VFairs

Mohamed Yunus spent 11 years working as an internal entrepreneur at Bayt, the Middle East's leading job site (backed by Tiger Global Management). In 2016, after moving to North America, he spotted a niche opportunity: companies desperately needed better tools to run virtual events. There was no elegant solution for virtual career fairs, job fairs, or trade shows. So rather than leave the parent company entirely, he conceptualized VFairs as a spinout with full operational control as CEO, internally funded by Bayt.

VFairs launched in 2016 with a focused value proposition: a software-as-a-service platform designed specifically for enterprises running online events. The team grew methodically to 20 people spread across Dallas, Toronto, Dubai, and Pakistan, reflecting their global customer base. The dual pricing model emerged organically: companies running 5+ events annually opted for $30,000 annual licenses, while one-off event planners paid $6,000 per event. This hybrid approach solved the seasonality problem that typically plagues event software—even though events cluster seasonally, repeat customers created a predictable revenue base.

Mohamed's early customers came almost entirely through inbound word-of-mouth. "Almost 80% of our business is purely incoming," he explained. Major clients like Nestle, AT&T, and T-Mobile began using VFairs for their virtual career fairs and hiring events. As these Fortune 500 executives spoke with peers, they'd ask, "How can we replicate what AT&T is doing?" and eventually knock on VFairs' door. The magic was simple: deliver excellent service, and let happy enterprise customers do the selling. Only two months before this interview, VFairs hired its first outbound sales team—a testament to the strength of inbound demand.

The repeat customer dynamic proved to be the secret weapon. As of this interview, 60% of revenue came from repeat business. On the annual cohort, churn was nearly nonexistent at 5% (95% renewal rate), while the per-event cohort showed 80% repeat usage. Customer acquisition fully weighted, including salaries and all delivery costs, landed at roughly $4,000–$5,000 per customer, with payback in under six months. Monthly Google AdWords spend of $10,000 drove lead generation efficiently. The only channel that hadn't been heavily explored yet was aggressive outbound sales, which Mohamed had just begun testing.

By the time of this interview, VFairs was running at $165,000 MRR, with an expected $2M ARR by year-end (up from roughly $80,000 MRR a year prior—100% year-over-year growth). The company was profitable and bootstrapped, needing no external capital yet. A 50-50 revenue split between annual licenses and per-event fees provided both predictability and volume. With 65+ customers on annual contracts and 100+ running single events, VFairs had cracked the enterprise virtual events market. Mohamed remained open to external funding as the business scaled further, but showed no urgency—he was more focused on maintaining the growth trajectory and exploring new customer segments.