32] If I say, hey, let's meet at 10 and you can't meet at 10 because you have to drop off your kids or your kids are sick, that's fine. Tell me another time. Or if I say deadline's Monday and you don't think you can do it by Monday, why don't you tell me when you can do it? And then you meet that deadline. I don't think you will experience this in most corporate worlds and most agencies because, you know, we're all moving so fast.

[00:21:52] But I'm trying to counter that culture or, like, this cultish expectation in our industry that we have to, you know, show up right when you tell me to show up. No, I'm not going to jump when you tell me to jump. And I don't want you to jump when I tell you to jump. I want you to, like, push back. Think. Tell me. Hey, I can't do by Monday. I'll get it to you by Wednesday. But if you tell me you get it by Wednesday, you better fucking get it by Wednesday. For sure. We have to break hustle culture in our industry. We have to break hustle culture. It's always on. It can't go on anymore. Yeah.

[00:22:22] It's becoming a recruitment problem for our industry because we glamorize, like, a badge of honor. And I've talked about this on so many episodes. Oh, God. Like, we talk, like, oh, I'm so busy. I'm traveling everywhere. I'm doing all of this stuff. Like, that's not glamorous. And people don't want to join our industry because of it. Yeah. It's not glorified, girl. Like, I don't take glory and be like, oh, I'm so busy. I'm traveling here and there. And I'll do a little speaking engagement. Yeah.

[00:22:52] But the thing is, in order to break that, Megan, we have to ourselves step up to that plate of accountability. Right? Like, so I tell my people all the time, I'm not going to micromanage you because I did micromanage in the beginning of my leadership. We all do. We all do. I was so bad to the point where I would be like, you need to start your emails with, hi, so-and-so. Hope you're doing well. Smiley face. And then one gal was like, I don't, you know, she's like, this is not how I talk.

[00:23:21] And I'm like, well, but you need to talk. You need to talk that way because it emulates me. But that was in my youth of leadership. I don't operate that way anymore. But now I say to my people, this is your program. I'm going to hand you Uber. I'm not going to micromanage you. And you need to know what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, say it now. But if I'm going to give you this program and you need to know what you're doing and you tell me, like, you know, I'm going to give this deadline or I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, you need to own up to it because I don't want to micromanage you.

[00:23:51] But if you fall, then I have to micromanage you. And actually, I don't want to micromanage you. So I got to let you go. Because that's not a good fit, right? We need, in order to break that hustle culture, Megan, we have to A, be self-empowered, independent, self-starter, confident to speak, not, you know, I think this, but I know this and show up with that, like, expert knowledge.

[00:24:17] But if we're not able to show up that way, then, you know, your manager's not going to trust you and there's no accountability and then nothing gets done, right? So it goes both ways, Megan. Like, in order to break that hustle, each of us as planners need to show up differently too. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, shifting gears just a little bit, I want to get into Alethea. So we've kind of already told a little bit of the founding story of that.

[00:24:43] You're a little Delulu and wanting to start another company while still running with basically no tech background, no development background at all. So you had this great idea. You started building Alethea. I have been fortunate to be on the sidelines watching you build this and I've been so impressed. But where you started almost a year and a half ago now, it's crazy. A year and a half ago.

[00:25:11] Almost two years ago is when you started this. Where you started to what you're actually building and then now rebuilding after you got more feedback. Walk us through this journey becoming a tech founder and specifically a female tech founder because there's not that many female event tech founders in our industry. So kind of walk me through the first couple learnings of developing the product, validating it. What did that look like? Yeah.

[00:25:41] So the idea spawned out of a moment that I was playing with Chattypt and I was plugging in a budget and I was like, hey, give me like variations of this budget. And it spat out, oh my God, so beautifully. And then also I was using Gamma app to generate decks. I plugged in an attendee survey from a program with Fujitsu and I asked beautiful.ai to generate

[00:26:10] a deck of highlighting the attendee surveys. What were the main points? And it spat out graphs. It gave me, it pulled images from Google to put into the deck. It gave me like categories of attendees. I was like, whoa, whoa. Like within like five minutes. And I was like, why the hell am I still doing some of this manually? And then I started wondering, like, I wonder how many other planners out there are still

[00:26:37] generating decks manually, reading through, you know, 200 lines of attendee surveys to create an attendee survey recap. Like when you can just plug it in and then it generates it for you. I'm like, it's so, and then I started researching if anything else was out there for planners and there wasn't. And from an operational perspective, there's still so much that AI can do, but I don't

[00:27:03] think I didn't, like there's not a single tool that is promoted or marketed in a way where planners can go, oh, I need to get a budget and let me use this tool. Still to this day, planners that are using AI tools have to go in and manually type out what we want, right? We, you know, here's a PDF of the F&B menu. Generate me menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner. I have this many gluten.

[00:27:31] I have, and you have to think through and write in text, right? Right. So what if there was a tool where you, it prompts you to upload the menu. It asks you how many people, but by reading your hotel contract, it would already know how many people it is. It would already know the agenda. So you don't have to write those prompts. You just, you plug in those PDFs and those prompts are then pre-written and it just saves that like moment where you have to really think about it because sometimes we all get stuck.

[00:27:59] Well, if I have to explain to you how to do it, I might as well do it myself. Right. Yes, exactly. So I'm trying to overcome that barrier, that thinking barrier of like, well, you don't have to explain it to Aletheia. It already knows. And the reason why it knows is because I've imparted my experience, my team's experience, even my client's experience into Aletheia. And it has that industry knowledge and industry education to give you the results that you want. That's amazing.

[00:28:25] And what are some of the learnings like having built tech now that you maybe didn't know before you became a tech founder? Yeah. So I see a lot of right now on LinkedIn planners coming out with their own apps using ChatGPT and Gemini. And I think that's great. But what I'm learning is that the one time generation, like a one time creation of something

[00:28:54] doesn't mean that it's scalable. Right. Because you can use it for like a hundred person program, but it doesn't fit the same if you were to apply a 300 person program three day versus one day with sponsor, no sponsor. You know what I mean? Revenue ticketed internal events. So I'm learning that one size doesn't fit all because the events industry is such a

[00:29:18] like varied, vast, enormous industry where there's just so many shoes, so many sizes. So I'm learning that as I'm building this, I have to be very cognizant of who I'm building it for. You know? And the other piece I think people don't think about when they're like, oh, I'll just vibe code it myself. Like the security, the maintenance, you know, those tech changes. If there's integrations, those are always changing.

[00:29:45] You know, the maintenance of it becomes a full-time job and the building of it becomes a full-time job. And so, or is that where you should be spending your time when you're supposed to be running strategy events? And now you're sucked in building this tool to help when you're falling behind on other things. So you can build it once, but then the maintenance and upkeep and security of all of that, I think that gets a little lost in the conversation. So I'll tell you a story.

[00:30:14] One of my longtime clients went to NVIDIA. And NVIDIA is a really big program. They have their annual program, the GTC. He thought, oh, let me just build something on Claude that will integrate marketing and sales and the event planning team all together. It was great. I think he did an amazing job and like he's loving it. But the one thing that was really difficult for him was execution, getting people to use

[00:30:43] it and going through that security, like you said, and then like implementing it as a whole. So thinking about the adoption barrier, right? Like I think it's great you're building it, but then you're also facing this like enormous mountain of resistance against it too. For me, I just like I as an agency felt a lot of pain of events from both agency and my client.

[00:31:13] And it was it was enough pain where I felt it would be worth it if I took on additional pain to solve that problem. And it took a year and a half because I'm not a tech person. I don't know how to code. And even if I did vibe code and I did try it with Replit and Lovable, it's like it still wasn't perfect. It looked stale. It wasn't customizable, you know.

[00:31:40] And so I finally tried multiple engineering teams either offshore. And then I now have an amazing two women engineering team stateside that are like they understand the events world and they're partnering with me to do it. And that's how I'm able to actually have a product to go to market with.

[00:32:03] And anytime I would look at a competitor that are sent to me by amazing friends, I go and I'm like, oh, this is not as superior as what I'm hoping it to be. So I'm really excited for it to be launched. And then you guys can have individual subscription license to test it out. Yeah, honestly. Sorry. I do note that I'm not doing this for money because I already have my first business. I really don't need more stress.

[00:32:30] I really don't need a second business because all I want to do is climb. That's all I want to do. I just want to climb. And like, what am I doing starting a second business? It's because I really want a solution that solves this pain that no one is really solving and no one's solving it. It's because it's a massive, massive thing to do, right? To understand how you do budget, how to do food and beverage, how to do venue, and then use creating a tool that actually does it. You know? So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:59] I so many things. So one, I love that you're building this. I love that you have a female engineering team state size. I think that's incredible. But knowing all of this and the stress that you voluntarily signed up for to build Aletheia, do you have a different empathy now for event tech than co-founders and like how you work with them day to day on the Shiloh side of things? Has that changed or shifted now that you are a founder yourself? Yeah.

[00:33:29] I think one of the biggest thing that I'm experiencing when I meet with customers who are doing alpha tests, they're like, oh, I want this feature and I want this feature and I want that feature. And then as a tech founder, I'm like, oh, yeah, I can do it. Sure, sure, sure. Let's add and add. And then my engineer is like, oh, we can't keep on adding features because they asked for it. So I totally empathize with the founder of Excel Events whenever we would go do dinners with them. And people are like, oh, I really want these features. And he pulls me aside.

[00:33:55] He's like, oh, I can't have those kind of conversations because it's very difficult to add features. So I totally get it now that planners, we go into event tech meetings and we think, oh, you know, they're a sous chef and they can just, you know, cook up a product just for us. Like, oh, no, no, no, it's hard. Yeah, absolutely. And do you work with your clients a little bit differently when you're having tech conversations

[00:34:22] now that you understand that not every feature is possible? Roadmaps are important. Like what do those conversations look like? Yeah, a lot of educating them that we have to work with, you know, what's what's available and patience and then negotiating for the price. Right. So like understanding that sometimes negotiation is great. I'm not saying don't negotiate. I'm saying yes.

[00:34:48] But understanding that the more that you drive down a number, the more the long the negative long term effect that it has on the industry as a whole. So I think in this industry, there's this again, you use the word glorified and we can't glorify the negotiation process too much because then it goes against us. Right. Then we're not getting paid as much or the economy is not booming within the industry.

[00:35:15] So we have to think about that too, that sometimes negotiating once or twice, you know, accept that that's a number, appreciate that and understand the value that you're getting out of it. Right. Yeah. If you had one piece of advice for a planner who was like, I'm just going to buy code what I need, I'll build it myself right now. What would that advice be? I would say don't do it. I say do it for fun, but like don't don't take it too seriously because it really takes

[00:35:43] away from your core discipline of a planner. If you want to be a coder, go be a coder, but don't be a planner and a coder. Like just it's, it's counterintuitive in the long run. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're then taking on a whole new set of skill and a whole new part of your brain that would just end up burning you out in the, in the longterm. Yeah. I mean, have fun with it, but for sure. Poor discipline.

[00:36:14] I agree. Poor discipline. I think is a great term. All right. So we're going to close out here on a couple of personal things. So you built Shiloh. Shiloh means peace. You're building Aletheia. Aletheia means truth. And both of those companies are named for something bigger and you've kind of hinted at it already, but what is the actual mission underneath both of those? Like, what are you trying to do with hope?

[00:36:38] Yeah, I am trying to create a, um, I'm trying to create a world in which we can be more organized, more centered, uh, central source of truth so that we can operate more peacefully. And in order to do that, we have to have a tech that gathers all of your information that understands you where you can ingest that. And then it would synthesize that information, spits it out and display it in an organized manner.

[00:37:08] But not only just that, because you can get a dashboard literally anywhere, but a tool where you can actually leverage to execute those tasks more efficiently and zero to 100. We're not trying to get to get you to 100 because there's no tool that will ever do that. We're just trying to get you maybe zero to 60 where you can get some of that work done. Yeah. Build some peace back in the life. Have a source of truth. Yeah. And then the, the ultimate goal is work-life balance.

[00:37:38] The ultimate goal is to evolve this industry that was glorified for hustle and turn it into something where I actually like my industry. I have work-life balance. I can go climbing, right? Or I can go play pickleball. I can do that without killing myself, right? On the back end of trying to like fight for, to do an event. Like, I don't think we should, we shouldn't be living like that nowadays, Megan, in this industry. I agree. Well, you touched on work-life balance and on top of running two companies, your love

[00:38:05] and passion for climbing, you also have a few kids at home. So how do you manage being a single mom? I mean, I've been in cars with you, FaceTiming kids, checking in. Oh yeah! So like, walk with you, how do you manage? Because I think balance isn't always the right word because it's going to ebb and flow and you're going to have times where you're more present than not. So how do you advice for all the moms out there, single or not?

[00:38:31] Like, how do you manage having three kids out there and running everything else in your life? Yeah. It takes a village. So if you are single, which I'm a divorced single mom, I have a lot of nannies that I cycle through. So three nannies that if I need a night or if, you know, I'm traveling, like I'm going to be traveling to LA for a really large conference. I ask, I plan in advance. I know when I'm going to be out of town. So I book them in advance and they do cancel.

[00:39:00] So I say, hey, please don't cancel on me. It's very important that you show up. And then understanding their schedule. And so like, you know, fitting that within what I need to do, picking them up, getting them to school, feeding them. And then I work at night, 10 to 2 a.m. in the morning. Honestly, I think it's just accepting that this is my life and leveraging the resources that are available to me.

[00:39:25] So aftercare, getting nannies, programming, like, you know, activities that people do and then putting them in sports, in camps has also been helpful. And then, you know, one thing that I would say that came out of my divorce. I know divorce is not fun sometimes, but it is good for you if it's not the right partner. This time it was good for me because I get 50% with my kids and then 50% no kids, right?

[00:39:53] But if you're not divorced, so I think that would require you working with your partner and communicating, you know, this season I'm going to be really busy. Can you step up? And then this season I'm not as busy, so I'll take on. So a lot of communication and partnership with your significant other would be very important to have. Like I did that with my ex-husband when we were married. I'm like, I have two events coming up. I can't be with the kids. And he stepped up, you know? Yeah. Yeah, we have to.

[00:40:21] And our industry is not consistent. It has ebbs and glows. And there's busy seasons and non. And I think it was Mel Robbins that talks about this, that marriage is not 50-50. Sometimes it's 90-10. Sometimes it's 60-40. Like we're all at different places, you know, throughout the year or the month, the week, whatever it might be. The communication, I think it's just that key. And I take the village even when you don't have kids. I don't have kids and I lean on my village all the time together. Yeah.

[00:40:51] And have a great partner that kind of follows my energy and when I'm busy, when I'm not. So yeah. It's the village. I do want to challenge the industry in something though. So when I was working with Grace Hopper back in 2015, this is very new. I brought my kids to site and I travel with my babies everywhere. And it was very taboo, but I was like, fuck it. These are my kids.

[00:41:19] So I brought them to the show during setup and kind of said hi. Not that they were there for the extended duration of the planning, but my nanny would bring them to my work and I would say hi and I would introduce my clients to my kids. Um, I think that should be okay, you know, to, to, to allow working moms time to breastfeed their babies, bring their babies on site. I think that should be okay.

[00:41:45] And I don't know, I don't have enough sample to know if that's approved or if that's, if that's accepted in other work environment, like event work environments. Do you know? I, I'm not sure, but I agree with you. I think it should be more accepted and we should do a better job because there are so many working moms. Like we, we have to, honestly, we're human at the end. Forget, take moms out of it. Like just bringing your personal life into work.

[00:42:14] Like it just blends anyway, naturally that we kind of need to just be more accepting and accommodating of that. Like Grace Hopper had a daycare program for moms attending their conference and they had breastfeeding, um, uh, private units. And then there was other, another program that I worked on. This client was very, very strict.

[00:42:40] She actually kicked this woman out for bringing her baby to the car. Yeah. So I don't, you know, that's a topic that we should probably dive into. I think I'd love for you to dive into that with your other guests is what is acceptable for moms when it comes to newborn, like new moms and their babies. Do they bring, can they bring their babies to the conference? Should planners think about breastfeeding units or daycare for, for mom? You know what I'm saying?

[00:43:08] Not all, but especially internal events, right? Like if you're forcing me to travel for sales kickoffs. Yeah, I agree. Well, a topic for another day, we should definitely. Topic for another day. Yes. All right. Well, we close every after show with a curiosity card. So you can pick this like pink, purple, or yellow. Hmm. Purple. Purple. Okay.

[00:43:35] What's a common misconception people have about you? Ooh, I don't know. Ooh, I don't know. Believe it or not, I'm really shy. Okay. I mean, I, I wouldn't have known that about you. Yeah. I've known you for a few years now and I don't think I would have guessed that. I know. I know.

[00:43:58] I tend to, I tend to observe more and then I'm very quick to think. That's why you, you, you, you see me like quick to respond, but internally I'm like really shy. Where I'm like, ah, should I show you that, you know, I'm weak in this area, but I'll show it anyways. Yeah. You're open but shy and I love it. I'm open but shy. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me for the after show for Event About It podcast.

[00:44:28] This is an amazing conversation. I've been waiting to do this with you for so long and I'm really, really glad we have the time to chat about all things Shiloh and Alethea and your story is just so impactful. I can't be for everyone to see it. Oh my God. Thanks for having me. And yes, we did talk about everything, right? Including sex at the beginning. We did. We did. Well, thank you guys for joining us for another great episode. And until next time, stay curious. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.