By Allan Maurer

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL—At a casual lunch in 2006, Mark Thomason, co-founder and CEO of iConvene and co-founder David Krinker, both self-described “geeks,” discussed how time-consuming it was to plan, book and manage meetings for their respective non-profit organizations. “We scheduled travels worldwide online, but to set up a meeting down the street required a lot of work, driving around, and phone calls,” Thomason says. They looked and looked for something that would help, and finding nothing, created a solution.

Thomason was completing his MBA at the time and did and used his iConvene concept as a business case study that turned out well. When he and Krinker later interviewed people who might be potential vendors or users, “We heard a market need,” he says.

They founded and self-funded iConvene in November 2006 to solve the problem. The company, which is seeking $1.5 million in new funding, books meeting rooms, arranges for food, speakers, AV and professional speakers for meetings.

The four-employee company’s vision is to be the best one-stop-shop for planning, booking, and managing small meeting places and services on the Internet.

The potential market is huge. Market research firm Phocuswright estimates the meetings market at $80 billion a year, not counting travel and hotel costs.

The gift of time
The company’s Web site explains, “If we do our job right, we’ll enable almost anyone to efficiently find and book a meeting place, catering, A/V, and several other meeting related services in just a few minutes…all while providing a focused marketplace and eCommerce portal for businesses selling these types of services.”

Thomason says, “With iConvene, it will be like Travelocity. You go to the site, find what you want, book it, and you’re done.”

It would also help meeting planners select a motivational speaker on a given topic.

The company is looking at providing entertainment appropriate to business meetings such as upscale music (harp and flute, a small jazz group). It currently works with a company that will provide meet and greet mascots or something to break up a meeting in a good way (such as Keystone Cops bursting in and hauling someone out of the room).

“We’re just testing the concept,” says Thomason. “Our core products are the room, food, and AV. We’ll create packages.”

A focus group the company convened with administrative assistants determined that many spend from three hours to three weeks planning and setting up a small meeting. “We ran through the iConvene scenario and they accomplished it in 20 minutes counting the preliminary questions and answers about iConvene,” says Thomason.

“We give them the gift of time,” he says.

The service just went live last week and has yet to acquire its first customers. While limited to Central Florida at the moment, Thomason tells TechJournal South iConvene expects to spread to other areas within a year. The company is hiring and looking for people in development, marketing, sales and customer service.

“We plan to start in Central Florida, learn, scale up operations and spread nationwide in a focused way,” says Thomason. “We’ll focus on certain metros,” he adds, but declined to name which might be next.

The company will present its business plan at the Florida Venture Forum in Orlando, May 16.

On the Web: www.iconvene.com

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