An End of 2020 Letter From the EVA Founders

“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” — Serena Williams

If anything was learned in 2020, it was the importance of resilience. No one could have expected the havoc this year would bring, and while we are extremely grateful that our friends, families, and team are all healthy at this point in time, what happened to our industry was truly unimaginable.

We will never forget the day we sat in lawn chairs outside of our office, looking at one another and having no idea how we would move forward as a business. We were a company focused on providing incredible live entertainment for large corporate events. Nothing about our business model sounded good on March 13th. But we did not give up. We decided that we would try to see this as an opportunity for our business, and that we would severely modify our strategy when we reentered the market. Little did we know, this moment would forever change our company’s path.

For the next three months we were in an intensive iteration mode with our team. We virtually met every day at 10am to talk about the potential opportunity EVA had in this new industry. We went down many rabbit holes and threw everything at the wall (shoutout to our first virtual event clients for giving us a shot when we didn’t know what the heck we were even doing). And finally… it clicked.

We had built a brand new model around the idea of curating meaningful experiences booked specifically for virtual events. We found that there was a need for entertainment in virtual events, it just looked a lot different. These performances needed to be much more engaging, and one day, these experiences will be booked for hybrid and in person events too with a new perspective gained. (A shoutout is also in order to all the entertainers who completely changed up their set to make it work for virtual events — it was beautiful to watch them become more creative than ever.)

We made it through 2020. We survived. And we believe that’s because we took the time and care to work through the recovery. This new version of our business grew rapidly, and now we can confidently say that it will be a main pillar of EVA’s model moving forward.

All of this would not have been remotely (*pun intended*) possible without our team. They are resilient and extremely tenacious, and that is why we are able to write this message to you today. But it also wouldn’t have been possible without you. You are a part of our community and we hope that we are considered a part of yours. This year has taught us how important finding common ground and understanding is between one another, and we hope we can always be of service to you with empathy and in a meaningful way.

2020 has somehow almost finished up, and we now have the chance to look upon a new year together. We don’t know what 2021 holds, but we do know it will be a year filled with growth both personally and professionally.

Take care, be safe, and stay healthy. We look forward to working alongside you in the new year!

With love, Makenzie and Channing (Co-Founders of EVA)

*This letter was shared with our community at EVA and we wanted to share it with our Medium community too.*