A new Australian online platform is promising to combine business and philanthropy, pairing executives with sales people for a fee with the proceeds going to charity.
Meetmagic, to be launched today at PWC’s offices in Barangaroo, already has 50,000 executives from around the world searchable on its network and CEO Carl Gough said he has some big businesses signed on including Silicon Valley software firms like Computer Associates, and Indian telecom firms.
Mr Gough says his platform allows sales people to get meetings they ordinarily wouldn’t be able to get, given executives are constantly being bombarded with requests for coffee or dinner.
“Companies are dropping $40,000 or $50,000 on a conference to get a booth and get their brand out there,” he said. “The problem is, executives don’t want to go anywhere near them because they’re sick of being spammed and targeted.
“With our platform, they really do love the idea of sitting down for an hour, they go into the meeting with an open mind and it’s for charity at the same time.”
According to Mr Gough executives and decision makers opt in and agree to take a meeting with a vendor or supplier to allow them to share their story and, in return for an hour of their time, a significant donation is made to a charity of their choice.
IT vendors and clients of meetmagic subscribe to the platform by paying a monthly subscription fee of US$35. Once a paid member, they can search executives, book a meeting with executives who have opted in or request a meeting with executives who have yet to opt in.
“Our goal is to generate $250 million for charities by 2026, and I believe there are enough good hearted people in the world to make that easily achievable,” Mr Gough said.
“What’s really pleasing is to see the emerging altruistic based approach to meetings, is actually proving to be good for business.
“One of our first clients is Longtail UX, a company that has developed a patented technology to optimise websites for SEM and SEO which turned their very first meetmagic meeting into a contract three weeks later worth over $100,000 and a good charity got supported at the same time.”
Mr Gough, a former sales executive, said the company has started by donating $500 of each $1000 meeting fee to charity, but isn’t keeping half of the donation.
“No, this is revenue, we are giving away half of our revenue,” he said. “100 per cent of the donation goes to charity, which is 50 per cent of the meeting fee. The rest goes into running the platform, curating the engagement and ensuring everything operates to support the giving.”
Mr Gough said he wants his business to break even by October 2017, and achieve a $1.9m monthly run rate by December 2020.
“We want to make meetmagic’s percentage of revenues to charities among the world’s largest,” he said.
“Ask any executive and they will confirm that vendors are filling their voicemail and inboxes with “spam” every day just trying to get to have a conversation or meeting with them; meetmagic provides a far more efficient and effective tool for both sides of the equation, executive and vendor.”
Andrew Hopkins, Head of IT Strategy & Architecture QBE, said he gets dozens of meeting requests each week from various vendors and integrators.
“Using meetmagic as an introductory agent was simple, and offering a charitable donation to a cause of your choice when you do meet is just a really effective and unique way to persuade me to find that hour in my busy schedule,” he said.
According to Mr Gough since meetmagic launched in private testing there have been over 70 meetings with c-suite executives since July 2016, generating over $40,000 for charities such as Feel the Magic, Youth Off the Streets, and Oasis Youth Support Network.
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