Victoria Garlick is the Founder and CEO of air events global. air events global are a shared economy platform, double-sided marketplace for the events and wedding industry, connecting clients and freelancers, globally. They are based on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, however have clients and freelancers all over the world.
Tell us about air events global.
air events global is a double-sided marketplace connecting clients and freelancers, globally – www.aireventsglobal.com
What inspired you to start air events global?
I have worked in the events industry for the past 20 years and saw pain points on both sides of the marketplace, clients that were looking for freelancers to help them with a wide array of tasks, such as event documents, bumping into an event, working at a wedding, creating a logo for an event etc. Clients wanted to scale their business, but didn’t have the resources to hire full-time staff, so were looking for casual and contract staffing opportunities. On the other side, was freelancers (such as University students) who were looking for casual and contract work and couldn’t commit to full time work due to their studies or they were working a few different casual jobs at once.
Tell us about your career and background.
I have been an Event Director for the past 20 years and also lectured Event Management at The International College of Management, Sydney (ICMS) and am very passionate about connecting people through business.
Describe a typical work day for you.
This is a tough one as no day is ever the same in the startup world! However today I started at:
5:30am and spent the first two hours answering emails that came through overnight
7:30am: breakfast and then a walk
8:45am: Conference call with one of our web developers to work out the best way to implement a live chat functionality on our website
9:40am: Social media posting, allocated 1.2 hours to launch a new Facebook competition on the air events global FB page
11:00am: Spent an hour going through our payment system to see what jobs had been booked and completed over the past 3 days
Noon: Conference call with a wedding client that was looking to book 3 freelancers for 2 different weddings
12:30pm: Wrote a blog on wedding trends for 2019, to be published on www.aireventsglobal.com
1:45pm: Lunch at my desk while answering emails from the morning
2:30pm: Did a live Q&A on Twitter
3:00pm: Finished a Press Release that I had been working on over the past week announcing our partnership with Rock Against Poverty
4:10pm: Sent 25 emails to potential new clients, letting them know about what air events global can offer them
4:50pm: answered emails from the afternoon
5:30pm: Published two blogs on my LinkedIn profile – Victoria Garlick
6:20pm: Updated our social media audit for the past 30 days
7:30pm: Website copy, worked for 2 hours on the new copy for our website (we are about to launch new services through air events global)
9:30pm: Answered emails from the evening and updated to do list for tomorrow
10:40pm: Day Done!
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
The best advice that I can give for people wanting to start their business is to do as much research and testing as possible before launching. Too many people jump head first without doing their due diligence and I believe it is too risky. There are so many unknowns when it comes to starting a business therefore research and testing prior to launching (and investing too much money) would be my advice.
What’s next for you, and air events global?
I am very excited to announce that we have just partnered with Melbourne Startup Metavents to launch a global initiative, Rock Against Poverty. Rock Against Poverty is a charity initiative leveraging emerging technology such as Virtual Reality Simulation, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain to solve major problems in planning and funding humanitarian projects. Empowered by technology, we aim to raise $1 billion dollars annually for disaster mitigation, and poverty alleviation globally.
When disaster strikes, billions of dollars in foreign aid can be raised quickly. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of funding reaches those who need it most. We address this problem of transparency and accountability by supporting these humanitarian projects directly, and planning these projects with 3D and virtual reality simulations. This is an extremely exciting prospect for us as our freelancers will have the opportunity to work on an array of tasks with Rock Against Poverty on a global platform.
I also have this amazing Facebook Group called “Movers, Shakers, Disruptors & Innovators” that is for female business owners globally and would love to invite your readers to join for inspiration and motivation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1132294543543949/
