31 Event Templates CEOs Used to Sell Out Their Events

In this article, you will discover how to leverage live events to attract new users and generate millions in revenue, with practical, real-world examples from leading SaaS CEOs. By hosting, sponsoring, or speaking at events, companies like the Growth Marketing Conference have registered over 7,400 attendees for a single virtual summit, while event platforms like Goldcast have seen 90% of their customers attend a digital event before ever speaking to a sales rep. You’ll get the 5-step playbook for launching your own high-impact live event, complete with dozens of case studies to inspire your strategy. These examples were collected directly from CEOs of rapidly growing software companies when they keynoted Founderpath events.

The 5-Step Playbook for High-Growth Live Events

Live events, whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid, are a powerful engine for business growth. They build community, generate high-quality leads, and create memorable brand experiences. Here is a five-step playbook to structure your own live event strategy, with examples from CEOs who have successfully used this tactic to scale their companies.

1. Define Clear Goals and Audience: Before planning any event, establish what you want to achieve. Are you aiming for lead generation, brand awareness, customer retention, or direct sales? Knowing your goal will define your audience. For example, Goldcast’s CEO Palash Soni explained that his company specifically targets B2B marketers, so their entire event platform is designed to help those teams drive revenue, distinguishing them from broader platforms like Hopin.
2. Design an Unforgettable Experience: Your event’s content, speakers, and format should provide immense value to your target audience. Think beyond standard presentations. The team at Showpad, for instance, used creative formats like breakfast meetups and even a “party bus tour” across Europe to engage prospects in a memorable way, proving that the experience itself can be a powerful marketing tool.
3. Leverage Partnerships and Influencers: You don’t have to build an audience from scratch. Partner with companies, speakers, and influencers who already have the attention of your ideal customers. Vasil Azarov, CEO of Growth Marketing Conference, shared that a key to his success was partnering with well-known speakers and communities like GrowthHackers and SEMrush, who promoted the event to their extensive email lists.
4. Promote Creatively to Drive Registrations: Use a multi-channel approach to get the word out. Use your own email list, run targeted ads, and leverage social media. Vasil Azzrov of the Growth Marketing Conference implemented a viral incentive using a tool called Early Parrot, offering a complimentary all-access pass to attendees who shared the event with their network. This single tactic drove an additional 1,000 registrants.
5. Measure, Follow-Up, and Nurture: The event isn’t over when the last session ends. Your follow-up strategy is critical for converting leads into customers. Capture leads, measure your return on investment (ROI), and nurture attendees with relevant content. Accelevents’ CEO, Jonathan Kazarian, noted that 15% of their new business comes from people who were previously exhibitors at a customer’s event on their platform, showcasing the long-term value of engaging every event participant.

45+ Examples of Live Events Driving Growth and Revenue

Below are over 40 specific examples from CEOs who have used live events—including large-scale conferences, virtual summits, workshops, and user meetups—to build their brands, acquire new customers, and drive millions in revenue.

• The CEO of Growth Marketing Conference, Vasil Azarov, shared that his event in December 2019 was on track to generate between $1.3 to $1.5 million in total revenue, with a 50/50 split between ticket sales and sponsorships.
• SalesHacker CEO Max Altschuler revealed their June 2016 conference generated approximately $1.2 million in sponsorship revenue and another $300,000-$400,000 in ticket sales from nearly 2,000 attendees.
• Simone Vincenzi, CEO of GTX, explained that for every 20 people who attend their small training events, they generate between £150,000 and £170,000 in upsell revenue for their expert coaching programs.
• Vasil Azzrov, the CEO of Growth Marketing Conference, successfully registered 7,437 people for his B2C virtual summit by leveraging his email list, strategic partnerships, and a viral incentive campaign that drove over 1,000 new sign-ups.
• The CEO of Goldcast shared that their customer, Metadata, used creative pre-event gimmicks like offering a trip to Hawaii for early registrants to generate massive momentum and engagement for their digital events.
• Jonathan Kazarian, the founder of Accelevents, found that 15% of their new business originates from individuals who were previously exhibitors at events hosted by their customers, turning event participants into a powerful lead channel.
• Showpad’s CEO, Louis Jonckheere, detailed a creative European tour where they rented a party bus to visit customers and host presentations, demonstrating a unique and memorable approach to live events that goes beyond traditional conferences.
• Jared Robin of Revgenius built a community of over 15,000 professionals by hosting sponsored events, with a typical sponsorship package costing $9,000 per quarter, showcasing a strong revenue model for community-based events.
• Botco.ai’s CEO, Rebecca Clyde, landed her first major enterprise customer, Massage Envy, after a marketing executive saw her deliver a keynote presentation at a conference about the power of AI.
• The CEO of ConversionXL, Peep Laja, runs live masterclasses with around 100-120 attendees, each paying approximately $500, generating about $50,000 in revenue per live training event.
• Matt Ford, CEO of Prism.fm, reported that his company spends about $5,000 a month on sponsoring and attending music industry conferences, which consistently generates a 3-4x return on investment.
• The CEO of Goldcast, a B2B event platform, shared that 90% of their closed customers had attended at least one event hosted on the Goldcast platform before ever speaking with a sales representative.
• Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs, explained that his company started by running hundreds of virtual job fairs themselves, which allowed them to build detailed playbooks they now provide to customers, turning their own events into a product asset.
• The founder of SummitSync, a platform designed to facilitate meetings at trade shows, explained that their tool helps drive revenue-focused meetings, a key value proposition for any company investing in conference attendance.
• Richard Green, the CEO of a company that powers event marketing, partners with local newspapers to run their event calendars. This provides a zero-cost acquisition channel by getting in front of event organizers who are already submitting their events.
• The CEO of Hubb, Ali Gentles, stated that 25% of her company’s $2.5 million in revenue comes from professional services related to their event management software, indicating a strong market for expert support around live events.
• Alex Theuma, founder of SaaStock, shared that his 2022 conference in Dublin cost over $2 million to produce, attracted 3,700 attendees, and hosted 17 side events, creating a massive ecosystem around his flagship conference.
• Seth Shoultes of Event Espresso, a WordPress plugin for event ticketing, built his company to over $1 million in ARR by creating a tool that helps event organizers bypass per-ticket fees charged by platforms like Eventbrite.
• The CEO of Core-apps, Jay Tokosch, serves over 1,500 events annually, including a massive 60,000-attendee trade show, generating $7 million in yearly revenue by providing sophisticated mobile apps for complex events.
• Mitch Thrower from Events.com shared that his platform serves mid-market organizers and large festivals with up to 56,000 attendees, demonstrating the scalability of live event technology.
• The CEO of Tommy.ai, Constantine, identified event-based marketing as a crucial channel for connecting with decision-makers, emphasizing the value of face-to-face interactions at conferences.
• Chris Federspiel of Blackthorn explained that his company targets verticals like healthcare and education by providing event management for their numerous free community events, such as campus tours and donor engagement activities.
• Ingo’s CEO, Michael Barnett, revealed that his company powered social registration for one-fifth of the world’s largest events in 2019, leveraging the network effect to drive massive attendee growth for clients like the New York Times Travel Show.
• Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs, explained that his virtual events company grew by co-creating its in-person event products with over 200 paying customers, ensuring perfect product-market fit upon launch.
• SpotMe’s CEO, Pierre Metrailler, shared that during the COVID-19 pandemic, his event platform acquired 160 new customers by pivoting to virtual events, demonstrating the importance of adaptability in the event industry.
• Bryn Jones from GrowSumo highlighted the viral component of their platform for influencer programs, where competitors of their clients often discover and sign up for GrowSumo after being invited to a program as an influencer.
• Stefan Smulders, CEO of Expandi, described how he used LinkedIn events as a lead generation tactic by scraping the attendee lists of relevant events to build a highly targeted audience for his outreach campaigns.
• The CEO of Brandlive, Fritz Brumder, helps brands like Pottery Barn and Adidas use live video for a range of events including internal training, B2B sales meetings, and direct-to-consumer commerce events.
• The founder of SaaStock, Alex Theuma, described how his conference grew from a local meetup to a major international event with over 3,000 attendees and $2.9 million in revenue by 2019.
• The CEO of vFairs successfully pivoted from an exclusively virtual event platform to an all-in-one solution by co-creating their in-person and hybrid event products with existing customers, which ensured they already had paying clients at launch.
• Steve Olsher from New Media Summit created a unique event model where he brings together influential podcasters and media figures and sells tickets to individuals who want to pitch themselves as guests, generating revenue from both attendees and speaker sponsorships.
• The CEO of PandaDoc, Mikita Mikado, shared that their company leverages conferences and events as a key part of their go-to-market strategy, recognizing the value of in-person interaction for building relationships with enterprise clients.
• Vladimir Blagojevic, co-founder of Fullfunnel.io, mentioned using virtual summits and partner webinars to build relationships with industry influencers and generate high-quality leads, with one summit attracting over 5,000 subscribers.
• Aneto Okonkwo, CEO of Chatdesk, uses event sponsorships and speaking opportunities to connect with potential clients and build brand authority, leveraging live events to demonstrate expertise and drive enterprise sales.
• The CEO of Modus, Orrin Broberg, stated that most of his company’s leads come from attending trade shows, where his team makes appointments ahead of time and actively networks on the event floor.
• Ashley Rose, CEO of Living Security, utilizes a unique in-person event strategy by offering “cyber security escape rooms” as a training experience, which serves as a powerful lead magnet and an effective way to cross-sell their online training platform.
• The CEO of Jebbit, Jonathan Lacoste, shared that his team finds value in attending niche e-commerce summits with smaller, highly relevant audiences for networking and building strategic partnerships.
• Ryan Alshak from the SAS Circle, leverages his experience selling his company iContact for $169 million to coach founders on using events to drive growth, a key tactic from his own playbook.
• Sri Swaminathan of Factors.ai emphasized the power of hosting LinkedIn Live events, noting that this strategy has generated over 100 customers and nearly $800,000 in revenue as a zero-cost acquisition channel.
• The CEO of MeetApp, Mats Läckell, explained that his event app company benefits from the visibility of being used at conferences, where participants from other organizations see the app and become inbound leads.
• John Doherty, founder of Credo, spoke at seven different conferences in seven weeks during 2017, using his presence at these events to build his brand, generate leads, and establish himself as an expert in the digital marketing space.
• Roivenue CEO Pavel Šíma shared that 40% of their leads come from inbound channels, with e-commerce conferences in cities like Birmingham being a key component of their strategy to connect with new clients.
• Franz Riedl from Styla stated that his company relies heavily on trade shows to acquire new customers, spending between €15,000 and €20,000 per event, which typically results in at least one new deal.
• The CEO of Amplify.ai, Mahi de Silva, mentioned that their conversational AI platform is used by major brands like Tony Robbins to enhance engagement at digital marketing events and live activations.
• Nikhil Aitharaju of Use Topic shared that in the early days of his company, attending events was a key strategy for securing their first 10 customers, alongside offering free work to build relationships and prove value.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned how top SaaS founders utilize live events—from large-scale conferences to intimate workshops—to generate millions in revenue and acquire thousands of customers. By defining clear goals, creating valuable experiences, and leveraging strategic partnerships, these leaders have turned events into a predictable and scalable growth channel. Now you have the playbook and over 40 real-world examples to build your own successful live event strategy. To get started and track your growth, sign up for a free Founderpath account to see your company’s valuation and key metrics in real-time.

Founderpath invests in ambitious founders looking to grow fast. Click here to submit a capital request