PopBookings rallies as KC startup looks for its own key hires: ‘We’re back in a big, big way’

After dialing back its event staffing platform’s operations during the pandemic, Kansas City-grown PopBookings is back online in the Midwest — ramping up hiring as it works toward a Series A funding round by year’s end.

“Kansas City has a real nurturing feel to it. And this community is why I believe we’ll have our forever headquarters here,” said Erika Klotz, founder of PopBookings, which offers event hiring and management software tools with features like GPS check-ins for a resurgent list of clients in the event tech, HR tech and marketing tech industries.

PopBookings is itself currently hiring — eying top-tier talent for sales, business development and technical roles, said Klotz.

“These can too-often be thankless jobs at other companies, and yet you have to find the best candidates for the roles because they’re so critical,” she said. “Ideally, we’ll find some real go-getters in Kansas City, because it’s important that we grow here.”

Erika Klotz, PopBookings at Event Tech Live in Las Vegas; photo courtesy of PopBookings

At the core of PopBookings business, its app-based platform allows clients to post a job in minutes. An “ambassador” then can submit their interest and availability for the job. The original poster then has an opportunity to select the best fits for their needs.

The platform is popular with a wide range of consumer brands and retailers in need of on-site representatives or street teams, Klotz said. Partners have included Heineken, Honda, Nike and Snapchat.

“When you see those people at the liquor store, offering you samples of pumpkin beer or some other product, that could be PopBookings,” she said. “Gigs like these are about 60 percent of the jobs that get booked on our platform.”

PopBookings exhibited earlier this month at Event Tech Live in Las Vegas for the first time, Klotz noted, pitching the company to an even wider array of potential users in the startup’s 10th year.

“We’re back in a big, big way,” she said. “We’ve actually surpassed our pre-pandemic revenues and usage.”

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Popping the pandemic pause

Klotz launched PopBookings with Scott Hanson in 2014, quickly becoming a leading entrepreneur on the Kansas City startup scene. The company earned multiple tranches of funding from the Missouri Technology Corporation, among other milestones — including a $50,000 win in LaunchKC’s 2015 pitch competition.

Erika Klotz and Scott Hanson, PopBookings, in 2017

Its momentum carried into 2019 as PopBookings rolled out its signature self-service marketplace platform. And by 2020, the feature was all but perfected, Klotz said.

And then COVID-19 hit.

“In early 2020, when the biggest events in the country — SXSW, Coachella — were getting canceled, that’s when we knew ‘Oh, wow. The events industry is going to be just gone,’” she recalled. “Because it takes time to plan events, especially at that scale. We knew it was going to take awhile for us to bounce back.”

“We lightly flirted with the idea of pivoting into strategies like influencer marketing, digital events, virtual events, but we looked at our runway and just decided to hunker down and weather the storm,” Klotz continued.

The PopBookings team was pared down to the essentials. Hanson left the company to pursue other passions (although he remains one of its largest shareholders).

“We were just trying to keep the servers running to see if we could ride it out,” Klotz said. “Until the latter half of 2022, it was anybody’s guess whether we were going to make it. We were alive, but we were on life support.”

Erika Klotz, PopBookings, 2021

Klotz had found herself temporarily relocated to Miami during the pandemic, one of the few places in the U.S. where warmer temperatures and looser regulations still allowed larger-scale events under certain conditions.

“We’d had events going on in places like Florida and Texas, but that’s obviously only two states out of 50,” said Klotz, noting she worked those angles to help PopBookings muscle through in survival mode. 

“Florida carried us,” she added. “They didn’t really care about the national restrictions that we saw in other states, and while it wasn’t an intentional strategy to be there because of that, we definitely benefited from the entire state continuing to embrace partying, events involving alcohol and other opportunities where PopBookings could remain active enough to keep going.”

Fast forward to 2022. Outside Florida, the event world remained on pause, Klotz said.

“Half the year was crickets. It wasn’t even much different than 2021,” she recalled. “Then, all of the sudden, it came back like overnight. People were starving to be at events again. I think we’d all been shut in for too long.”

Tools launched just before the pandemic — like the self-service feature — allowed PopBookings to reach a broader market — and quickly. As brands, retailers and staffing agencies shifted back into events, they scrambled to find services like those offered by PopBookings to get themselves back into the game, Klotz said.

“We were ready,” she said. “At the same time, as everything reopened, Miami got crazy expensive, the focus was shifting to crypto, and I realized it was probably not the place I needed to be. So I’ve returned to my homebase; Kansas City is where I have my network, mentors, and investors.”

It’s also a much more affordable place to again grow the company, especially now that it isn’t limited by geographic limitations in the market.

“As a company, to spend money on prime real estate in a market like Miami where we really didn’t need to be physically located didn’t make a lot of sense,” Klotz said. “We needed to invest in building up a team. After scaling down, we’re at max capacity.”

PopBookings is now planning its expansion into Canada and Europe, she added.

Erika Klotz, The Selfie Room, 2019

Self-styled success on the side

The pandemic wasn’t all challenges and heartburn, Klotz acknowledged. From the lockdown, she earned a profitable exit from a small, experiential business she opened in St. Louis with her sister-in-law.

The Selfie Room debuted in 2019 as a one-off side project for the duo, who managed the space from Kansas City.

“We launched it in about two months. It was just this nice little side hustle,” Klotz said. “Well, it ended up having some very profitable years — especially during the pandemic — because not a lot else was open. So for the exact reason PopBookings was struggling, this business was really picking up.”

Klotz continued running the venture from Miami, but ultimately decided to sell it in November to more fully focus on her startup and its return to Kansas City, she said.

“It was a great investment for me, but I knew it would be a better lifestyle business for some living local in St. Louis,” Klotz said. “PopBookings is my baby and I’m so excited to have it home again.”