Building Demo Day 2026

My role

I run marketing and digital programming at Operators Guild, and Demo Day is our flagship online event of the year, owned end to end by my marketing team. Aside from sponsorship pricing and payment terms, which OG's leadership handled, I led nearly every part of it, with great support from the team.

• I ran project management and the run of show for both days.
• I owned every piece of communication, from the landing page to the last recap email.
• I designed the format, including the categories, the session order, and the 10-plus-5 rhythm.
• I set up the Zoom webinars and ran every session live.
• I prepped each presenting company with demo feedback and practice runs.
• I built the processes and AI workflows that held it all together.

A format built for busy operators

Senior finance and operations leaders want to compare tools side by side, and they don't want to sit through a dozen sales calls to do it. So every session covered one category, with four to seven companies presenting back to back. Each got ten minutes to demo and five minutes for live questions, and a committee of senior operators vetted every tool before it earned a slot.

I named the sessions the way operators talk about the work, so anyone scanning the lineup could find their problem in a few seconds.

One registration, six events

For attendees, signing up took one form where they chose the sessions they wanted. Behind that form sat six separate events in Gatsby, each with its own Zoom webinar, passcode, confirmation email, and reminders. I wrote and built the landing page, shipped it into OG's Webflow site, and set up a page for each session with details on every company presenting.

Presenting companies received a full promotion package: a listing in OG's newsletter to 9,000 senior operators, a dedicated email for each category, organic social, a paid LinkedIn campaign, their session recording, the attendees who raised a hand to learn more, and the opt-in registration list for their session. The program brought in significant sponsorship revenue for OG.

Running the day

All six sessions ran as Zoom webinars, with questions coming in through the Q&A panel. I ran the Zoom for every session, kept presenters on time, and moved questions to the right company. Thirty minutes before each session, registrants got a reminder in one consistent format, with the date in both Pacific and Eastern time, the join link written out in full, and the passcode on its own line so nothing got misread.

Following up the same day

Each evening, people who attended and people who didn't got different follow-ups, sent from segmented lists built on Zoom check-in data. Members got a link to the recordings, non-members were invited to reach out, and everyone got a short feedback form. Day 2 attendees also received special offers from two presenting companies. After the event, I turned the Q&A into a piece on what operators are prioritizing in 2026.

Where AI earned its keep

An event with six sessions creates hundreds of small updates, and every one of them has to be right in six places. I built AI workflows that connected to Gatsby and updated all six events at once, from descriptions and presenter lists to reminder and recap emails. The same approach drafted session-specific emails in our house format, built the promo kits, and scored non-member registrants against OG's ideal member profile so our team knew who to follow up with first.

Handing the repetitive work to automation gave me back the time for the parts that need a person: a prep call with every company, real feedback on their demos, and a calm, well-run room on the day.

The results

• More than 850 senior operators registered for the six sessions.
• Twenty-eight vetted companies presented across two mornings.
• Attendees rated the event as highly as last year's.
• The program brought in significant sponsorship revenue for OG.
• The Q&A became a new piece of content on operator priorities.