There’s no software like ours on the market.
Andrew Garcia

Andrew Garcia

Co-Founder

Location: Washington D.C.

Goodshuffle Pro is a Software as a Service (Saas) platform that caters to rentals in the events industry. Like many companies, it was founded by an entrepreneur that couldn’t find an option for his own business needs, so he set out to create a solution. 

Andrew Garcia had a DJ business and discovered how challenging it was to rent equipment for his gigs. With a background as a Full Stack Developer, he partnered with experienced UX designer, Erik Dreyer, to build the solution themselves. This resulted in the Goodshuffle Marketplace, a powerful platform designed to make it easy for people to rent items for their events. After interviewing hundreds of event professionals, the founders then built their full event business solution and inventory management software, Goodshuffle Pro. After making a key hire in Senior Vice President, Karen Gordon, they debuted this SaaS platform, Goodshuffle Pro, in January 2018.

 

EventPros: Tell us a bit about your background. And what pulled you into the events industry?

Andrew: I grew up with influence from my parents— my mother was an entrepreneur with various businesses she successfully grew, and my father was an electrical engineer. I learned about entrepreneurship, engineering, and computer science from them, which spurred me to combine both of these passions in my career. I love music and bringing people together, which made becoming a DJ a no-brainer. It was also a great way to make some extra cash as a college student. I fell in love with the events industry because it’s a powerful community full of hard-working entrepreneurs who are dedicated to their clients.

EventPros: We touched on this in the intro, but can you elaborate on what inspired you to create your platform and launch your business? Was there a specific problem or issue you set out to help solve?

Andrew: Using my experience in the industry and insight from hundreds of conversations with experienced business owners, I was driven to make their jobs and lives easier with streamlined technology. Consumers in the United States spend more than $200 billion on events every year, making the events industry imperative to our economy and society. The technology (or lack thereof, as many companies have operated without software at all) that event professionals were using wasn’t doing what they needed it to do in terms of saving time and money, providing a seamless client experience for their customers, and generally making their lives easier. We set out to simplify the chaos of the industry and empower event professionals to win back time and reach their business goals, whether that’s expanding their businesses, boosting sales, or stressing less.

EventPros: Can you clarify the difference between the Goodshuffle marketplace and your Goodshuffle Pro platform? Do they focus on different customers? Are they separate operations or do they work together?

Andrew: The Goodshuffle Marketplace is an online listing service that brings together renters and rental companies. It acts like Amazon for event rentals— if you’re looking to plan a wedding or grad party, you’d come to the Marketplace to find and compare items, and book with a vendor. Goodshuffle Pro is the software that event companies use to run their entire business. It’s all-in-one business software that they use to manage their inventory, create and send quotes, receive payments, communicate with their team and clients, and create reports. Currently, vendors who have a Goodshuffle Pro account can choose to list their inventory on the Marketplace as well. This is an excellent opportunity for them to boost visibility for their brand and secure more leads. 

EventPros: What are the primary benefits from using your platform?

Andrew: When vendors subscribe to Goodshuffle Pro, they are eliminating the need for 6+ other software tools because we maintain all business activity in one place. They receive a beautiful client experience on their website, contracts, and payments, while also managing the warehouse team, the inventory availability and reducing logistics headaches. Our easy online payments allow users to get paid faster than ever (70% of our users’ clients pay their signed contracts within 3 days), which is a huge win for these small business owners. Additionally, our customer support team is there to champion our users into becoming confident in the program and in themselves to use it (as one of the biggest roadblocks is getting people over the intimidation of technology).

EventPros: How has your SaaS platform improved or evolved since the first rollout?

Andrew: We consistently roll out new features as we connect with our users and grow our development team. We put a heavy emphasis on security initiatives, as well as UX improvements to make the product even easier to use. Flexibility is also a main focus, so we have rolled out various updates (and will continue to) to make the system more fluid and powerful.

Additionally, we launched our Website Wishlist Integration in 2020, which has allowed users to sync their Goodshuffle Pro inventory directly onto their websites. This is a game-changer for their marketing and lead capture efforts, as well as website maintenance. The integration boosts the power of our users’ websites via SEO and allows them to take control over their websites.

EventPros: How do event pros use your marketplace? Are they renting from it or listing their own items as being available for rent?  Or..  both?

Andrew: Short answer: both! Any vendor with a Goodshuffle Pro account has the option to list their items on our Marketplace for free. They may also use the platform to subrent items from other vendors. Say an event rental business is looking to close a deal for a huge wedding this Fall, but they don’t have enough chairs to execute the event. Instead of purchasing all these new chairs for one event, or saying no to the event because they don’t have enough inventory in stock, they can instead subrent from another vendor down the road. 

EventPros: What type of event pros benefit the most from using your platform?

Andrew: We service any and all types of event professionals with inventory. Whether it’s furniture, tents, flatware, A/V and lighting, inflatables, photobooths, DJs, florists, or venues, we can handle it. Our system is also built to manage companies of any size, from solopreneurs to companies with hundreds of people. If you’re a planner without inventory, you may not be a great fit because you don’t need the inventory management piece.

EventPros: What types of ongoing training & support do event pros receive once they have purchased Goodshuffle Pro?

Andrew: We’re the leaders in customer success for the event tech industry; our 4.9 star rating and 120+ reviews on Capterra speak for themselves. Our users love our free & unlimited training and support— which includes chatbot access— that they receive throughout their trial and beyond. We wholeheartedly believe in empowering our users to utilize Goodshuffle Pro to the best of their abilities. Users can peruse a variety of content including help articles, blog posts, training videos, and more.

EventPros: How would you compare your platform to those of competitors?

Andrew: There’s no software like ours on the market. In addition to the ease and functionality of our product itself, our users are getting the reassurance of working with a world-class team. We not only focus on hiring true experts in their craft, but we hire based on our four company values. You see those values— especially “Sincerely Care”— in every interaction you have with our team, all the way from the initial sale through the support.

Additionally, with our backgrounds that combine both events and technology, Erik and I bring a unique perspective as product builders and designers. Our system was built thoughtfully and intentionally to serve the events industry— as one of our users (Tim Daugherty, Owner of Sperry Tents New Jersey) says, “It has a very intuitive user interface and is very fast. Things just make sense. Plus, the customer service is probably the best I have ever experienced.” We also highly prioritize speed and agility so that our vendors can make quick decisions while on the go.

EventPros: Are there any success stories you can share from event pros using your platform?

Andrew: Each of our users has experienced a success story of their own. One that especially sticks out is about AE&ES, an event services company in Las Vegas. Our team connected with Owner and Chief Creative Designer, Gary Bordman, at The Special Event + Catersource Trade Show in Las Vegas in 2020. After switching to Goodshuffle Pro from his previous software for more flexibility, he ended up also adopting our QuickBooks Online Integration and Website Wishlist Integration. This left him with a 50% increase in payment speed, 50% less time spent on accounting, 90% less time spent on website maintenance, and a 75% conversion rate from his Wishlist leads. AE&ES is a prime example of a company that’s taken Goodshuffle Pro and ran with it to become even more optimized and successful.

EventPros: What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for Goodshuffle?

Andrew: We’re growing quickly, which means lots of new hires. We’ve doubled in headcount in the past year, and are looking to continue this trajectory. With more support on both the development and business sides of our organization, we’re looking to roll out even more features and continue making an incredible product for our users, while creating a special team culture internally.

EventPros: Anything else you’d like to comment on while we have you?

Andrew: Our team is currently hiring for roles across all our departments! We’re looking for talented, ambitious people to join Goodshuffle Pro and make a difference in the lives of our vendors. You can explore our open positions on our careers page— even if something’s not an exact fit, reach out anyways! We’re always looking to talk with passionate problem-solvers.

Susan Null
Author: Susan Null

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