Rally conference returns—with some changes

As Elevate Ventures prepares for year two of its multimillion-dollar Rally innovation conference, the organization is making a few adjustments to last year’s playbook.

The event, which is set for Aug. 27-28 at the Indiana Convention Center, still has the same goal. It aims to attract innovators, investors, business leaders, academics and thought leaders from Indiana and beyond and from a variety of industry sectors, spurring what Elevate Ventures calls “creative collisions” to advance the state’s innovation economy.

“We’re trying to put Indiana on the global map,” said Christopher Day, CEO of Elevate Ventures and the mastermind behind the event.

And the major elements of last year’s conference are returning for this year’s event. Those include a pitch contest offering up to $1 million to each of five winning startups; a series of high-profile speakers, including athlete-turned-businessman Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez and entrepreneur and media personality Marcus Lemonis; dozens of panel discussions on a range of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship topics; and one-on-one meetings between entrepreneurs and investors.

But there will be some changes.

Rally 2.0

Perhaps most noticeably, the conference has been condensed into two days from last year’s three. It will also occupy fewer rooms at the convention center. This year, for instance, all of the breakout sessions will take place in the room that hosts the one-on-one investor meetings and the exhibit area called the Demo Arena. Last year, the breakout sessions took place in a series of separate, smaller rooms across the hall from the Demo Arena.

The event’s budget is also slightly smaller: $2.5 million, compared with $2.9 million last year. And Rally’s largest sponsor, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., is contributing $1 million this year, down from last year’s $1.75 million.

These changes are by design, Elevate Ventures and the IEDC say.

David Watkins, the IEDC’s senior vice president of entrepreneurship and small business, said it’s always been the plan for the IEDC to make its first-year financial commitment to Rally its largest, and to gradually diminish its investment amount in subsequent years as the event finds other sources of support.

“We want to see the private-sector community buy into these things,” Watkins said. “We’re not in the business of trying to bankroll an event forever if the community’s not buying in.”

Watkins also said the IEDC is pleased with the results of last year’s Rally.

Under the rules of the pitch contest, the five winning startups are eligible for up to $500,000 in matching investment funding from the IEDC. A startup that raises $200,000 from investors, for example, will also receive $200,000 from the IEDC.

Another rule for receiving IEDC funding is that the winning startups must commit to establishing an Indiana presence for at least a year. To date, four of last year’s five winners—three from California and one from Massachusetts—have made that commitment, unlocking the IEDC’s financial support. The fifth, from Louisville, has not established an Indiana presence.

Those results, Watkins said, represent “a really big success for us.”

Beyond the pitch contest, he said, Rally creates an opportunity to invite startups to Indiana to showcase what it has to offer, and to connect with entrepreneurs who are already here.

The IEDC routinely leverages big events such as the Indianapolis 500 and the recent Olympic swimming trials as a chance to connect with prospects, Watkins said. Rally now offers an event specifically designed to attract entrepreneurs. “I think there’s a lot of power in an opportunity to bring those individuals here.”

Day said Elevate Ventures ended up losing $200,000 on last year’s event, and this year, “we’re working like crazy to break even.”

Rally’s financial support comes from a combination of ticket sales, in-kind donors and sponsorships. In addition to the IEDC, Rally has secured more than 30 sponsors, with sponsorship amounts ranging from $5,000 to $100,000.

Erica Shonkwiler, a senior lecturer at Indiana University Indianapolis’ Department of Tourism, Event and Sport Management, said a shortfall of only $200,000 for a first-year conference is “pretty impressive.”

Building a reputation

Starting a conference from scratch is challenging, Shonkwiler said, and even more so for an event like Rally.

Some events are easier to build, Shonkwiler said, because they’re going after a defined audience. A trade show, for instance, is designed to appeal to people who work in a particular industry. A company building a corporate event can target its current and potential customers.

But Rally aims to bring together different types of people from different industry sectors, which is a much more difficult task.

Rally “is kind of in its own category. It’s a more difficult thing to launch, and it’s a more difficult thing to be successful with,” Shonkwiler said.

Last year, Rally’s organizers said they were aiming for attendance of 5,000. This year’s attendance goal is 3,000, which is more in line with last year’s actual attendance of just over 3,110.

For an event like Rally, Shonkwiler said, who attends is more important than how many. Rally’s success hinges on how well it can establish a reputation as a must-attend event where people can make important connections, she said. “They’re not just trying to get anyone to buy a ticket. They need to get the right people in the room.”

To create this reputation, Shonkwiler said, new events typically require substantial upfront investments—but event costs can sometimes come down over time.

As an example, Shonkwiler said, a first-time event might drop big money on high-profile speakers that will draw attendees. Over time, if that event builds a strong reputation, it might be able to pay less—or nothing at all—to attract speakers.

Shonkwiler said that’s what’s happened at the Austin, Texas-based SXSW festival, which debuted as a music festival in 1987 with 177 showcase artists and 700 attendees. Over the years, SXSW has grown dramatically in scope and attendance, now encompassing music, film, television, technology, culture and education. This year’s event, held March 4-16, drew 512,700 in-person and online attendees.

Shonkwiler is familiar with SXSW’s operations because she takes her students to work at the annual event. She is not involved with Rally, though she said she anticipates taking students to volunteer at that event as well once it becomes established.

Because SXSW has built a reputation as a hip destination, Shonkwiler said, the festival no longer needs to pay its speakers. Instead, speakers vie to participate because they find the event a good way to promote their work.

If Rally succeeds at building its own reputation, she said, it might be able to do the same thing. “They have expenses right now that they may be able to get out of long term.”

Rally’s organizers have identified SXSW as an inspiration for their own event.

Some new faces

About 54% of this year’s attendees also attended Rally last year. The other 46% will be newcomers, Day said.

Shonkwiler said that seems like a healthy mix. “That’s a good percentage of retention that shows there was value at the event.”

One of those repeat attendees is Mahsa Vazin, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based PawCo Foods. PawCo, which was one of five winners of last year’s pitch contest, makes plant-based dog food that it sells to subscribers via mail order.

PawCo, which has 17 employees, plans to open a production facility in Indianapolis by the end of this year. The company, which is 3 years old, has already achieved $1 million in annual recurring revenue.

Vazin said PawCo had been considering expansion sites in the Midwest or East Coast, and her experience at Rally convinced her that Indiana was the right place to grow her business. “People were so hospitable.”

Vazin said she’s returning to Rally because she wants to make connections with other founders and continue building relationships with people in Indiana. “Definitely, Rally was an amazing event. I recommended it to lots of my friends.”

Here are some other things to expect this year:

Artificial intelligence focus

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is hosting a new event, the AI Leadership Summit, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 28. The summit is made up of a series of talks that focus on AI’s anticipated impact on life sciences, agbiosciences, economic development, logistics, transportation and advanced manufacturing.

In addition to the Indiana Chamber event, Rally will also feature numerous breakout sessions on AI.

More density, more diversity

Day said Rally is using fewer rooms this year to create more density—increasing the opportunities that attendees will have to connect with one another.

This year, Indianapolis-based Innopower is also hosting some of its Minority Business Week events at Rally.

Emil Ekiyor, the founder and CEO of Innopower, said the idea is to create more value for Minority Business Week attendees.

“It allows us to engage with a broader audience,” Ekiyor said. “We didn’t want Minority Business Week to be just seen as a Black event.”

Free coffee

Rally attendees can look forward to free coffee this year—something that was not available at the inaugural event.

The change is in response to attendee feedback, Day said. “The biggest complaint was [that there was] no free coffee.”•