Today we’d like to introduce you to Channing Moreland.
Hi Channing, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Absolutely! I grew up playing classical violin and was always fascinated with jazz music, so I picked up a few other instruments along the way (bari sax, guitar, piano, and voice). I started writing songs and that’s what led me to Belmont University to major in Songwriting. When I got to Belmont I was instantly amazed by the talent I was surrounded by, and I wanted to find ways to lift artists up and bring them more revenue.
Serendipitously, my freshmen orientation roommate was Makenzie Stokel – who would quickly become my best friend and later, my business partner.
We shared an immense passion for live music and were attending as many live shows as possible. We initially jumped in as entrepreneurs by launching an events discovery platform at the beginning of our sophomore year. In tandem, we began producing and curating our own events. We booked 170+ acts, executed 90+ events, and started working on larger events and festivals.
As juniors, we were accepted into Project Music’s inaugural class, a music tech accelerator backed by major music industry players. We took the knowledge we had learned from sourcing talent and our experience of building an events discovery platform to launch EVA.
We initially launched EVA in the college market because that’s what we knew, and we expanded throughout campuses across the Southeast and Midwest. After working through our product market fit, we saw that corporate and private events were having a lot of success on our platform so we eventually shifted focus and that’s what we have been growing since!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s never a straight and narrow road as an entrepreneur. I have experienced some of my greatest challenges in life while starting and growing this business, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. For example, we had the plan to scale to multiple corporate markets across the United States with a kickoff date in March of 2020. We had to be resilient and push through while finding new ways to make the business work during the pandemic. We found success in providing virtual and hybrid entertainment and experience offerings and were able to grow during the pandemic.
Some additional challenges (because there are many!) include:
-Being first-time founders out of college with no corporate experience. We relied heavily on our tenacity and the wisdom from key mentors and advisors. We have made so many mistakes along the way, but it’s also made us much better founders.
-Being an entertainment tech company in the events industry when the pandemic hit. We were mainly focused on large-scale in-person corporate events. There was no way to get around the complete loss of business that we experienced. But in startup land, it’s all about how you pivot and adjust, and we got there all thanks to the willingness of the team to help us figure it out.
-Changing the way something has always been done. Our clients are used to a manual approach to booking talent without technology. It’s quite a habit change, one that leads to many benefits, but it’s been a process to navigate that transition with our clients.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about EVA?
The why: The reason Makenzie and I started EVA was because we wanted to bring more paid opportunities to the table for entertainers, and as event planners ourselves, it was incredible when we found that we could serve both sides fairly.
The official pitch: EVA is an online marketplace that connects entertainers with corporate and private events. We book all kinds of talent for events: live music, keynote speakers, comedians, chefs, magicians, unique experiences, roaming talent, and more. If it’s a request for a corporate event, odds are we have probably booked it!
What’s important to us: A phrase our team often says is that we are technology with heart. We built EVA to be a full-service tech platform that streamlines entertainment discovery, contracts, payments, etc., and it’s also crucial to us that we have a strong team with professional event experience behind the platform to assist clients along the way.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I would have to say tenacity. There were multiple times along the way when it would have been easier to quit than keep pushing forward, but Makenzie and I saw the long-term vision and what was possible for EVA. We have also learned that growing a business doesn’t just require tenacity from us, but from every member of our team. We are extremely grateful to our team for being so determined to persist with us.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bookwitheva.com
- Instagram: @bookwitheva
- Facebook: bookwitheva
- Twitter: @bookwitheva
- Youtube: bookwitheva
Image Credits
Jessica Amerson and Makenzie
