Headbox: Finding the one

We speak to Maud Bourke, Talent Specialist of Headbox

Maud Bourke, Talent Specialist of Headbox says that finding the right venue for an event is like finding “the one” on a dating app. It’s highly nuanced. The right venue might mean the difference between an enjoyable event Vs a spectacular, life-changing, night - so you could say it’s pretty important.

The technology, client relationships, and all-around people excellence at HeadBox have powered their success, and finding the right space to nurture their business has seen them play a hand of their own game in searching for the perfect space for the business.

We meet Maud on the 3rd floor at Canvas Luke Street. Their penthouse office is spacious and full of light with views over the green of St Mark's Square, nestled on a quiet street in the heart of Shoreditch.

Hey Maud, can you tell us a bit about HeadBox?

“So HeadBox is a software that allows people to book events with ease. Our company mission is “We bring people and spaces together to make brilliant things happen everywhere”, so whereas we might have some close competitors like Design My Night or Venufinder or Tag Venue, they use a search book model that you might find when you're looking for somewhere to stay on vacation, whereas HeadBox makes matches. It's a lot closer to Hinge than it is to say, Airbnb, and that allows for both bookers and venues to have a lot more accuracy and a lot higher quality events and higher value bookings.

“We have three different users that interact with the HeadBox platform. The first is the likes of you or I who...Maybe you're looking for a venue for your engagement party or a birthday party or you know you've written and self-published a book and you want to do a launch party for it, you might go onto Google and type in “rooftop bar Shoreditch” and then HeadBox will rank and you’ll then be taken through a customer journey.

We’ll ask you lots of questions about the event that you’re planning, create a login, and then the matches will start coming in. So it's not necessarily instant like you would have with Design My Night because of the accuracy that we're trying to get, but over the next 30 minutes to 24 hours, you will then see that login populate with matches. Those matches are actual venues that have seen your brief and know that they can accommodate for your event. Those venues will also know that you'll likely have matches from several other venues, and so it's in their interest to be super proactive and to reach out to you. And that happens all completely automatically.

“We have over 20,000 venues listed on HeadBox, but not all of them pay for what we call the ‘lead feed’. Again, it’s very close to a dating app service where if you use the paid-for version, you're likely to get higher matches, have more exposure, and get more accurate matches for where you want to, have your events.

“Then we have our final user, which is our corporate partnerships. So, we offer a ‘HeadBox for business’ platform that allows big enterprise-level companies like L'Oreal, KPMG, and Snapchat, these are just some of the clients that we work with, and they have access to more features like tracking budgets and how all the planning and logistics are coming together. They can create digital proposals on the platform, they can book other suppliers, and with that they also have access to events consultants at HeadBox to help to push those event briefs through the system.

“With our business clients, as you can imagine their events are a lot more nuanced, a lot more complex, a lot higher value and so they need the combination of the tech supporting and making recommendations and making all of the information centralised and making it super easy to use plus the expertise of our meetings and events consultants that will help them with that process and nurture them as a client. That's the long version of what we do!”

Could you tell us a little bit about your role?

“Yeh, so I've been at HeadBox for four years but I’ve known our CEO, Andrew, for almost 10 years as we worked together in previous companies. When he was running a research agency, they quite often needed to do collaborations with marketeers and consumers to host workshops to optimise whatever they were trying to optimise, and he had so many frustrations in trying to book space, which is why he created HeadBox.

“I’d say a huge part of my role as Talent Specialist is providing an environment where people can thrive at HeadBox. So my role covers three main areas, the biggest of which, and the one that takes up most of my time, is recruitment and onboarding.

“HeadBox is quite particular about who they invite to join the business, especially because we're relatively small, and we're still in our start-up stage and so each hire really counts. We have lots of different personalities and we have a diverse team, but we want excellence I suppose.

“And so yes, that takes up a large portion of my time and we also run two internship programmes as well. Each semester we have anywhere from like 6 to 10 interns from American universities and we have a connection with Coventry University too which offers internship opportunities to students from a less privileged background, and HeadBox can provide those opportunities for them.

“And then I'm also the go-to HR person, so when life happens to people - someone might have a bereavement, a relationship break down, or somebody might become stressed or ill, or have an issue with another colleague or whatever the case may be. I'm the go-to person that helps managers understand how to approach things. It's an inevitability when you have 60 people in your company that at one time someone's going to need support.

“And then finally, I contribute to creating our company culture by settling up enrichment projects. We have various extracurricular activities that we do to create that sense of community and togetherness so that people feel that they're able to be enriched outside of the actual job. So each year we do a big fundraiser - last year, we did a Stonehenge trek, and the team chose an Alzheimer’s charity because it was poignant for a few people, and that was really great.

“Then we do different events, activities, and initiatives under three different disciplines; diversity & inclusion, health &wellbeing, and social & environmental. So that's anything from volunteering at Spitalfields City Farm to working with the East London Business Association, which is a charity that gets young people opportunities for work experience. We've been working with them for almost 3 years, providing them with some exposure to what it would be like to work at a company like HeadBox.”

You mentioned culture and of course, the office here is part of that. How are you using the space to help that culture and encourage people to want to come to work?

“It’s hugely, hugely important. After the pandemic, we had to move because the whole company downsized. Obviously, we're an events company so the pandemic for us was horrendous. We were then working from home for a bit and then when we did manage to go back into the office we moved to this building that was like really tall and skinny in the back end of Liverpool Street. It was just really, really unpleasant. You could be at work all day and not realise that two of your colleagues were there because they were on the fifth floor, in one of the rooms there, and you just didn't cross paths the whole time. The only saving grace was that it had a roof terrace, but it could barely fit all of us on at one time.

“For me, whatever space we're in is really important. I always say that whenever I'm talking about what would be on my wish list if I went to a new company, an open office space where it's welcoming, it feels inspiring, and it feels like somewhere where you can thrive and where you actually look forward to going to is super, super important to me.

“We strive in all kinds of matters of how the company behaves the processes we have and the decisions that the senior management team takes, if they directly affect the employees, we do a survey to get people's feedback. We do a general survey twice a year and from that it was evident that the office wasn't working for people. The meeting rooms weren't soundproof enough and so it was really hard to have a confidential meeting. You had to just make sure you were whispering which is ridiculous. So we went to see what was out there. We found three different properties and then put it to a company vote and Canvas was the runaway winner.”

How’s it been working with Alyssa and Leanne? (Canvas General and Deputy General Manager at the time)

“Yeah, they’ve helped me in particular because we don't have a go-to person, we don't have an office manager because we've been in service offices for so long. But me being the only HR slash people person, all the things are directed at me. So when we have building managers that just get stuff done and I can just throw something at and they will just do it immediately is great. So it is really useful to have people where there's just no doubt that something will be picked up on immediately and resolved as quickly as humanly possible.”

what's on the horizon for HeadBox? Have you got any big projects you can talk about?

Yeah! We've got a really big sustainability driver, so we're actually nominated for our HeadBox Zero app, which is built into the HeadBox for Business software, which helps companies calculate the carbon footprint of their events, and we're trying to be a voice in this space for being able to provide that capability.

“But I guess the biggest thing that's happening at the moment is launching in New York in 2025, which is really exciting. New York has a large proportion of the global event spend for meetings and events, particularly corporate meetings and events, which is the bulk of how HeadBox makes money. And so that's why we've chosen to go there, rather than Barcelona or Paris or Edinburgh, for example. So that's really exciting and I think a really good sign of how we're doing.

“So HeadBox has matured, I feel, from a start-up to a grown-up start-up and we're now in a position where we have a playbook that we can roll out in another city. We know what works, we have established that what HeadBox has put down our consumers are picking up and now we're able to do that in a brand-new territory.

We talk about the importance of the space in the building and being part of a neighbourhood as well. If someone was coming to Canvas today, what would be your go-to places?

“That's a great question. Yeah, so my go-to places would be the Good Old Deli. It's super close. It's really good coffee and you can get fun and interesting snacks.

“And then I would say the old King's Head is like a love-hate relationship for people because we've been going there for years, but when it's damp or cold, it's so busy and people don't want to be standing outside. But then when you get those summer old King’s Heads nights, they're always really, really good.

“And then there's kind of like a thing about “the chicken man” at HeadBox. So at lunchtime, there's a falafel person, there's a kind of Turkish wrap guy that all sets up on that crossroads. And there's a really friendly guy, who is quite handsome, who is known at HeadBox as “the chicken man”. It's delicious, reasonably cheap, and it's such a short walk away and he's just a delight.”

Now it’s time for some fun, quick fire questions. If you could listen to one track on repeat in the office what would it be?

“That's really hard, but in the office, we get a lot of Loyle Carner. So I guess that would be my like cool answer. But then I would say when I very occasionally take over the music I often get kicked off because I will be playing the Macarena and Good vibrations by Marky Mark and The Gang.”

What would be the one space in London you would take to run an event?

“Oh, I would say I hope this counts as London I think it does but I used to live in a little village called East Malte Which is right next to Hampton Court Palace. So HeadBox over time has enlisted a lot of like places of historical interest and the events that we hold there are always really impactful and so I would say that it's a place that's very nostalgic for me.”

If you were running an event, what would be your karaoke song?

Ah! Easy peasy. So my go-to karaoke song is a song by Cher. It's walking in Memphis, but it's her version of it. I cannot sing, but I can do an impression of Cher. So yeah, and I think what's key with a karaoke song is that it's not too long because you need to retain the attention while you’re performing. So I would say it's a really good one for that, and it's got a bit of a gospel choir aspect to it, so it gets the crowd going.”

Businesses thrive at Canvas because we understand that the small things are actually the big things. Details matter. Service matters. Personalisation matters. Find your perfect space in a neighbourhood full of possibilities, with people who specialise in easing your path to success while making you feel at home. Come talk to us today.