BoothEcho

Idea

A trade show follow-up copilot that turns booth conversations into personalized outreach inside the 48-hour window that decides whether a lead converts. A rep records a 15-second voice note right after each booth conversation (or imports a badge-scan CSV or a business card photo), and BoothEcho transcribes it, drafts a follow-up email that references what was actually discussed, and sends it on a proven 24-hour, 48-hour, 7-day cadence. It sits on top of whatever capture method an exhibitor already uses, so there is no scanner hardware to rent or platform to switch to, and it is priced per show or as a pausable monthly plan instead of an annual license.

Market gap

Event lead intelligence platforms are built and priced for companies running many shows a year. Momencio, one of the category leaders, states plainly in its own pricing material that its $5,000 to $8,000 a year license only beats show-by-show rental costs once a company hits 6 to 8 events annually. Most small and mid-size B2B exhibitors never get there: they show up at one to a handful of regional or vertical trade shows a year and are treated as an afterthought by platforms built for teams with a full events calendar. What they get instead is a badge scanner (a name and a CSV, no context) from Expo Pass or the show's general contractor, or an enterprise suite like Cvent that is typically bought by the show organizer or a large exhibitor, not something a five-person marketing team signs up for on their own.

Meanwhile the follow-up window is short and well documented: leads contacted within 24 to 48 hours convert about 60 percent more often than those reached a week later, yet up to 80 percent of scanned leads never get a real follow-up because nobody structures the outreach once the team is back at their desk buried in post-show catch-up. The timing is right now because exhibitor spend is climbing fast (median per-show spend up 14 percent since 2022) while marketing teams stay lean, so the pressure to prove ROI on a single event without signing a new annual software contract is higher than it has been.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Bottom-up, US-only:

• US exhibitor direct spending was $16.4 billion in 2025 (CEIR, via Trade Show Executive).
• Median exhibitor spend per show was $32,400 in 2025 (CEIR, via ShowHero Insights / Trade Show Executive).
• $16.4B / $32,400 ≈ 506,000 exhibiting company-show instances per year in the US.
• Assumption: small and mid-size B2B exhibitors (the target customer, as opposed to enterprise teams with a dedicated events platform) average about 3 shows a year. This is inferred from momencio's own stated 6-to-8-show break-even for an annual license, which implies most exhibitors fall well below that. 506,000 / 3 ≈ 169,000 target companies.
• Blended ACV assumption: a customer buys either 3 per-show passes ($249 each ≈ $747/yr) or the $79/mo pausable plan (≈ $948/yr if kept active most of the year). Blended ACV ≈ $800/yr.
• TAM: 169,000 companies x $800 ≈ $135M/yr.
• SAM: assume 40% of that population is reachable and willing to buy self-serve online (no dedicated events staff, discoverable via search/content rather than enterprise sales) ≈ 67,600 companies x $800 ≈ $54M/yr.
• SOM (Year 1, realistic for a small team): 150 customers x $800 ≈ $120K ARR. At 1% of SAM (a 3-year target): ≈676 customers x $800 ≈ $541K ARR.

Sources: CEIR Releases Exhibitor Spending Report, State of Trade Shows 2026.

Monetization strategy

Subscription plus one-time passes, billed through Stripe. The exhibiting company is the payer (marketing or sales ops budget, usually tied to a specific event line item). They keep paying because the tool is tied directly to a spend they already treat as high-stakes (a $15,000 to $32,000 show), and because cancelling mid-cadence stops scheduled follow-ups on leads not yet contacted, so there's a real cost to walking away before a show's leads are worked.

Pricing strategy

• Per-Show Pass (entry point): $249 per show, up to 250 leads, all voice-note capture, transcription, and the automated follow-up sequence for that show only.
• Season Pass (anchor): $79/month, pausable, unlimited shows while active, unlimited leads, CSV import from existing badge scanners, and a shared team dashboard. Built for the company that goes to 3+ shows a year and would otherwise be paying per-show every time.
• Add-on: $29/mo per additional team member beyond 2 seats on the Season Pass.

Lead magnet

A free, no-signup Trade Show Follow-Up Score: enter how many leads you scanned at your last show and how many actually got a personalized follow-up (or upload the badge-scan CSV and BoothEcho estimates it from timestamps). The tool returns a report: leads likely gone cold, estimated pipeline left on the table using the 24/48-hour conversion benchmark, and a benchmark against the 60% higher conversion rate of fast responders. Ends with a one-click path to set up BoothEcho before the next show.

Competitors

• momencio: owned event-intelligence platform with content sharing and follow-up sequences, sold as an annual license ($5K-$8K/yr) aimed at teams running many events a year.
• Expo Pass: badge-scanning lead retrieval, charges exhibitors roughly $250 per show, exports a contact list with basic ratings; no AI drafting, no voice capture, no automated cadence.
• Cvent Lead Capture: module inside the broader Cvent event management suite, typically bought by the show organizer or a large enterprise exhibitor with a sales-assisted enterprise contract.
• General contractor scanner rentals (e.g., through show services like Freeman): hand exhibitors a spreadsheet after the show and nothing else.

What competitors offer now

Momencio gets closest to the full loop (capture through nurture) but requires committing to an annual platform and its own scanning workflow, priced for frequent exhibitors. Expo Pass and Cvent solve capture, not follow-up: you get a list of names and company matches, maybe a star rating a rushed booth rep tapped between conversations, and then it's on the sales team to remember what was actually said and write the email themselves once they're back at the office. None of them record what a rep and a prospect actually discussed, none of them draft the first follow-up, and none of them are priced or packaged for a company that exhibits at one or two shows a year.

What can be done differently to attract customers

Sell by the show, not by the year: a $249 pass or a plan you can pause is a completely different buying decision than a $5K annual contract, and it matches how infrequent exhibitors actually think about the expense. Capture the context, not just the name: a 15-second voice note recorded the moment a rep steps away from a conversation ("she said they're evaluating three vendors, budget resets in Q1") is the raw material for a follow-up email that doesn't read like a form letter, and it costs the rep less effort than filling out a lead form. Automate the moment competitors leave manual: the 24/48-hour/7-day send cadence happens whether or not the team is buried in post-show catch-up, which is exactly when the 80% of leads currently go cold. And meet exhibitors where they already are: BoothEcho ingests an Expo Pass or Cvent export or a stack of business card photos, so switching in costs nothing and there's no hardware to rent.