There’s a scene in the movie Fight Club where Edward Norton’s character literally punches himself in the face. In real life, that’s the metaphor Norton uses to describe the grinding inefficiency of most board meetings, and the impetus for starting Zeck (along with friends Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe), an event tech platform that is revolutionizing the process of preparing for, and hosting, board of directors meetings.

I sat down with Zeck co-founder Robert Wolfe to learn more about their story, and got an education on how board meetings should be done.

In this newsletter:

• Soho House goes private, Nth Degree makes 2 acquisitions and other Opportunities & Updates.

• Why board meetings are broken

• The tech startup making board reports easier to prepare, and digest

• AI, reader analytics, embedded voting, and an interactive framework

• The opportunity for planners

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Opportunities & Updates

• Nth Degree acquires Lancaster Management and Quantum Exposition, strengthening their capabilities in trade show labor, installation and general services. This appears to be their first acquisitions since Shamrock Capital bought the company in September last year.

• Soho House is going private, in a deal valuing the company at $2.7 billion. Despite recent growth, the company’s stock is down 30% since going public in 2021. Investors include Ashton Kutcher and MCR Hotels, perhaps ushering in a new wave of hotel companies getting into the private club space.

• I’m working on an article about best practices when structuring earnouts, and am looking to speak to event business owners who’ve been involved in M&A transactions with earnouts being a key part of the deal. If this is you, email me. I’d love to get your perspective, and can keep your comments anonymous if you like.

• I got quite a bit of (largely positive) feedback on my last article, Brandicide, about the gutting of Brand USA and the broader tarnishing of America as a destination for tourism and events. The timing coincided with two other pieces drawing the same conclusion, though focusing on different elements: Skift CEO Rafat Ali’s The Great American Tourism Shakedown, and David Adler’s The Pentagon Just Declared War on Convening. Kudos to Kai Hattendorf for tying all 3 posts together with his recent article Is the Future of the U.S. As A Global Meetings Destination Under Threat? 

• On September 15th I’ll be interviewed by Miguel Neves at the Skift Meetings Forum in NYC on how buyers value event businesses, and the state of event industry M&A in general. If anyone’s attending this event, please let me know; I’d love to meet up.

• On October 7th I’ll be leading a session on M&A at the SITE (Society of Incentive Travel Excellence) C-Suite Agency Summit during IMEX America.

• I’m advising an event production company (creative, scenic, staging, lighting, sound, etc.) on a roll-up. We’re looking for companies with around $1M in EBITDA. To learn more, email me here.

Zeck: Edward Norton’s Tech Startup Disrupting Board Meetings

[Note: I am not being paid by Zeck, nor do I have any financial interest in the company. I just think it’s cool and highly useful new product that event profs should know about. If you think you have such a product, I’d love to hear about it.]

Most business events must prove their value to all stakeholders, or else they get cancelled. That is, of course, unless they’re mandated, like board meetings.

Many different types of organizations - corporate, civic, association, non-profit, etc. - are required to hold periodic board meetings, the frequency of which is specified in their bylaws. If board meetings weren’t required, my guess is most wouldn’t stand up to the budget and ROI scrutiny that other events must meet, and would be promptly scrapped. Because they are required, however, no one is under any pressure to make them productive or engaging. The bar is so low, that any improvement is bound to get noticed and appreciated.

Enter Zeck, a software company I’ve become fascinated by, that is actively disrupting the business of board meetings. If you’re wondering how the word “fascinated” can be used when describing board meetings, allow me to explain.

First, I kept seeing ads like this on TikTok, with A-list actor Edward Norton talking about how broken board meetings are, and why he co-founded Zeck to make them better. It’s not every day you see a celebrity pitching an event tech product - actually you never, ever see that - so naturally this piqued my curiosity. Norton isn’t just a spokesperson for Zeck; he’s an evangelist for making board meetings suck less.

Second, and more importantly, I love seeing innovation in un-sexy areas, particularly areas that are crying out to be disrupted. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a less sexy segment of the event industry than board meetings. There’s no glory in revolutionizing board meetings; doing so is not something one brags about at cocktail parties.

Which means that the founders who built Zeck did so out of their own frustration with the board meetings they themselves attend, and set out to solve an actual problem. Norton, Wolfe and Wolfe were co-founders of fundraising platform Crowdrise, which was acquired by Go Fund Me. Prior to that, the Wolfes started outdoor retailer Moosejaw Mountaineering, which was sold to Walmart. Both companies had plenty of, wait for it . . . board meetings.

Third, they’re getting significant traction. Last year they raised $7.5 million in their Series A round, led by marquis investors like Salesforce Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Breyer Capital, and former Vista Equity Partners leader Brian Sheth. I demoed the product recently, and it has a very intuitive UX, which helps explain their high client retention rate.

The Problem

For context, it’s important to remember who attends board meetings. Whether they’re for Fortune 500 companies, scrappy startups, trade associations, non-profits or your local church or coop, board members are typically some of the most senior-level, highly qualified people in a given field. In other words, their time is extremely valuable. And typical boards meet six to twelve times a year, so the opportunity cost of all the time those high-powered board members spend preparing for - and attending - meetings adds up.

In a nutshell, board meetings are inefficient, time consuming, and often quite boring. The root cause? Bad decks and presentations. To wit, they:

• Are not easy to read, particularly on cell phones, which is how busy executives on the go consume information.

• Lack of focus, which sidetracks meetings.

• Are not collaborative. No mechanism for sharing feedback or posting questions.

• Take countless hours from multiple team members to prepare.

Making Board Reports Easier to Prepare . . . and Digest

Zeck has designed an elegant, yet simple, framework that walks you through the process of preparing presentations, and helps structure the content of your board meeting.

• It organizes material into two types of categories:

  • The Pre-Reads are the updates meant to be read in advance of the live meeting so everyone can engage asynchronously and post Comments/Feedback. Pre-reads would include updates from finance, sales & marketing, HR, the CEO, etc.

  • The Deep Dives are designed for live discussion and focus on your strategic initiatives.

• Each Pre-Read section is divided into logical categories, providing consistency among reports, and making it easier for readers to digest the information.

  • What You Need to Know

  • Highlights

  • Lowlights

  • Key Initiatives

  • What’s Keeping Me Up At Night

• Following the model of Axios’ ‘Smart Brevity’, Zeck calculates and displays the read time of each section.

• Zecks (which is what the company calls their decks) are designed and optimized for mobile delivery. Reading board materials on your phone feels just like browsing a website. *This is a big deal, as it makes it far more likely that people will read the reports.

• AI integrations make it easy for writers to surface key takeaways, auto-generate charts from tables of data, and otherwise optimize content.

Data & Insights

Zeck’s interface enables organizers to track which board members are reading the material, and when. It also tracks dwell time, providing insight on which sections people spend the most time on.

Because people can post comments and questions right into the materials, company leadership can identify issues being raised, and address them in advance of the meetings.

There’s also a built-in voting feature, which encourages participants to ‘pre-vote’ on select issues, like approving the previous meeting’s minutes, to save time when meeting in person.

The Opportunity for Planners

Another challenge with board meetings that doesn’t get much coverage is the inherent friction that often exists between company leadership and the board. The C-suite is beholden to the board to sign off on their vision and strategic plan, as well as their compensation, and executives often bristle at being held back. On the flip side, boards complain about strategy drift, missed projections without insight, not having a formal risk register, and other issues. Zeck seems to have removed a large chunk of that friction. Indeed, when I asked Wolfe what surprised him after launching the product, he cited this as an unintended benefit.

Planners in charge of board meetings have exposure to the most senior leadership in their companies. That level of visibility provides a unique opportunity to prove their value by making board meetings more efficient and effective. Zeck estimates that using their platform can reduce prep time by up to 80%, and results in more people completing the pre-reading, which in turn yields more engaged and informed board members.

If you’re interested in getting a demo click here. *Again, Zeck is not paying for this review, and I have zero financial interest in the company.

Here’s to taking your event business to the next level!

Howard Givner
Senior Advisor | Oaklins: DeSilva & Phillips (M&A) email me
CEO | Heathcote Advisory Group (Consulting) email me

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• Business Coaching & Owner Accountability

• Business Diagnostic & Company Valuation

• Growth Consulting

• Exit Planning

• M&A (Buy Side & Sell Side)

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