Easol
Easol is the first of its kind all-in-one experience commerce platform which is built to support experience businesses globally, across all sectors, including festivals, wellness retreats, food and drink and sports and adventure packages, by giving them complete control of their business, to drive more direct sales, retain more revenue, own their data and run their business on their terms.
The platform was founded by former festival founders, Lisa and Ben Simpson in 2017, after the husband and wife team endured challenges and frustrations first hand while setting up and growing their own experience business. In just four years, the company has acquired an impressive customer base, with big industry players including Ibiza Rocks, Global Cycle Network, The Sunday Times, and Envision Festival all using Easol to manage and grow and manage their experience business. Backed by Notion, Y Combinator, Foundation Capital (Netflix and Uber), Slow Ventures (Facebook founding team) and Micheal Zeisser - previously Chief Investment Officer at Alibaba - Easol's mission is to be the first experience commerce platform that puts the technology, the ownership and the possibilities in the hands of the experience creator.
Ben and Lisa met working together 12 years ago at Rough Hill – the UK’s largest millennial events and marketing agency. At age 22, Ben was Managing Director and Lisa was Project Manager and Lead Creative. Together they led the design and build of an internal technology platform that enabled the business to scale to 1000+ staff across the UK, with 2000 events and 2m customers annually – it sold to Chime PLC in 2012. In 2014, Ben and Lisa created Rise – Europe’s leading snow sports and music festival with 5000 attendees, and Beyond Adventures, a series of adventure parties in remote locations like the Sahara desert and the Swedish Archipelago. Frustrated by the lack of tools to run and grow their experience business, they decided to build their own software. With a deep knowledge of selling travel and experiences, they understand first-hand the challenges of this and what it takes to scale. Ben and Lisa set out to build Easol to enable a new generation of entrepreneurs motivated by experiences, not things who are turning their hand to building businesses from their passions. Ben studied E-commerce and Web Development in Leeds and Lisa has an MA in Creative and Media Enterprise from the University of Warwick.
