We caught up with Chi-Chi Ekweozor, Founder of Assenty, to talk all things from her newest venture helping event organisers connect with audiences, to her top tips for aspiring entrepreneurs…
Tell us about Assenty
Assenty is an interactive question board platform that helps event organisers add a personal touch and connect with audiences before, during and after an event using quick polls that can run anywhere a link can be accessed.
Designed to support both in-person and virtual or online events, companies including PwC, pro-manchester, Business Cloud and Newcastle Startup Week have used the platform to gather audience insights and invite questions for speakers on social media.
Assenty also doubles as a social media marketing tool as every poll or question posted on the platform is unique content that builds buzz and momentum about an event when shared on social media.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Founder Chi-chi Ekweozor came up with the concept for Assenty in 2016 after attending a conference where attendees were invited to send questions in for the audience Q&A session via text message.
As a software engineer in attendance, she felt there was a more elegant technical solution to the problem and subsequently developed the interactive platform around the concept of posting and responding to questions on an online ‘question board’ accessible by a link and nothing else.
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What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
I would encourage them to work with early users as quickly as possible. Get some feedback on your idea and set time aside to iterate on those suggestions. Keep in mind that successful tech products solve a simple problem elegantly so don’t be afraid to trim things down to the basics in terms of features to get something out to the market faster.
What can we hope to see from Assenty in the future?
The COVID-19 pandemic is opening up new opportunities in audience interaction for hybrid and virtual events and having pioneered the social-first audience interaction space as a web app, Assenty is now making plans to release a mobile app that addresses the burgeoning market for live Q&A interaction during virtual events that are delivered as webcasts (i.e. outside a video conferencing platform).
