Venboo heads to market(s), hoping to make local vendors the next Crumbl Cookies with its event booking tech

The Venboo app — which connects individual vendors and event organizers on a single platform — will soon gain a dashboard that allows all parties to connect more seamlessly, detailed Juaquan Herron.

The dashboard is expected to further streamline the user’s booking experience of Venboo, which lets vendors set criteria for events that match their products, receive notifications about them, and reserve their spot all within the app, said Herron, co-founder of the startup.

“The dashboard would now put the control into the vendors’ and [event] directors’ hands,” Herron said. “It’s similar to if you were to create an event on Eventbrite or Facebook. You’re now able to go into Venboo, create your event, and set your prices, and it completely cuts out the middleman.”

To marry the dashboard with the app, Herron teased a coming pre-seed round in which Venboo will seek at least $200,000 in funding.

Plans for a raise come on the heels of an agreement with the Raytown Farmers Market that will make Venboo the booking provider for market vendors, Herron announced.

“We’re ready to see where that goes,” he said. “Hopefully that will open up doors to some of the big dogs like Brookside, City Market, Johnson County, and Shawnee Days, so then we can start branching out to some other cities.”

Venboo also landed its first cannabis event, Herron said, which will be the 2023 MoKansas CannaTech Expo, scheduled for this October.

The company also is targeting car shows this summer, as well as restaurant weeks, Herron added, all part of a diversified approach to build out the platform.

“We’ve really been putting in the work,” Herron said. “We’re keeping our heads down, but most importantly, we’re staying our authentic selves. “We knew from the beginning that this is what we wanted to do to help people, and it’s going the way it needs to go.”

Juaquan Herron and Rodney McDuffie, Venboo, in 2021

Drawn to turning the tables

Alongside his business partner Rodney McDuffie, Herron founded Venboo in 2020 — later one Startland News’ Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2022 — after years of struggling to find a more efficient process to discover and book events in his work as a comic book creator.

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Juaquan Herron Rodney McDuffie, Venboo, Pure Pitch Rally 2021; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

“I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure this out,” Herron said. “Why isn’t there a website? Why isn’t there any way that I can find different markets, different comic-cons, different local flea markets? If I find them, why aren’t I able to book them right there? It was just too much of a hassle.”

Rather than throw up his hands, Herron decided to create the platform that he wished already existed, in part because he believes in the importance of face-to-face interaction for vendors, he said.

“People buy you before they buy your product,” Herron said. “That’s what being a vendor is all about — getting out there, meeting these people, telling your story, telling them why you did this.”

In selling his own comic book series at conventions and vendor fairs, Herron said, the connections he’s made with other vendors have been just as valuable as the sales.

“At my first comic con, I sold out — I sold over 200 copies,” he said. “That was important, but what was most important to me at that event was that I met someone who gave me the lowdown on how to be a vendor and how to sell effectively. Those are things that you can’t get sitting behind your desk.”

Now, Herron hopes that Venboo will make it easier for other vendors to experience those same successes and create those impactful connections.

“We want to turn small business into booth business,” he said. “We want to create the next Bath and Body Works, the next Crumbl Cookies. We want to create those major franchises through individuals having opportunities to sell their products, and the best way to do that is to get out there and meet people.”

With the new dashboard soon to be added to Venboo, Herron said he receives “a sense of gratification” knowing that he’s helping fellow vendors showcase their products.

“Helping vendors sell their products, I take pride in that,” he said. “It’s more than revenue. I take pride in the fact that I know this person went to this event through my channel to sell something that at one point in time was just a figment of their imagination.”