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What is Zoho Backstage? Prathik Bathija Explains During #Zoholics2024
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Mar 24, 2025
Prathik Bathija from Zoho introduces us to Zoho Backstage at Zoholics 2024. Zoho Backstage is a powerful yet lesser-known event management tool. Prathik details some of the standout features of Backstage and shares how it was integral in running the Zoholics event. Learn what makes Backstage a holistic event management solution and discover the recent expansions that enhance its capabilities. Prathik also discusses the various types of events Backstage is perfect for, from industry conferences to community gatherings. If you're looking to streamline your event planning and management, this interview offers invaluable insights into getting started with Zoho Backstage. #Zoholics2024 #ZohoBackstage #EventManagement #TechInnovation #EventPlanning #ConferenceTool #HolisticSolution #EventSoftware #ZohoInterview #TechForEvents #EventTechnology #BusinessEvents #EventExpansion #StreamlineEvents #EventManagementTool #Zoho #ZoholicsUS #Zoholics24
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0:00
hi I'm Sean hessinger from small
0:01
business Trends reporting from zoholics
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2024 and I'm here with product baia and
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he is the product manager at Zoho
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backstage we're going to talk about Zoho
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backstage I mean I guess the first
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question is what is backstage uh it's
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it's maybe not something not a tool that
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uh a lot of Zoho customers are
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necessarily familiar with although
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that's probably going to change after
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the presentation today talk a little bit
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about it yep sure so
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uh we launched Zoho backstage about 5
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years ago and um we started off as a
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ticketing tool and the first couple of
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years we just trying to get the basics
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right we were trying to help event
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organizers sell tickets online then we
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realized okay most events have an event
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website so we started focusing on
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Solutions like building a website
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building a website app building a mobile
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app and then unfortunately we were
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struck by the pandemic M and um it was a
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difficult time for us and um we had to
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Pivot to start doing virtual events
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there were barely any in-person events
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during the pandemic so we realized that
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okay most customers are switching into
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virtual events so during the pandemic we
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pivoted to a virtual EV solution and as
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the pandemic ended we realized okay some
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of our customers are going back and the
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world is returning to a normaly and
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there was a need for hybrid events so we
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took about a year or so trying to
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perfect the hybrid event management
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solution fast forward our journey 5
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years later so right now we are an
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all-in-one event management solution so
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we geted to event organizers that host
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conferences trade shows Expo so the
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biggest launch that we're having right
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now is that we are Expo ready Expos are
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huge events trade shows convention
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centers this convention center is huge
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we have about 50 exhibitors downstairs
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um and a lot of our new release is
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around how do we equip event organizers
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to manage any kind of event it could be
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a conference it could be a trade show
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but largely around trying to get large
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trade shows managed using Z backstage
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you know we heard some of the features
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during the presentation today but I
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wonder if you could just detail some of
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them for me the specific features that
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that uh that backstage can provide for
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you if you if you're running an event
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yep so the basics are of of course the
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website the ticketing which we launched
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5 years ago um there are like three main
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parts of of a successful event one is
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keeping your attes engaged keeping your
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exhibitors delighted they have to
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measure the ROI and the speaker
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management side of it your speakers
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should know what sessions they are
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presenting how are they presenting the
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basics the logistics and all that so
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let's start with the exhibitor
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management which is what we're focusing
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on right now let's take the planning
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experience for instance right when when
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you're planning an
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expo a group of event organizers are
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working with like 300 exhibitors right
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it involves applying for a particular
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Booth a particular category looking at
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the floor plan trying to pick the right
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booth and unfortunately today most event
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organizers still use physical maps they
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just circle a particular booth number
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and say it's been a lot it to Zoho 3
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weeks later they say oh that was an
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accident some other exhibitor booked it
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we don't have that Booth available
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anymore so that's a paino we're
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specifically solving using our Dynamic
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floor planel so event organizers can
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simply create a dynamic floor plan it'll
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be up on the website and as a
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prospective exhibitor you can zoom into
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the floor plan the diagrams and
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specifically look at hey Booth 101 seems
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interesting it comes with these benefits
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it costs these many dollars and you can
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just make the booking right away oh neat
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so that's just a very transparent way of
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helping event organized ERS sell exhibit
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spaces and even for exhibitors it gives
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a sense of reassurance that it is a very
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transparent floor and there are no
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surprises because you pay for what you
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see and you get the exact Booth by
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visualizing the event floor layout
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where's the traffic coming from where's
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the stage so on and so forth moving on
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to another specific solution most
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exibitors are there for brand visibility
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and to measure that they need to capture
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leads right
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and again most of them at the biggest of
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trade shows still have a fish ball in
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their book they still exchange business
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cards and scribble notes behind so a
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specific solution that we've launched um
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very recently is a lead scanning app
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okay all they have to do is scan the QR
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code rate the lead add notes and they're
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done you don't have to worry about
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losing a card you don't have to worry
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about scribble notes you can export them
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and syn it to your CRM it's seamless
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now moving on to the planner side of
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things right the planner side of things
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as an organizer one key Focus area we've
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identified is that organizers struggle
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to keep their attendees
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engaged it's very hard to come up with
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the perfect agenda with best speakers to
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ensure that your attendees are there
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throughout the event day right what can
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make it interesting is creating an
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experience in the event that makes
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attendees feel that they're part of the
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event
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and to help with that we've launched a
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custom app builder through which
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attendees can network with each other so
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we have also introduced Zia and it's an
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AI powered matchmaking right so even at
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this event there're about 2,000
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attendees in this event using the
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zoholics app Zia will understand your
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profile it'll look at what are your
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interest it'll look at your company name
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your designation your job title and
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it'll recommend relevant attendees
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through the app that's one part of it
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we've also gamified the entire event
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experience so in the keynote today uh
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Taylor mentioned that you can win an
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iPad right all you have to do is play
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the game and what's the game you open
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the app you favorite an exhibitor you
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get points you walk up to a booth and
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get your bad scan you get points you
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attend a session you get points yeah and
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and if you're engaged throughout the
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event you get some prizes so there's a
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motivation there to attend event
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and it it just makes the whole
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experience fun and memorable right so as
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an
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organizer most organizers are worried
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about two things getting the operations
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right are the attendees reaching the
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venue on time can I print the badges
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before hand do they have the right
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instructions to go to The Venue have I
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printed signage all across the venue
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that's the operations part the other
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part is how do I create a delightful
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experience for my
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how do I Delight my exhibitors how do I
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ensure that my participants return for
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the next Edition and that's the kind of
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uh solutions that we've been focusing on
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and I'm happy to announce that they're
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all available in in Zoho backstage well
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you know I you also mentioned that about
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today's event and I understand that
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backstage was was used part of Z holics
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2024 could you talk a little more about
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that I mean what kinds of things did you
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did you you mentioned some of them but
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yep yep so it starts with the event
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website which was built using backstage
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z.com the ticketing solution was on Zoho
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backst see all the registrations that we
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managed um all the workshop
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registrations the attendees who
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purchased tickets the general admission
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tickets we also hosted Zoho Inspire
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which was a day prior all the
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registrations were managed using Zoho
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backstage for exhibitors the floor plan
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was up on the website for them to
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visualize and manage their profile the
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lead scanning app was used for
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exhibitors and in general we built a
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custom branded app for zoholics which is
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the event app through which attendees
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skin Network so they can look at the
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agenda they can plan their agenda add
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sessions to the calendar they can
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network with other people through the
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app the AI based networking that I
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talked about uh the app also has a
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social wall where attendees can dis post
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images it's more like a social media
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wall exclusive to all the event part
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where you can comment on other people's
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Post in fact there are a couple of uh
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meetups being organized through the app
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so a couple of attes this post on the
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wall saying hey I'm arriving early does
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anyone want to catch up for drinks
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tonight and we had like 10 people
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comment on that saying I'm in let's meet
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right so we're trying to create a
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community experience where most events
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are about trying to build a community
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right yeah absolutely if I meet you
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today I want to meet you again next year
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I want to remember this conversation I
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want to remember the event of experience
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but I want to make new connections right
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so all of these features are available
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in in the zolix app and and I hope I've
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covered all the solutions that uh we
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we've been using because uh
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operationally also we have other
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Solutions like even printing the badges
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yeah yeah so the badges that uh were
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printed at this event were also through
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Zoho backstage neat so you can print
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badges also yep in fact this particular
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event um we have our Hardware rental
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partner chent they're sponsoring this
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event and we have an exclusive
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partnership with them where we've worked
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on some Integrations with a Zebra
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printer which helps us print wirelessly
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through the iPad so all you have to do
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is walk up to the iPad it's like a self-
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registration kiosk scan your badge or
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find your ticket and click on print
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it'll wirelessly print and have your
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badge right away well Soo calls this a
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holistic event management software I'm
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wondering what we mean by holistic in
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this in this context by holistic I mean
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it includes all the stakeholders right
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so when you look at an event most of
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them might think of solutions that
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optimize for event organizers for event
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planets right how do we make the life of
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even even Planet e but we're calling it
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a holistic tool because we're not just
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looking at the even planets we're
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looking at exhibitors how do we create
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Roi for exhibitors we're looking at
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attende
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how do we help event planners create
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that memorable experience and we're
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looking at speakers as well so there are
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so many stakeholders involved in the
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event and we're trying to cater to each
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and every one of them um you know uh I
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understand that back backstage has
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undergone some expansion you talked a
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little bit about that about where you
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started where you came from U what are
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the new things that are available as
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it's available now what are the new
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things that people have maybe used it
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before uh will find new about it yeah so
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something that we launched today M was
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uh the contact sharing feature right so
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I talked about the badge printing
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feature yeah all the badges will have a
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QR code which is being generated using
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backstage and we have ex expanded the
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contact sharing module between
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exhibitors and now we're expanding it to
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attendees as well so all you have to do
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is open the app scan the QR code and the
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business card gets exchanged digitally
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on both our apps
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that feature which was available only
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for exhibitors is now available for all
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attendees on the app another aspect that
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is new is the gamification experience
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it's something that we launched uh just
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a couple of weeks ago where you can
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create a leaderboard and customize the
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challenges where hey you get 100 points
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for bookmarking a session on the agenda
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you get 50 points for just showing up at
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the event you get 500 points for
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scheduling a meeting with another
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attendee this is something that we
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recently launched and our customers
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would find it new and engaging because
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it in a way incentivizes the attendee to
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participate in they feel a part of the
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event and if you're really serious and
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want to win that price I I I saw a
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couple of attendees where they
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bookmarked every single session they met
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every single exhibitor and and they're
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really desperate to win that iPad yeah
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let me ask you uh you know I was
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thinking about it as you were talking
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about the various applications I mean uh
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besides for an industry event like this
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can can you just speculate some of the
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other events that maybe people wouldn't
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be thinking about that this might be a
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great fit for yeah absolutely so U as I
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said we started off small we started off
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as this a titing solution and during the
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pandemic we had uh a solution built for
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hosting virtual events and we still
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realize that even though we're far away
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from the pandemic now right meeting
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people with tending events a lot of our
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customers still have a need for hosting
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events are hybrid or virtual it could be
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a workshop it could be a training
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session it could just be a small
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community Meetup right right so it this
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New Market expansion although is for
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exhibitors and and for large
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organizations that are doing large Expos
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there are solutions available for small
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event organizers that just need a system
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to register people through a website or
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perhaps they just need U something more
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better than a meeting to tool and
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probably something to do with hybrid
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where like say on day one you all meet
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up on day two it's a virtual session day
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three it can be a recorded session that
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continues so there are different aspects
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of events that that we C to but the
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biggest one that we want to focus on is
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the exhibitor management because there
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are a lot of moving parts and a lot of
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points which haven't been met yet but
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the Small Time Event organizers the
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community meetups that's all possible as
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well and and there are a lot of our
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customers that use that as well okay
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well is backstage part of the main Zoho
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package and and uh and how do you get
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started with it yes it is it is included
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in Zoho one so one thing that was tricky
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was um trying to figure out how do we
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map backstage into the Zoho one bundle
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because Zoho one is is for most of your
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internal employees right right like I
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have I run a 25 member team I buy 25
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licenses and I'm sorry but with
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backstage it's it's for your customer's
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customer right yes I can I I could be a
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25 member company but I could be running
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an event with 25,000 Ates mhm right so
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we we're trying to figure out how does
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this fit in the Zoho one bundle and what
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we've decided is to offer one event
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license for one
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organization which they can try and use
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for hosting an internal event or an
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external event and if if they are
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comfortable with the platform or if they
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want to host more events
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um they can purchase the addon but by
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default um every Zoho One customer gets
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to use one Zoho backstage license which
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is included in in in the Zohan account
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and they can use it anytime so the
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validity is lifetime so you may have an
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event need next year or maybe a future
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need but you can use that license
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anytime and if you want to do more
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events you can subscribe through an ad
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cool cool well again uh product badija
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and uh you're the product manager at
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Zoho backstage and I'm Sean hessinger
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and from small business Trends and I'm
15:34
reporting from zoholics 2024 thanks for
15:36
watching
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