MarketHype 5 years old – we celebrate with 5 fun facts!

This year it was exactly five years ago that MarketHype came into being. More precisely, it was on 17 September 2018 that the company was founded. But did one think that the idea would last? What would a pandemic mean for a tool aimed at the event and experience industry? And what did MarketHype's first logo really look like? You will find the answers in our 5 fun facts!

1. "That's an amazing idea, but it won't work."

After several years in the ticket industry, Erik Lindholm wanted to test an idea. An idea that he had been thinking about for a long period of time and that had grown stronger with every question he received in dialogues with customers.

"How do we get more out of our ticket data?"
"How can we sell more tickets and add-on products?"
"How can we use customer data in our marketing?"

Erik pitched his idea to Åsa Appelqvist. He talked about how data and ticket purchases would be collected, visualized and used to improve the marketing of the event organizers. Åsa thought that the idea sounded awesome, but that it would not be possible to realize.

Luckily she never said it out loud.

After the pitch, Erik contacted two developers he knew. Did they want to help start up MarketHype? Henrik Janbell and Christofer Eliasson fortunately accepted.

Nine months later, the three founders were able to show Åsa the first beta version of MarketHype – which also functioned. She liked what she saw. And apparently others did too, because in 2018 MarketHype could really blossom. And Åsa, she's in MarketHype's board.

An early sketch: "Dancing pensioners".

2. This is what MarketHype looked like when the system was launched

MarketHype's first operating year was thus 2018. Or, "the year when the summer was so hot", as we also remember it. This summer, Erik, Henrik and Christofer sat at home in Erik's garden under a parasol and discussed functions, design concepts and menu structures.

The first version of MarketHype consisted of, among other things:

• Data acquisition from a few ticket systems
• Data verification
• Event overview with graphs for sales
• Customer overview
• Filter à version 1 (today the filter is in version 3)
• Integration with Mailchimp, Apsis and Facebook

3. MarketHype's first logo was decided in a design competition

MarketHype's very first logo didn't look like it does today. No, the first logo was chosen through a design competition where the participants had to pitch their ideas. A smiley robot scooped the award.

The little robot stayed for just over a year, until the beginning of 2020. At the same time, a digital design agency in Gothenburg was commissioned to develop a new graphic profile. The result was a more stylish logo, where the M and H in MarketHype are united. The logo also symbolizes a sound wave and megaphone, reaching through the media noise.

4. The pandemic was the start of MarketHype's email tool

From the beginning, there were no plans for MarketHype to have its own email service. However, the five colleagues had to rethink this. After some time, it became clear that there was great value for the customers in having their customer data seamlessly connected with an email tool – in one and the same system.

So, when the covid pandemic came in 2020 and MarketHype was only two years young, the development would take off. An experience marketing system and a pandemic forcing concert promoters, travel companies and sports clubs to cancel their events didn't sound very good after all. Right?

Instead of sulking, the company then chose to make the e-mail tool a reality. Erik Lindholm, CEO at MarketHype, talks about the process:

“We knew it wouldn't be easy, but we didn't know it would be that difficult. It wasn't just building a new feature, but we needed to think through how to solve things like reputation, spam and how different email clients read emails in different ways."

That the company chose to develop its own e-mail service turned out to be the right decision. Today, it is MarketHype's most popular feature. A whopping 41 percent of users state that the email tool is their favorite feature. Next comes the customer overview at 23 percent and the industry-specific automations at 14 percent.

5. Today: 13 employees, 8 functions & nearly 100 customers in different countries

The development has not stood still since MarketHype was founded in 2018. Today, five years later, the company has 13 employees in four different departments: Development, Customer Care, Sales and Marketing.

The system consists of 8 functions, where data is still automatically retrieved, washed and visualized. The number of integrations, updates and smart solutions is also only increasing. And everything is developed in-house – just as it has always been done.

Another thing that is increasing in number, is the customers. Today, MarketHype has close to 100 customers in both Sweden, Norway and Denmark. They are concert organizers, sports clubs and theme parks, but they are also active in culture, performing arts and hospitality.