Launch. Scale. Exit: "It Took Me Years to Trust My Own Judgement" with Mark Brewster
Between 2004 and 2010, Mark Brewster ran trade and consumer events and saw first-hand what good research could do for an events business – measuring performance, understanding audiences, even turning market research into a revenue line of its own. The only problem was that the market for quality show research was stuck with boutique agencies: expensive, slow, and impossible to scale. So, Mark set out to build the self-service alternative. That business became Explori.
In this post, Mark shares the decisions that shaped Explori's early years, the mindset shift that took him longest to make, and why – after more than a decade and multiple funding rounds – he's more excited about what's next than ever.
What inspired you to launch Explori?
I was running trade and consumer events between 2004 and 2010, and during that time I experienced first-hand the immense value of research. We used it to measure our events, understand our customers, and even produce market research for the industries we served –and we monetised it.
That experience gave me a deep appreciation for the power of insight. From there, I saw a clear gap in the market. The only real option for quality show research was to commission boutique agencies, which wasn't scalable. There was a real need for a self-service platform that made robust research and benchmarking accessible to event teams. Bringing those ideas together ultimately inspired me to create Explori.
How did you know it was the right moment to go out on your own?
I'd already decided some years earlier that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My father had a career in business, and I was inspired to follow in his footsteps.
Before launching Explori, I'd tried and failed on two previous occasions to launch other businesses. So, for me, it was inevitable that I'd try again – and that one day I'd get it right.
What two or three decisions in the early years made the biggest difference?
The first decision – and a lesson from my previous attempts – was choosing the right co-founder to launch the product with me. I needed someone with strong SaaS expertise who shared my values, and I found exactly that person in Arran Coole.
The second was building the business around a set of unique, compelling advantages: scalability, affordability, quality and benchmarking. We made sure that everything we built was centred on those principles and capabilities, and we didn't compromise on them.
Which metrics have ended up mattering more than you expected?
Net recurring revenue, time to value for our customers, and referral volumes from existing customers. Those three, more than anything else, told us whether we were building something people needed.
What was the hardest part of launching?
Coping with my own imposter syndrome. It took me years to stop continually questioning myself, trust my own judgement, and become comfortable with the fact that I would make mistakes, and that was okay.
What was the most rewarding part of launching?
Seeing our benchmarking data reach a scale that no other party had previously achieved. That was the product milestone we'd built Explori for, so getting to the point where we had more than 200 events contributing to our benchmarks was extremely gratifying. Today, our benchmarks are contributed to by thousands of events.
What prompted you to get investment several years into your journey?
We've raised numerous times since 2014, when we landed our first angel investor, Richard Armitage. Our pursuit of additional investment has always been driven by the desire to grow and develop the product faster than we could organically.
We've raised from a number of individual private investors, as well as two strategic investors from within the industry – Freeman and The Expo Group – and EVG (Events Venture Group). I've also continued to invest in the business myself alongside our existing shareholders at various points.
What were the biggest challenges in securing investment?
I don't want to suggest that raising has been easy, but actually securing the investment was never the biggest challenge. Explori has always been an attractive investment opportunity, and I've raised from people and organisations that know me and understand what we'retrying to achieve. That probably made the process easier than it would have been had we gone down the VC route.
The biggest challenge for me was the amount of time the fundraising process took away from the day-to-day running of the business. Each raise has been very demanding of management time, so we've had to make short-term sacrifices and put in some very long days... weeks... and months.
What's next for Explori?
We're in the process of launching our most audacious new product yet, which I can't say too much about at this stage – but I'm very excited about it.
Ultimately, the goal is to elevate the value of surveys for events so that they deliver a more immediate strategic and commercial impact. Watch this space.