May 1, 2024 • 46 mins
On today's episode, Heather Hoesch Olsen, interviews Steven Greitzer, who is the founder and CEO of Provenance.
After officiating weddings for years and feeling frustrated and shocked by the lack of resources for couples and their first time officiants, he founded Provenance in 2021 to modernize ceremony design. Today, tens of thousands of wedding planners, couples, officiants, bridal party, and other toast givers used Provenance's suite of tools to craft meaningful and personalized wedding ceremony scripts, vows, and toasts for modern day weddings.
In this episode, they talk about Stephen's entrepreneurial journey, his experience in tech, and how a wild ride at one tech company led him to rethink his vision and his future. You'll hear how much Heather loves the Providence tools and how you can use them to provide additional value for your clients and ensure every part of their wedding is well planned.
In this episode, hear more about:
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Stephen Greitzer, founder of Providence, shares his journey from working in the technology industry to starting his own company.
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He discusses his experience at Quibi and the challenges they faced. He then explains how he became an officiant for weddings and the lack of resources available for creating personalized ceremonies.
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This led him to start Providence, a platform that helps couples and officiants create unique and authentic wedding ceremonies. The platform also caters to other stakeholders involved in weddings, such as fathers of the bride, maids of honor, and wedding planners. Provenance provides tools for wedding planners to create personalized and impressive ceremonies, vows, and toasts.
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The tools include a ceremony builder, vow builder, toast builder, welcome toast builder, and thank you note builder. These tools help wedding planners de-risk potential chaos during weddings and ensure that every element of the wedding weekend is of high quality.
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Provenance has received endorsements from celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss and has a collaborative approach to the wedding industry.
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The company prioritizes customer service and solving real problems for couples and wedding planners.
Connect with Provenance:
Listeners can get 20% off our subscription to help clients write personalized and impressive ceremonies, vows, and toasts with code PLA20.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Heather Hoesch Olsen (00:59.586)Hi, planners. Welcome back to today's show. I have a very special guest here with me today. Welcome, Stephen. Stephen Greitzer here from Provenance, one of my favorite tools. Hi, Stephen.
(00:01):
Steven Greitzer (01:18.343)Hi Heather, thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (01:21.474)Absolutely. If you have been listening anytime recently or seen any of my emails or Instagram posts, you know that Provenance is one of those tools that once I learned about it and learned about the team, it's something I can't stop shouting from the rooftop. So we'll start at the beginning though, Steven. I want to learn more about you and how you got to be the founder of Provenance. So if you don't mind starting a bit from the beginning.
Steven Greitzer (01:50.855)Absolutely, happy to go all the way back and before I do just thank you so much again for having me and for all your support and advocacy and for using us with for yourself and with your clients too. It means the world to us and we're excited to share a bit more about how we got here. So yes, I'm Stephen Greitzer. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and my path and career to date has been mostly within the technology industry.
I went to Stanford for undergrad and for grad school where I studied product design and management engineering. I then went to go work in Venture Capital for some of Los Angeles' largest venture capital firms. And then I went on to go work on the operating side, looking for a variety of technology companies. And it had long been my belief and my passion and my career ambition to use technology to solve real problems. And I love the game of technology entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship more generally. My grandfather and my father were both entrepreneurs. So I always knew that I aspired to go build something myself. And I was particularly excited to do so at the scale that technology allows. But entrepreneurship itself was a game that I always knew which is part of my DNA and part of my passion. And frankly, it's something that I've really loved about being a part of the wedding industry as well. And that really everybody is an entrepreneur in the wedding industry trying to collaborate with one another to go solve problems on behalf of our shared clients.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (03:30.754)Yeah, I think entrepreneurial vision and desire is not actually something most wedding planners or most wedding industry people have. A lot of us get into the wedding industry. We don't mean to be entrepreneurs. We don't mean to run our own business. It's just kind of what happens. So I love that that was part of your vision and your passion and what got you here. Tell us a little bit about some of your roles in those tech companies. What did your day to day look like? What were your responsibilities?
Steven Greitzer (04:02.855)So first, when I was a venture capitalist, I was investing in early stage entrepreneurs. So a big part of my role was to take entrepreneurs who had a dream and vision out for coffee to learn more about themselves, hear their pitch, look at their business plans, and help decide on behalf of my firm who we should invest in to help partner with them as they grow their businesses over the years ahead.
And it was an amazing job. I'm certainly a bit of a nerd myself. So the opportunity to just learn about all these different approaches to business and types of industries and the like was always fascinating to me. And I loved getting to partner and collaborate with entrepreneurs early on in their journey. And then I had always still had a desire to go play the game myself rather than being a coach on the sidelines. And I got the opportunity with what was a pretty wild story within the technology industry and that was Quibi. Quibi was a mobile entertainment startup founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was a former president and head of Disney Animation Studios back in the late 80s and early 90s. He was behind Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, all those movies at the moment back then. And then he went on to co-found and become CEO of DreamWorks, on a lot alongside David Gaffin and Steven Spielberg. And then after DreamWorks, he went on to found Wunderco, which in turn incubated Quibi. And he brought on as his co -founder and partner, Meg Whitman. He was the former CEO of eBay and CEO of HP. So you had a Titan of Hollywood, partner of the Titan of Silicon Valley. You had the CFO of Wunderco. And then you had me, a bright eyed and bushy tailed young operator, who was really there as often joked, Jeffrey's Golden Retriever to go bark and go fetch and go do anything and everything we needed in order to go found and build this company. It was a wild, wild story at the time from really 2017 and through 2020 could be raised the largest seed round in Silicon Valley history. It raised a billion dollars to found a company that was intended to basically be Netflix on your phone.
The idea being that while you're on your commute or on the go throughout your day or at the doctor's office or online at Starbucks or wherever, you can look down your phone and watch premium entertainment content designed for those interstitial minutes of 10 minutes or less throughout your day. We built a 300 person company, all this content, a whole product. I was chief of staff and then head of ops and head of international. And it was a wild, wild ride. And we launched, as we had long expected, on April 6, 2020, three weeks into a global pandemic where no one was on the go. And while that certainly took the wind out of our sails, we certainly also made plenty of mistakes, but with a little bit less margin for error, given the nature of Hollywood shutdown during the pandemic, and it failed spectacularly.
Steven Greitzer (07:18.503)And by end of 2020, I went from being the first employee to one of the last employees as we closed up shop and shut the whole thing down. I grew up tremendously from this experience. It was a wild ride. I had some of the best bosses I could have ever asked for. And it was definitely a huge challenge as we hit such a big speed bump with the pandemic and our plans went to nothing. But I'm grateful every day for that experience as it has.
Steven Greitzer (07:47.751)I've completely changed how I go about playing my game now as an entrepreneur on my own accord.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (07:52.482)What a masterclass in startup tech and then honestly, you learn so much from failing. What did you do next?
Steven Greitzer (08:03.559)So first, after that wild experience, I needed to take a little bit of a break. I moved to Hawaii, drank a few pina coladas and did some soul searching on the beaches of Hawaii for a little bit. I was pretty burnt out. I, I know I needed it more today. I was pretty wiped out. So I took a break. And in the meantime, I knew I wanted to go stretch to my own and knew I wanted to go solve a problem. One where I could really be collaborative with my users and make sure that I was really solving a problem that people needed solved. And I was thinking through all the areas where, you know, you might've heard of, we use this framework in the tech industry often called product market fit, when you have a product that really resonates with the market and takes on a life of its own. I really believe in founder market fit as well, that you find a problem in a market opportunity that you really feel passionate about and authentically connected to. And I had a list of ideas, but I had one in particular that was always eating away at me that I knew was the one that I was the right person to go solve. And that became a basis for Provenance.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (09:12.802)I love it. And were there any other ideas that you pushed aside that you would be open to sharing? Like any fun ones that just maybe weren't going to see the light of day?
Steven Greitzer (09:24.423)You know, I had a few that felt like good business opportunities, but I wasn't passionate about. And then I had a few that felt like things I was really passionate about, but did not really feel like would make for a viable business. And what I really loved about this pursuit is the one that felt like it had a bit of both. Where I had that tremendous passion, but I also knew that I could build something that would potentially last. Still certainly playing a risk ahead of us, but we really feel like we're on our way to prove that we have a right to be here and that we'll be here for quite some time. How about two, if you want two examples.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (09:56.322)Yeah. So tell us. Yeah, do you have them? If you're willing to share, no pressure.
Steven Greitzer (10:21.383)Certainly, it's funny, it's bringing me back to this very different time. One idea that felt like a good viable business idea, but I was not passionate about at all. If you'll remember back in the pandemic, there was this huge explosion of people purchasing these connected fitness devices like Pelotons, so much so that the supply chain was completely overrun because people were over ordering these and then people were reselling them for like 2X. So one idea that myself and a close friend of mine pursued for a little bit was like a CarMax for connected fitness equipment where you buy and certify and clean and resale connected fitness equipment. I still think there might be a there there, but like now it's not getting me excited to get out there in the morning. To be honest, this was not the calling that I had. And it's knowing how hard any business is to pursue something that you were not personally passionate about. It's just, it's just too hard to do that. Um, so that was not for me. The other side, an idea that I was tremendously passionate about, but I just wasn't sure where to even get started with it. It was actually an idea that my grandfather gave me. My grandfather passed in that summer of 2021 and in his passing beyond how hard it was just deal with you know our own bereavement as well as the funeral of Justice in the Light I watched my grandma he was honored with many friends and family who wanted to support she just got a tsunami of baked goods deli meats flowers, etc. Really none of which was particularly helpful. You had a lady to your grandma bringing platters of cookies, deli meats down to the street every day and flowers are rotting on her kitchen counter. So one idea that we toyed around with was more like a Zola for funerals where you can provide a registry of sorts to outline the similar things that you might actually want to need. I still love the idea too and perhaps for the fullness of time we might touch on parts of that through Provenance. Because we will for the time untouch on other life milestones.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (12:00.322)Wait, I kind of love this.
Steven Greitzer (12:11.719)I do love the idea, but at the same time, I just felt like the funeral space itself, while there are so many problems endemic to it, and I'm sure the wedding planning industry and many of our partners and collaborators, be it venues or florists and the like, touch on those events sometimes, there are a lot of challenges to even getting started in that space that did not seem like the happiest game to go play at first, and I was much more inspired by weddings. So hence, while we're here today.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (12:42.466)Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing. So tell us a bit more about your vision behind Provenance and what did you think was the main issue needed solving and then how has that changed?
Steven Greitzer (12:59.623)So it's funny, sometimes these ideas find us rather than we find these ideas. And this is one that's certainly the case. I don't think that I woke up one morning and decided, hey, I want to go into the wedding space. But it's something that really hit me like a truck. And I knew that there was a problem that I had some expertise and some practice in solving that I wanted to go help others with as well. So about eight years ago now, I was asked by two of my best friends to officiate their wedding, which was one of the great honors of my life, but was also a huge burden and challenge that I now had to contend with. And over the many months leading up to the wedding, I was terrified and incredibly stressed and nervous as I had to figure out how to coalesce together from scratch a wedding ceremony that felt traditionally legitimate and spiritually resonant, and legally compliant and was perhaps secular, but doesn't offend grandma and is personalized and customized unique for the couple. And doesn't feel like a best man toast or a bit of honor toast. It feels like something novel for the two of them and balanced. And is actually good and impressive in front of a crowd of 200 people. I was terrified and there really was no structure or guidance out there to really help me crack this challenge.
Um, and as nervous as I was, I saw many of my friends were continuing the same. And today nearly 60 % of weddings are now officially by friends and family. Uh, but luckily through a lot of effort, a lot of stress, I stepped up to the plate and my first wedding went very, very well and so well that I got the honor and again, the challenge of being asked to do this again and again and again and again over that year and in the year since, on behalf of other close friends and family members. Each time, an incredible honor, each time an incredible challenge. But each time I started building for myself my own process and rubric and platform and approach to how to do this. And ultimately, as I started being asked by friends and friends of friends and friends of friends for my notes and my approach, I realized, hey, there might be an opportunity here to build something a bit more robust that can be shared with not just my community, but with tens of thousands, about hundreds of thousands out there who are wrestling with the same challenge each year.
(00:22):
Heather Hoesch Olsen (15:33.698)It's so smart. It like, for someone who's been doing this for so long, this is my 20th year in this industry. I just can't believe someone hasn't done this before. I definitely have seen the shift from more religious officiants to professional officiants to more friends and family members doing ceremonies. And often I would get the question, where do I send my officiant to get ordained?
Okay, easy, check, got that one. And then how do they write their ceremony? And thankfully there was a book that an officiant friend of mine that had written. It was an ebook. I used to send it to everyone. It was like 20 bucks or something and just say, buy this, read this, do this, because it was the only resource I had to give them. So when I met Morgan and first talked with her about what you guys were creating, I couldn't believe that it didn't already exist. And then also, it's a question I now have an answer to.
Steven Greitzer (16:37.415)I tremendously appreciate that. And we are so grateful already to all the clients that you've sent our way and sent us to. And, you know, I found just when it faced this problem myself and not knowing where to even start, they're like, yes, there might be some digital templates and alike online where it's like mad lib style, or you just insert names and certain attributes here and there. And those are pretty good at perhaps quickly getting you to some sort ofmgeneric speech of sorts that can be used for any wedding. But if there's one thing that this speech cannot be, it's generic. If anything, this should be among the most personal and authentic and genuine speeches you ever develop in your life. So it became very important to us. And we are obsessed with making sure that we're actually solving the problems that our users bring to us, that we're actually doing this on behalf of every single client to make sure that every single client is happy as much so as we possibly can control, given that the stakes are high for every individual wedding. So we want to make sure that every time a client uses our tool, what they get back is something that is tremendously personalized, authentic, unique, and the right fit for them to make sure that we deliver for every client every time. So we knew we needed to develop something that levered technology in a different way, it was not just some sort of plug and play generic template.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (18:08.834)I love it. When you set out to start this and launch this, were you really focused on someone like you that was asked to be an officiant or were you already thinking, oh, we need to tag in the couple getting married at the beginning or did that evolve?
Steven Greitzer (18:25.703)It's funny. So very quickly into the journey, we realized that some of our expectations were right and some of our hypotheses are wrong, which is I think something that's critically helpful for any company that's really starting out early on in their journey. Just ask somebody who had been at Fish Hand for years, I was most familiar with that stakeholder. And certainly some of the earliest versions of our prototypes were very much oriented toward the Fish Hands.
But we use an approach to building products called user centered design, where we put the user first and everything that we develop. We are talking to users, prospective users, interviewing them about their needs and their problems and making sure we design this in a way that fits those needs and problems and truly solves those problems. As well as, as we put the product out there, customer service, the most important thing to us, every member of my team, including myself as CEO, are answering customer service tickets all the time, highlighting things that might be problems and making sure we solve those problems as quickly as possible. And in having such a close relationship with our users, it became very apparent very quickly how many stakeholders really need the software, and how many other problems those stakeholders had that we could go solve for. So we are not just a tool for efficiency by any means. We solve for efficiency, but also for brides for grooms and certainly all types of weddings, be it bride and groom or bride and bride or groom and groom or however someone might identify. As well as we built tools for fathers of the bride, maids of honor, best men, groomsmen, bridesmaids, and certainly for wedding planners as well as we started getting more and more embedded into the challenges around ceremonies, around vows, around toasts, realizing that these are all really collaborative, multi -stakeholder experiences.
We want to make sure that each of our tools fit together for each of these respective folks. So we'll have a wedding count and might have 15 numbers, the wedding party and wedding planner included, who are all using various tools in various ways.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (20:34.466)And so tell us a little bit about the tools for wedding planners. I personally, my favorite part is that I can see the length of the toast, the vows and the ceremony because when I'm building a timeline, I don't trust that dad says his speech is going to be 10 minutes.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (20:55.362)I've learned my lesson that it might be shorter, it might be longer. And so the very first time that I could log into my client's account and see the length of those things, I couldn't believe how did I not have this prior? Like it's the best part just being able, even if I don't touch anything, even if I'm not reading it, I'm not proofreading it, I'm not adding anything. I am literally just checking the timing and printing. That to me is a tool that makes my life so much easier. But let's talk about a planner who isn't as familiar. What tools, like how do they get started? What's the value to their couples? All that fun stuff.
Steven Greitzer (21:36.359)Absolutely. So, you know, it's funny, this is something that really became more and more apparent to us as we started meeting with great wedding planners like yourself and understanding more and more about the stresses you had around these moments. A wedding planner might work with a couple for many months designing every single detail from the stationary to the flowers to the food and everything in between and maybe even making contingency plans in case something goes wrong, like in the event of rain or whatever else.
But increasingly, until really we start developing some of these tools, the one element of the weekend that you could not control, and the elements of the weekend that might have the greatest risk of all, is anytime somebody approaches the microphone. If a father or bride goes for 17 minutes over a lot of time slot, the entrees are going cold in the back. If the officiant is super nervous his first time doing this, you might forget to even have them exchange rings or have the audience sit down or get out of the way during the kiss. So it really became apparent that we're helping wedding planners de-risk this whole source of potential chaos, ensure that they could in turn provide to their couple yet another facet of the wedding weekend that they could solve to that same degree of quality and excellence as everything else. So if I may, just to kind of detail these tools a little bit deeper, it might make sense to first explain what are the tools that your clients have access to because the wedding planner portal really helps enable you to provide these tools to your clients and have some extra controls on top.
So our core tools are as follows. We have a ceremony builder that allows the couple and the officiant to collaborate together to design every facet of the wedding ceremony from any announcements made beforehand to helping the officiant with the officiant remark speech within it, a readings and rituals library, all the legal language that they might need throughout the ceremony and pull it all together into a beautiful 20 minute wedding ceremony or however long they so choose it to be. We have a vow builder that allows both partners to write their vow separately to keep those vowels private. But we use our artificial intelligence technology to give each of them a hint of, hey, her vows are 10 minutes long and so you're super supplemental. Your vows are two minutes of jokes. Maybe you guys should judge it a little bit just to make sure that they're on parity and balance with one another. We have a toast builder.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (24:00.738)I love that part. Sorry, I have to pause you. I love that part so much because I would say that most commonly, if a couple is getting me involved in their vows, they are specifically having me read them to see if they are equitable, if they are equitable in length, in seriousness, in tears, and in jokes. Often they are not. They are typically so far off the mark because someone's decided to pour their heart out that typically doesn't. And the other one is like, oh, I reined it in because they don't typically pour their heart out. So that alone to me, it just sets their marriage up for success that their first thing married is that together. It's equitable. It's good. I think that's so important.
Steven Greitzer (24:50.054)I'm totally with you. Even if both of theirs are totally authentic to each of their personalities and which way they wrote them, it's always a little awkward when the whole crowd goes, well, those did not match or balance each other at all. You really do want to feel like they're at least equal in weight. So we, and I love the tradition of both partners writing them separately and to read for the first time on that day, but does introduce some risk that they might not match up. So our tool helps to diminish that risk at least.
Steven Greitzer (25:20.359)And then for our toast builder, a bride or wedding planner can invite the entire wedding party and say, hey, each of you, please keep your speech to two minutes. And for the love of God, don't mention that story from college or whatever it is that you want to say as a note to each person who's giving a speech. And then your wedding party can use our toast builder tool as well to help ensure that their toasts are of great quality. And frankly, there are a lot of problems throughout all those tools that each of those tools will solve for. But I think that at the end of the day, one of the things that we are often most quoted as helping our couples and their wedding party with is simply there's that super intimidating blinking cursor on a blank page, and they've been procrastinating this speech for months. And now it's up to this final moment. They have all these swirling thoughts and stories and love that they want to express. And we help coalesce all those thoughts together into a beautiful first draft to then iterate and evolve from there. We have a welcome toast builder, a pursue launch, and a thank you note builder. We're building all these other tools all the time, but at least for now, those are our core offerings that people seem to love the most. And for wedding planners, there's a variety of things that we have built on top of all of this that you can then use to offer this to your clients.
So first of all, we've often heard from wedding planners that a couple might come to them with terror in their eyes, four days before the wedding being, oh my God, I don't have a ceremony script for this weekend. Can you please send me one of your past clients for us to plagiarize? It's always a tough dynamic. So this allows you to offer our various tools to your clients. You may need them months in advance just to make sure that this gets out of the way and is done well. As you indicated earlier, Heather, we give you access to your Provenance Pro Portal, to all the speeches where you can see the length of time for each of them, which allows you to logistically accommodate them for them throughout the rehearsal dinner, reception, the ceremony itself. We also give you the opportunity to print extra copies and there's nothing quite like saving a day when a bride's about to walk down the aisle and goes, oh my God, I don't have my vows. And you smile with a wink, hand her a vows from your wedding planner or binder that you have on you.
Steven Greitzer (27:35.367)We allow you to monitor the progress for all the speeches. We can nudge the groom to get his vows done in time. And also to the extent that you want to micromanage or if it's part of your role in dynamic with a couple. You certainly can read and evaluate the various speeches and give feedback too. That's something that research used to do. But through our Provenance Pro Portal, we allow you to either subscribe and offer this to all of your clients throughout the rest of the year or even sell it to your clients all at heart and perhaps even include it within the rest of your bill of offerings that you are providing to your client too.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (28:09.922)I think what I love the most is not only did you create a tool for our couples, but you created a tool where you are giving us an opportunity to add value to the services we provide our client while also alleviating the stressor of someone walking up to that microphone and we're not going to know what they say or how long they're going to say it and what that tone is going to be in all of it. So for me, a very type A control freak, very experienced, very hands -on. I love it. I love that my clients have a place just like Aisle Planner or just like anywhere that we are planning their wedding. This is a secondary tool to plan the ceremony, the part, the whole reason we're here. And then the toast that builds for the video and photos and the entire, you know, part of the day that's sentimental and emotional to them. And so, I think what's interesting is I was talking to a couple of planners and they're like, I don't really get it. What do you mean? And then when I explained to them the access, the how, cause now all of my clients get it. That's one of the first things that they get. Hey, you hired me great. So excited. Also here, here, Provenance Here's the tool for your ceremony, toasts, speeches, vows, everything.
I want to make sure you have this so you can start on it whenever you want, because that's the other thing. I don't have a specific part in my planning process for that because I'm not usually a part of it. So I do often get in the last 30 days, like, Hey, we haven't started this. Hey, I need to do this. And I don't really have time to help them at that point. Like I would much rather give it to them at the beginning. They've hopefully started to chip away about it. I can check it and see if they have, and I have a lot more control on alleviating my client's stress at the end when it's the most stressful. And I don't want them to be stressed. That's my job is to take that away from them. And you help us do that. And so what's fun is, I'm actually going to be an officiant this year for the very first time. My brother is getting married in September and has asked me to be his officiant. Immediately honored, immediately cried, and then immediately panicked.
And was like, Oh my God, I can't believe I have to do this. And then a wave of relief came over me and remembered, I have you, you created a tool where I'm going to be fine. And when I got married a couple of years ago now, a year and a half ago now, um, I emailed Morgan after, and I said, my biggest regret was not using Provenance for my vows. I kind of winged my vows and then I had a crazy wedding story and I didn't get to finish my vows in time. And I, they weren't quite what I wanted and my thank you speech was definitely off the cuff. And I just wish I had put in the time and used the resources that were presented to me to make sure it was perfect. Because at the end of the day, what you say to your future partner and what you say to your family and friends matters. That's what they remember. And so I wish I had spent a little more time on that.
Steven Greitzer (31:23.591)Well, I have no doubt that you'll crush this officient opportunity ahead of you and what an honor and that what an amazing honor to even be asked by your brother in the first place. I'm so excited for you to do so. But you're totally right. You really only have one crack at this and hopefully our clients are really using us once for their wedding. And I hope that they have the words that they deserve and those moments that matter most and these moments in meaning that are really the impetus for the whole weekend and why we're there. And you know, you can't wing the flowers, you can't wing the food choice or the band choice or really anything else. And often it's these speeches that we so often remember most. Of course, all other details are so critical as well, but nonetheless, these are the speeches that really help bring the whole event together. So if you're not winging these other moments, why winging this too? So we definitely encourage the same thoughtful preparation in this fast of the weekend as everything else you do. And we're here to help make that as stress free as possible.
(00:43):
Heather Hoesch Olsen (32:32.322)Love it. Now, as you've gone through this entrepreneurial journey, what have been some hurdles or roadblocks and what have you learned about the wedding industry having not been in it previously?
Steven Greitzer (32:47.847)What a great question. You know, I'd say that my favorite thing with the wedding industry is that as we discussed earlier and touched on, we're all entrepreneurs, even people who are artisans and never considered themselves to be entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, we all had to form a business of our own and are fighting every day to balance what is required to make this a viable business venture that we each live off of as well as a venture that can survive and be our full-time focus, as well as build something that delivers what we so passionately love to do, which is solve on behalf of our shared clients, making sure their day is as special as possible. And be part of an industry where my collaborators, be it wedding planners or other technology ventures, some of whom have become close friends of mine and some of whom I imagine have been on this podcast as well before, I really love getting to play my game alongside this such a collaborative ecosystem where Rising Tide really feels like it raises all ships. So that's been one of my favorite surprises being part of this space. I used to work in entertainment in the technology industry where it really certainly is not that collaborative. In fact, it's very cutthroat competitive where sometimes it feels like a zero sum game. So I do not take that clever nature of this industry for granted at all. It's been an honor to be accepted as a part of this industry myself. So I've loved that. Yeah.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (34:19.01)Now you've gotten some attention from some pretty big planners in the industry. Who might you share is a big fan in endorsing Provenance other than me, obviously.
Steven Greitzer (34:32.167)Well, certainly we are very grateful for your support, Heather, and we do have a number of other amazing wedding planners that have gone to work with over the years that we're super excited to do so. But one wedding planner who has really been an inspiration to many of us in this space, and we are so incredibly grateful for her endorsement, her support, her partnership, and her serving as an advisor to us is celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss, who has really worked at the very top of the wedding game for her entire career, and has been a major role model. She has a master class, written books on the subject. She is a true leader and inspiration. And she has been using Provenance with her own clients for the better part of the last few years and has been an incredible advocate of ours, spreading the word about Provenance to her clients, to her wedding planner peers, and to the industry at large. So we're so excited to have Mindy officially on our team and to be helping us make this thing happen on behalf of as many companies as possible each year and wedding planners.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (35:34.274)Yeah, I'm so glad that she's seen how smart this tool is and really sees the company behind it. The reason I wanted you to share that, I know that wasn't necessarily something you were going to bring up, but there are so many planners who listen to this podcast who look up to Mindy Weiss. She's a titan of industry and someone that I think really sets the bar in so many ways. For me, one of the reasons beyond the tools being good, but I had the opportunity to meet Morgan and Josh pretty early on a couple of years ago and you last year. And one of the things that I love about the three of you is you can tell that you lead with true hospitality, customer service, looking to truly solve those challenges, like you said. Of course, you're running a business. Of course, it's a startup. Of course, you have profit margins in mind and goals, but at the end of the day, it feels like a company that belongs in the wedding industry, not just the tech space, whereas so many companies have come into this industry, they are tech forward, and they just are missing the mark.
They're not listening to couples, they're not listening to planners, they're coming in and trying to take our money, but they're not really trying to solve anything. They're not trying to make our lives easier, they're not trying to add value to the services we provide. And so on behalf of planners and those planners listening who are gonna go sign up for Provenance. Thank you. Thank you for getting what we do and that it's not just a transactional industry. Like you said, so many of us pour our heart and soul into this because not only it's our passion, but it's our whole business and everything we do. And so I really appreciate that you guys recognize that and are not going to be one of the tech companies that come and go briefly.
Steven Greitzer (37:28.103)Of all the compliments you've so generously given me so far today, this is the one that's most important to me. It's very much been a priority for myself and my entire team to prove that we are authentically and genuinely wedding people alongside you. He mentioned, just for those who don't know, who might be listening in, Josh is my head of business development and Morgan's my head of marketing. And the two of them, myself included, and every member of our team, including our designer and engineer, are ordained wedding officiants ourselves who have officiated many weddings before. Morgan's officiated as many weddings as I have. So this has been a long -held passion for every member of my team, regardless of what their role might be within our company itself. Josh actually got married to his now wife, Elena, this past Saturday. And I gotta say, his wedding ceremony in Valsburg was among the very best I've ever seen, as you would hope so, given the company I worked for. But nonetheless, it's something that they so passionately pulled together. It was something that was tremendously, indemnically, authentically important to them. So yes, this is a completely different game. And while, certainly the wedding industry has a lot of reasons why it makes sense for a company to be excited to grow along within that space, you can't be in this space and you can't hope for success unless you are handling the sensitive and high stakes nature of what we're doing with responsibility. At the end of the day, every single one of our clients, we've had 90,000 somewhat couples who trusted their weddings to us up so far today. Every single one of them has a major wedding that is something that we are responsible for. And we handle every single customer service request, every single client with the same amount of care and priority because we're certainly going to do everything we possibly can to make their special moment as special as possible. So, it's something that we care about so significantly. And I myself, as we joked about earlier, before the call started, I'm in that time of my life where I'm going to all my friends' weddings and bachelor parties right now. So, it's so special to me to get to be a supportive player within this space while getting to go enjoy all my friends weddings and watch our tools in action as a groomsman, best man, and sometimes officiant and audience member as well.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (39:59.682)Thank you. And some of the planners listening and other wedding vendors, they may have some idea, something that is a challenge that they want to kind of build a tool or create a business or do something. What advice would you give those people listening?
Steven Greitzer (40:19.303)So first and foremost, you have to go for it. You can't win unless you risk losing. As I quote my dad showed with me when I was like a little kid running for student council, I was like a third grader. And so that still echoes in my head as a driver behind pursuing this in the first place. Because you always could fail and failure is a more likely outcome than not when it comes to building any sort of venture. But you have no chance at succeeding unless you certainly try.
But at the end of the day, when it comes to a pursuit like this, at least one of the tactics that has been so critical for our own progress and success so far has always been putting the user first. And we are developing everything we can for the benefit of our customers. And we have no chance for success unless our customers love what we're doing and spread the word to their friends who might be getting married as well, or their friends who might be wedding planning as well. So by ensuring that every single client has that successful experience, this has allowed us to take on a bit of a life of our own. And that's been really our secret sauce.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (41:33.506)And for someone who maybe is sitting with that fun idea or that passion back when you were in, um, selecting good companies or people with vision to invest in, what was like the key factor to saying yes or no? I know that wasn't always your decision, but like what sort of pitch or company or founder would you get excited about?
Steven Greitzer (41:57.607)So, wow, a variety of things. I would say first and foremost, making sure that the founder has an authentic connection to the problem that they're solving. That's not just some sort of money -making opportunity that they're chasing after, but it's actually something that they have some sort of expertise and demonstrated passion toward, I think is critically important. The quality of the founder and their team as well in terms of their experience, expertise, building anything, and actually showing that they can be responsible of those resources to go and make something happen is critically important too. And then when it comes to the problem that you're solving, making sure that there's some sort of balance between near-term viability, that this is something that can get to a point of generating perhaps enough revenue to sustain itself and it could actually work as a business is critically important.
But also that it has aspirations toward a real market opportunity that could grow and solve this problem for many, many people was critical to at least the game that I was investing into back in the day and how I, the framework I used to evaluate this opportunity to. So it's a myriad of things. And I think that ultimately at the end of the day and to bring this full circle to the query experience that did not work out so well for us, I think that also solving an actual problem that's worth solving on behalf of people who need that problem solved, it might seem simple enough, but at the end of the day, just simply having a creative big idea doesn't necessarily matter as much as making sure that you are providing a solution to a problem that's else.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (43:28.962)Mm -hmm. It's great advice. Last thing. One of the things that is kind of fun about how many weddings and how many users you guys have had over a short amount of time is you now have some real data about the wedding industry. What are a couple of those data points that might be interesting to wedding planners?
Steven Greitzer (43:51.783)So I'd say that the larger trends that we are a part of, that I imagine many wedding planners are feeling themselves as well, is that couples want, perhaps almost more so than almost anything else, to feel that their wedding has been personalized for them, that it's truly an authentic display of their own genuine truth in their own relationship. And our tool has been designed very effortfully to accommodate for that, to ensure that every single one of those 90,000 somewhat weddings on our platform are distinct to that couple, to that officiant, and to the others that are using our tools, as opposed to feeling like it's any sort of carbon copy of anyone else's. And what's really interesting about our vantage point into the ceremony in particular is we also get to get a better sense of how America as a society is evolving too. It's fascinating that today a majority of weddings are officiated by friends and family as opposed to clergy, which traditionally officiated and presided over the vast majority of weddings, which is emblematic of other trends of society, such as how majority of Americans are no longer members of an organized religious institution and their own connections to potentially their familial faith and the like have been evolving with this generation. Within that, as well as what we're seeing at pretty staggering rates is how many interfaith weddings we're seeing in America, where you might have a Jewish Muslim wedding, a Hindu Christian wedding, a Catholic and atheist wedding, or some combination thereof, and still desire by the couple to somehow acknowledge each of their traditions and backgrounds and incorporate that somehow within the wedding ceremony, perhaps having balance with their fiance's cultural background as well. So that's been a really interesting thing to see too.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (45:41.826)I love it. I love that when tech enters the industry, we often get to learn more because as planners, we're busy, our heads are kind of down, we're working with our clients and we kind of forget to take a step back and look at how things are changing. And so we've seen in every facet that couples are wanting more personalization in everything. And it's just such a good reminder that every touch point of any vendor in the industry, they need to keep focused on that.
Well, thank you, Steven, so much for coming and being a guest. For everyone listening, you can get 20% off your subscription to help your clients write personalized and impressive ceremonies, vows and toasts with code PLA20. PLA20 is your code for 20% off. And be sure to find Provenance at @ourprovenance on Instagram.
Steven Greitzer (46:14.887)Thank you so much for having me.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (46:40.738)Of course, visit the show notes so you can make sure to see more information, tools, resources, and see you next time.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (00:59.586)Hi, planners. Welcome back to today's show. I have a very special guest here with me today. Welcome, Stephen. Stephen Greitzer here from Provenance, one of my favorite tools. Hi, Stephen.
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Steven Greitzer (01:18.343)Hi Heather, thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (01:21.474)Absolutely. If you have been listening anytime recently or seen any of my emails or Instagram posts, you know that Provenance is one of those tools that once I learned about it and learned about the team, it's something I can't stop shouting from the rooftop. So we'll start at the beginning though, Steven. I want to learn more about you and how you got to be the founder of Provenance. So if you don't mind starting a bit from the beginning.
Steven Greitzer (01:50.855)Absolutely, happy to go all the way back and before I do just thank you so much again for having me and for all your support and advocacy and for using us with for yourself and with your clients too. It means the world to us and we're excited to share a bit more about how we got here. So yes, I'm Stephen Greitzer. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and my path and career to date has been mostly within the technology industry.
I went to Stanford for undergrad and for grad school where I studied product design and management engineering. I then went to go work in Venture Capital for some of Los Angeles' largest venture capital firms. And then I went on to go work on the operating side, looking for a variety of technology companies. And it had long been my belief and my passion and my career ambition to use technology to solve real problems. And I love the game of technology entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship more generally. My grandfather and my father were both entrepreneurs. So I always knew that I aspired to go build something myself. And I was particularly excited to do so at the scale that technology allows. But entrepreneurship itself was a game that I always knew which is part of my DNA and part of my passion. And frankly, it's something that I've really loved about being a part of the wedding industry as well. And that really everybody is an entrepreneur in the wedding industry trying to collaborate with one another to go solve problems on behalf of our shared clients.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (03:30.754)Yeah, I think entrepreneurial vision and desire is not actually something most wedding planners or most wedding industry people have. A lot of us get into the wedding industry. We don't mean to be entrepreneurs. We don't mean to run our own business. It's just kind of what happens. So I love that that was part of your vision and your passion and what got you here. Tell us a little bit about some of your roles in those tech companies. What did your day to day look like? What were your responsibilities?
Steven Greitzer (04:02.855)So first, when I was a venture capitalist, I was investing in early stage entrepreneurs. So a big part of my role was to take entrepreneurs who had a dream and vision out for coffee to learn more about themselves, hear their pitch, look at their business plans, and help decide on behalf of my firm who we should invest in to help partner with them as they grow their businesses over the years ahead.
And it was an amazing job. I'm certainly a bit of a nerd myself. So the opportunity to just learn about all these different approaches to business and types of industries and the like was always fascinating to me. And I loved getting to partner and collaborate with entrepreneurs early on in their journey. And then I had always still had a desire to go play the game myself rather than being a coach on the sidelines. And I got the opportunity with what was a pretty wild story within the technology industry and that was Quibi. Quibi was a mobile entertainment startup founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was a former president and head of Disney Animation Studios back in the late 80s and early 90s. He was behind Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, all those movies at the moment back then. And then he went on to co-found and become CEO of DreamWorks, on a lot alongside David Gaffin and Steven Spielberg. And then after DreamWorks, he went on to found Wunderco, which in turn incubated Quibi. And he brought on as his co -founder and partner, Meg Whitman. He was the former CEO of eBay and CEO of HP. So you had a Titan of Hollywood, partner of the Titan of Silicon Valley. You had the CFO of Wunderco. And then you had me, a bright eyed and bushy tailed young operator, who was really there as often joked, Jeffrey's Golden Retriever to go bark and go fetch and go do anything and everything we needed in order to go found and build this company. It was a wild, wild story at the time from really 2017 and through 2020 could be raised the largest seed round in Silicon Valley history. It raised a billion dollars to found a company that was intended to basically be Netflix on your phone.
The idea being that while you're on your commute or on the go throughout your day or at the doctor's office or online at Starbucks or wherever, you can look down your phone and watch premium entertainment content designed for those interstitial minutes of 10 minutes or less throughout your day. We built a 300 person company, all this content, a whole product. I was chief of staff and then head of ops and head of international. And it was a wild, wild ride. And we launched, as we had long expected, on April 6, 2020, three weeks into a global pandemic where no one was on the go. And while that certainly took the wind out of our sails, we certainly also made plenty of mistakes, but with a little bit less margin for error, given the nature of Hollywood shutdown during the pandemic, and it failed spectacularly.
Steven Greitzer (07:18.503)And by end of 2020, I went from being the first employee to one of the last employees as we closed up shop and shut the whole thing down. I grew up tremendously from this experience. It was a wild ride. I had some of the best bosses I could have ever asked for. And it was definitely a huge challenge as we hit such a big speed bump with the pandemic and our plans went to nothing. But I'm grateful every day for that experience as it has.
Steven Greitzer (07:47.751)I've completely changed how I go about playing my game now as an entrepreneur on my own accord.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (07:52.482)What a masterclass in startup tech and then honestly, you learn so much from failing. What did you do next?
Steven Greitzer (08:03.559)So first, after that wild experience, I needed to take a little bit of a break. I moved to Hawaii, drank a few pina coladas and did some soul searching on the beaches of Hawaii for a little bit. I was pretty burnt out. I, I know I needed it more today. I was pretty wiped out. So I took a break. And in the meantime, I knew I wanted to go stretch to my own and knew I wanted to go solve a problem. One where I could really be collaborative with my users and make sure that I was really solving a problem that people needed solved. And I was thinking through all the areas where, you know, you might've heard of, we use this framework in the tech industry often called product market fit, when you have a product that really resonates with the market and takes on a life of its own. I really believe in founder market fit as well, that you find a problem in a market opportunity that you really feel passionate about and authentically connected to. And I had a list of ideas, but I had one in particular that was always eating away at me that I knew was the one that I was the right person to go solve. And that became a basis for Provenance.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (09:12.802)I love it. And were there any other ideas that you pushed aside that you would be open to sharing? Like any fun ones that just maybe weren't going to see the light of day?
Steven Greitzer (09:24.423)You know, I had a few that felt like good business opportunities, but I wasn't passionate about. And then I had a few that felt like things I was really passionate about, but did not really feel like would make for a viable business. And what I really loved about this pursuit is the one that felt like it had a bit of both. Where I had that tremendous passion, but I also knew that I could build something that would potentially last. Still certainly playing a risk ahead of us, but we really feel like we're on our way to prove that we have a right to be here and that we'll be here for quite some time. How about two, if you want two examples.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (09:56.322)Yeah. So tell us. Yeah, do you have them? If you're willing to share, no pressure.
Steven Greitzer (10:21.383)Certainly, it's funny, it's bringing me back to this very different time. One idea that felt like a good viable business idea, but I was not passionate about at all. If you'll remember back in the pandemic, there was this huge explosion of people purchasing these connected fitness devices like Pelotons, so much so that the supply chain was completely overrun because people were over ordering these and then people were reselling them for like 2X. So one idea that myself and a close friend of mine pursued for a little bit was like a CarMax for connected fitness equipment where you buy and certify and clean and resale connected fitness equipment. I still think there might be a there there, but like now it's not getting me excited to get out there in the morning. To be honest, this was not the calling that I had. And it's knowing how hard any business is to pursue something that you were not personally passionate about. It's just, it's just too hard to do that. Um, so that was not for me. The other side, an idea that I was tremendously passionate about, but I just wasn't sure where to even get started with it. It was actually an idea that my grandfather gave me. My grandfather passed in that summer of 2021 and in his passing beyond how hard it was just deal with you know our own bereavement as well as the funeral of Justice in the Light I watched my grandma he was honored with many friends and family who wanted to support she just got a tsunami of baked goods deli meats flowers, etc. Really none of which was particularly helpful. You had a lady to your grandma bringing platters of cookies, deli meats down to the street every day and flowers are rotting on her kitchen counter. So one idea that we toyed around with was more like a Zola for funerals where you can provide a registry of sorts to outline the similar things that you might actually want to need. I still love the idea too and perhaps for the fullness of time we might touch on parts of that through Provenance. Because we will for the time untouch on other life milestones.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (12:00.322)Wait, I kind of love this.
Steven Greitzer (12:11.719)I do love the idea, but at the same time, I just felt like the funeral space itself, while there are so many problems endemic to it, and I'm sure the wedding planning industry and many of our partners and collaborators, be it venues or florists and the like, touch on those events sometimes, there are a lot of challenges to even getting started in that space that did not seem like the happiest game to go play at first, and I was much more inspired by weddings. So hence, while we're here today.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (12:42.466)Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing. So tell us a bit more about your vision behind Provenance and what did you think was the main issue needed solving and then how has that changed?
Steven Greitzer (12:59.623)So it's funny, sometimes these ideas find us rather than we find these ideas. And this is one that's certainly the case. I don't think that I woke up one morning and decided, hey, I want to go into the wedding space. But it's something that really hit me like a truck. And I knew that there was a problem that I had some expertise and some practice in solving that I wanted to go help others with as well. So about eight years ago now, I was asked by two of my best friends to officiate their wedding, which was one of the great honors of my life, but was also a huge burden and challenge that I now had to contend with. And over the many months leading up to the wedding, I was terrified and incredibly stressed and nervous as I had to figure out how to coalesce together from scratch a wedding ceremony that felt traditionally legitimate and spiritually resonant, and legally compliant and was perhaps secular, but doesn't offend grandma and is personalized and customized unique for the couple. And doesn't feel like a best man toast or a bit of honor toast. It feels like something novel for the two of them and balanced. And is actually good and impressive in front of a crowd of 200 people. I was terrified and there really was no structure or guidance out there to really help me crack this challenge.
Um, and as nervous as I was, I saw many of my friends were continuing the same. And today nearly 60 % of weddings are now officially by friends and family. Uh, but luckily through a lot of effort, a lot of stress, I stepped up to the plate and my first wedding went very, very well and so well that I got the honor and again, the challenge of being asked to do this again and again and again and again over that year and in the year since, on behalf of other close friends and family members. Each time, an incredible honor, each time an incredible challenge. But each time I started building for myself my own process and rubric and platform and approach to how to do this. And ultimately, as I started being asked by friends and friends of friends and friends of friends for my notes and my approach, I realized, hey, there might be an opportunity here to build something a bit more robust that can be shared with not just my community, but with tens of thousands, about hundreds of thousands out there who are wrestling with the same challenge each year.
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Heather Hoesch Olsen (15:33.698)It's so smart. It like, for someone who's been doing this for so long, this is my 20th year in this industry. I just can't believe someone hasn't done this before. I definitely have seen the shift from more religious officiants to professional officiants to more friends and family members doing ceremonies. And often I would get the question, where do I send my officiant to get ordained?
Okay, easy, check, got that one. And then how do they write their ceremony? And thankfully there was a book that an officiant friend of mine that had written. It was an ebook. I used to send it to everyone. It was like 20 bucks or something and just say, buy this, read this, do this, because it was the only resource I had to give them. So when I met Morgan and first talked with her about what you guys were creating, I couldn't believe that it didn't already exist. And then also, it's a question I now have an answer to.
Steven Greitzer (16:37.415)I tremendously appreciate that. And we are so grateful already to all the clients that you've sent our way and sent us to. And, you know, I found just when it faced this problem myself and not knowing where to even start, they're like, yes, there might be some digital templates and alike online where it's like mad lib style, or you just insert names and certain attributes here and there. And those are pretty good at perhaps quickly getting you to some sort ofmgeneric speech of sorts that can be used for any wedding. But if there's one thing that this speech cannot be, it's generic. If anything, this should be among the most personal and authentic and genuine speeches you ever develop in your life. So it became very important to us. And we are obsessed with making sure that we're actually solving the problems that our users bring to us, that we're actually doing this on behalf of every single client to make sure that every single client is happy as much so as we possibly can control, given that the stakes are high for every individual wedding. So we want to make sure that every time a client uses our tool, what they get back is something that is tremendously personalized, authentic, unique, and the right fit for them to make sure that we deliver for every client every time. So we knew we needed to develop something that levered technology in a different way, it was not just some sort of plug and play generic template.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (18:08.834)I love it. When you set out to start this and launch this, were you really focused on someone like you that was asked to be an officiant or were you already thinking, oh, we need to tag in the couple getting married at the beginning or did that evolve?
Steven Greitzer (18:25.703)It's funny. So very quickly into the journey, we realized that some of our expectations were right and some of our hypotheses are wrong, which is I think something that's critically helpful for any company that's really starting out early on in their journey. Just ask somebody who had been at Fish Hand for years, I was most familiar with that stakeholder. And certainly some of the earliest versions of our prototypes were very much oriented toward the Fish Hands.
But we use an approach to building products called user centered design, where we put the user first and everything that we develop. We are talking to users, prospective users, interviewing them about their needs and their problems and making sure we design this in a way that fits those needs and problems and truly solves those problems. As well as, as we put the product out there, customer service, the most important thing to us, every member of my team, including myself as CEO, are answering customer service tickets all the time, highlighting things that might be problems and making sure we solve those problems as quickly as possible. And in having such a close relationship with our users, it became very apparent very quickly how many stakeholders really need the software, and how many other problems those stakeholders had that we could go solve for. So we are not just a tool for efficiency by any means. We solve for efficiency, but also for brides for grooms and certainly all types of weddings, be it bride and groom or bride and bride or groom and groom or however someone might identify. As well as we built tools for fathers of the bride, maids of honor, best men, groomsmen, bridesmaids, and certainly for wedding planners as well as we started getting more and more embedded into the challenges around ceremonies, around vows, around toasts, realizing that these are all really collaborative, multi -stakeholder experiences.
We want to make sure that each of our tools fit together for each of these respective folks. So we'll have a wedding count and might have 15 numbers, the wedding party and wedding planner included, who are all using various tools in various ways.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (20:34.466)And so tell us a little bit about the tools for wedding planners. I personally, my favorite part is that I can see the length of the toast, the vows and the ceremony because when I'm building a timeline, I don't trust that dad says his speech is going to be 10 minutes.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (20:55.362)I've learned my lesson that it might be shorter, it might be longer. And so the very first time that I could log into my client's account and see the length of those things, I couldn't believe how did I not have this prior? Like it's the best part just being able, even if I don't touch anything, even if I'm not reading it, I'm not proofreading it, I'm not adding anything. I am literally just checking the timing and printing. That to me is a tool that makes my life so much easier. But let's talk about a planner who isn't as familiar. What tools, like how do they get started? What's the value to their couples? All that fun stuff.
Steven Greitzer (21:36.359)Absolutely. So, you know, it's funny, this is something that really became more and more apparent to us as we started meeting with great wedding planners like yourself and understanding more and more about the stresses you had around these moments. A wedding planner might work with a couple for many months designing every single detail from the stationary to the flowers to the food and everything in between and maybe even making contingency plans in case something goes wrong, like in the event of rain or whatever else.
But increasingly, until really we start developing some of these tools, the one element of the weekend that you could not control, and the elements of the weekend that might have the greatest risk of all, is anytime somebody approaches the microphone. If a father or bride goes for 17 minutes over a lot of time slot, the entrees are going cold in the back. If the officiant is super nervous his first time doing this, you might forget to even have them exchange rings or have the audience sit down or get out of the way during the kiss. So it really became apparent that we're helping wedding planners de-risk this whole source of potential chaos, ensure that they could in turn provide to their couple yet another facet of the wedding weekend that they could solve to that same degree of quality and excellence as everything else. So if I may, just to kind of detail these tools a little bit deeper, it might make sense to first explain what are the tools that your clients have access to because the wedding planner portal really helps enable you to provide these tools to your clients and have some extra controls on top.
So our core tools are as follows. We have a ceremony builder that allows the couple and the officiant to collaborate together to design every facet of the wedding ceremony from any announcements made beforehand to helping the officiant with the officiant remark speech within it, a readings and rituals library, all the legal language that they might need throughout the ceremony and pull it all together into a beautiful 20 minute wedding ceremony or however long they so choose it to be. We have a vow builder that allows both partners to write their vow separately to keep those vowels private. But we use our artificial intelligence technology to give each of them a hint of, hey, her vows are 10 minutes long and so you're super supplemental. Your vows are two minutes of jokes. Maybe you guys should judge it a little bit just to make sure that they're on parity and balance with one another. We have a toast builder.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (24:00.738)I love that part. Sorry, I have to pause you. I love that part so much because I would say that most commonly, if a couple is getting me involved in their vows, they are specifically having me read them to see if they are equitable, if they are equitable in length, in seriousness, in tears, and in jokes. Often they are not. They are typically so far off the mark because someone's decided to pour their heart out that typically doesn't. And the other one is like, oh, I reined it in because they don't typically pour their heart out. So that alone to me, it just sets their marriage up for success that their first thing married is that together. It's equitable. It's good. I think that's so important.
Steven Greitzer (24:50.054)I'm totally with you. Even if both of theirs are totally authentic to each of their personalities and which way they wrote them, it's always a little awkward when the whole crowd goes, well, those did not match or balance each other at all. You really do want to feel like they're at least equal in weight. So we, and I love the tradition of both partners writing them separately and to read for the first time on that day, but does introduce some risk that they might not match up. So our tool helps to diminish that risk at least.
Steven Greitzer (25:20.359)And then for our toast builder, a bride or wedding planner can invite the entire wedding party and say, hey, each of you, please keep your speech to two minutes. And for the love of God, don't mention that story from college or whatever it is that you want to say as a note to each person who's giving a speech. And then your wedding party can use our toast builder tool as well to help ensure that their toasts are of great quality. And frankly, there are a lot of problems throughout all those tools that each of those tools will solve for. But I think that at the end of the day, one of the things that we are often most quoted as helping our couples and their wedding party with is simply there's that super intimidating blinking cursor on a blank page, and they've been procrastinating this speech for months. And now it's up to this final moment. They have all these swirling thoughts and stories and love that they want to express. And we help coalesce all those thoughts together into a beautiful first draft to then iterate and evolve from there. We have a welcome toast builder, a pursue launch, and a thank you note builder. We're building all these other tools all the time, but at least for now, those are our core offerings that people seem to love the most. And for wedding planners, there's a variety of things that we have built on top of all of this that you can then use to offer this to your clients.
So first of all, we've often heard from wedding planners that a couple might come to them with terror in their eyes, four days before the wedding being, oh my God, I don't have a ceremony script for this weekend. Can you please send me one of your past clients for us to plagiarize? It's always a tough dynamic. So this allows you to offer our various tools to your clients. You may need them months in advance just to make sure that this gets out of the way and is done well. As you indicated earlier, Heather, we give you access to your Provenance Pro Portal, to all the speeches where you can see the length of time for each of them, which allows you to logistically accommodate them for them throughout the rehearsal dinner, reception, the ceremony itself. We also give you the opportunity to print extra copies and there's nothing quite like saving a day when a bride's about to walk down the aisle and goes, oh my God, I don't have my vows. And you smile with a wink, hand her a vows from your wedding planner or binder that you have on you.
Steven Greitzer (27:35.367)We allow you to monitor the progress for all the speeches. We can nudge the groom to get his vows done in time. And also to the extent that you want to micromanage or if it's part of your role in dynamic with a couple. You certainly can read and evaluate the various speeches and give feedback too. That's something that research used to do. But through our Provenance Pro Portal, we allow you to either subscribe and offer this to all of your clients throughout the rest of the year or even sell it to your clients all at heart and perhaps even include it within the rest of your bill of offerings that you are providing to your client too.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (28:09.922)I think what I love the most is not only did you create a tool for our couples, but you created a tool where you are giving us an opportunity to add value to the services we provide our client while also alleviating the stressor of someone walking up to that microphone and we're not going to know what they say or how long they're going to say it and what that tone is going to be in all of it. So for me, a very type A control freak, very experienced, very hands -on. I love it. I love that my clients have a place just like Aisle Planner or just like anywhere that we are planning their wedding. This is a secondary tool to plan the ceremony, the part, the whole reason we're here. And then the toast that builds for the video and photos and the entire, you know, part of the day that's sentimental and emotional to them. And so, I think what's interesting is I was talking to a couple of planners and they're like, I don't really get it. What do you mean? And then when I explained to them the access, the how, cause now all of my clients get it. That's one of the first things that they get. Hey, you hired me great. So excited. Also here, here, Provenance Here's the tool for your ceremony, toasts, speeches, vows, everything.
I want to make sure you have this so you can start on it whenever you want, because that's the other thing. I don't have a specific part in my planning process for that because I'm not usually a part of it. So I do often get in the last 30 days, like, Hey, we haven't started this. Hey, I need to do this. And I don't really have time to help them at that point. Like I would much rather give it to them at the beginning. They've hopefully started to chip away about it. I can check it and see if they have, and I have a lot more control on alleviating my client's stress at the end when it's the most stressful. And I don't want them to be stressed. That's my job is to take that away from them. And you help us do that. And so what's fun is, I'm actually going to be an officiant this year for the very first time. My brother is getting married in September and has asked me to be his officiant. Immediately honored, immediately cried, and then immediately panicked.
And was like, Oh my God, I can't believe I have to do this. And then a wave of relief came over me and remembered, I have you, you created a tool where I'm going to be fine. And when I got married a couple of years ago now, a year and a half ago now, um, I emailed Morgan after, and I said, my biggest regret was not using Provenance for my vows. I kind of winged my vows and then I had a crazy wedding story and I didn't get to finish my vows in time. And I, they weren't quite what I wanted and my thank you speech was definitely off the cuff. And I just wish I had put in the time and used the resources that were presented to me to make sure it was perfect. Because at the end of the day, what you say to your future partner and what you say to your family and friends matters. That's what they remember. And so I wish I had spent a little more time on that.
Steven Greitzer (31:23.591)Well, I have no doubt that you'll crush this officient opportunity ahead of you and what an honor and that what an amazing honor to even be asked by your brother in the first place. I'm so excited for you to do so. But you're totally right. You really only have one crack at this and hopefully our clients are really using us once for their wedding. And I hope that they have the words that they deserve and those moments that matter most and these moments in meaning that are really the impetus for the whole weekend and why we're there. And you know, you can't wing the flowers, you can't wing the food choice or the band choice or really anything else. And often it's these speeches that we so often remember most. Of course, all other details are so critical as well, but nonetheless, these are the speeches that really help bring the whole event together. So if you're not winging these other moments, why winging this too? So we definitely encourage the same thoughtful preparation in this fast of the weekend as everything else you do. And we're here to help make that as stress free as possible.
(00:43):
Heather Hoesch Olsen (32:32.322)Love it. Now, as you've gone through this entrepreneurial journey, what have been some hurdles or roadblocks and what have you learned about the wedding industry having not been in it previously?
Steven Greitzer (32:47.847)What a great question. You know, I'd say that my favorite thing with the wedding industry is that as we discussed earlier and touched on, we're all entrepreneurs, even people who are artisans and never considered themselves to be entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, we all had to form a business of our own and are fighting every day to balance what is required to make this a viable business venture that we each live off of as well as a venture that can survive and be our full-time focus, as well as build something that delivers what we so passionately love to do, which is solve on behalf of our shared clients, making sure their day is as special as possible. And be part of an industry where my collaborators, be it wedding planners or other technology ventures, some of whom have become close friends of mine and some of whom I imagine have been on this podcast as well before, I really love getting to play my game alongside this such a collaborative ecosystem where Rising Tide really feels like it raises all ships. So that's been one of my favorite surprises being part of this space. I used to work in entertainment in the technology industry where it really certainly is not that collaborative. In fact, it's very cutthroat competitive where sometimes it feels like a zero sum game. So I do not take that clever nature of this industry for granted at all. It's been an honor to be accepted as a part of this industry myself. So I've loved that. Yeah.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (34:19.01)Now you've gotten some attention from some pretty big planners in the industry. Who might you share is a big fan in endorsing Provenance other than me, obviously.
Steven Greitzer (34:32.167)Well, certainly we are very grateful for your support, Heather, and we do have a number of other amazing wedding planners that have gone to work with over the years that we're super excited to do so. But one wedding planner who has really been an inspiration to many of us in this space, and we are so incredibly grateful for her endorsement, her support, her partnership, and her serving as an advisor to us is celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss, who has really worked at the very top of the wedding game for her entire career, and has been a major role model. She has a master class, written books on the subject. She is a true leader and inspiration. And she has been using Provenance with her own clients for the better part of the last few years and has been an incredible advocate of ours, spreading the word about Provenance to her clients, to her wedding planner peers, and to the industry at large. So we're so excited to have Mindy officially on our team and to be helping us make this thing happen on behalf of as many companies as possible each year and wedding planners.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (35:34.274)Yeah, I'm so glad that she's seen how smart this tool is and really sees the company behind it. The reason I wanted you to share that, I know that wasn't necessarily something you were going to bring up, but there are so many planners who listen to this podcast who look up to Mindy Weiss. She's a titan of industry and someone that I think really sets the bar in so many ways. For me, one of the reasons beyond the tools being good, but I had the opportunity to meet Morgan and Josh pretty early on a couple of years ago and you last year. And one of the things that I love about the three of you is you can tell that you lead with true hospitality, customer service, looking to truly solve those challenges, like you said. Of course, you're running a business. Of course, it's a startup. Of course, you have profit margins in mind and goals, but at the end of the day, it feels like a company that belongs in the wedding industry, not just the tech space, whereas so many companies have come into this industry, they are tech forward, and they just are missing the mark.
They're not listening to couples, they're not listening to planners, they're coming in and trying to take our money, but they're not really trying to solve anything. They're not trying to make our lives easier, they're not trying to add value to the services we provide. And so on behalf of planners and those planners listening who are gonna go sign up for Provenance. Thank you. Thank you for getting what we do and that it's not just a transactional industry. Like you said, so many of us pour our heart and soul into this because not only it's our passion, but it's our whole business and everything we do. And so I really appreciate that you guys recognize that and are not going to be one of the tech companies that come and go briefly.
Steven Greitzer (37:28.103)Of all the compliments you've so generously given me so far today, this is the one that's most important to me. It's very much been a priority for myself and my entire team to prove that we are authentically and genuinely wedding people alongside you. He mentioned, just for those who don't know, who might be listening in, Josh is my head of business development and Morgan's my head of marketing. And the two of them, myself included, and every member of our team, including our designer and engineer, are ordained wedding officiants ourselves who have officiated many weddings before. Morgan's officiated as many weddings as I have. So this has been a long -held passion for every member of my team, regardless of what their role might be within our company itself. Josh actually got married to his now wife, Elena, this past Saturday. And I gotta say, his wedding ceremony in Valsburg was among the very best I've ever seen, as you would hope so, given the company I worked for. But nonetheless, it's something that they so passionately pulled together. It was something that was tremendously, indemnically, authentically important to them. So yes, this is a completely different game. And while, certainly the wedding industry has a lot of reasons why it makes sense for a company to be excited to grow along within that space, you can't be in this space and you can't hope for success unless you are handling the sensitive and high stakes nature of what we're doing with responsibility. At the end of the day, every single one of our clients, we've had 90,000 somewhat couples who trusted their weddings to us up so far today. Every single one of them has a major wedding that is something that we are responsible for. And we handle every single customer service request, every single client with the same amount of care and priority because we're certainly going to do everything we possibly can to make their special moment as special as possible. So, it's something that we care about so significantly. And I myself, as we joked about earlier, before the call started, I'm in that time of my life where I'm going to all my friends' weddings and bachelor parties right now. So, it's so special to me to get to be a supportive player within this space while getting to go enjoy all my friends weddings and watch our tools in action as a groomsman, best man, and sometimes officiant and audience member as well.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (39:59.682)Thank you. And some of the planners listening and other wedding vendors, they may have some idea, something that is a challenge that they want to kind of build a tool or create a business or do something. What advice would you give those people listening?
Steven Greitzer (40:19.303)So first and foremost, you have to go for it. You can't win unless you risk losing. As I quote my dad showed with me when I was like a little kid running for student council, I was like a third grader. And so that still echoes in my head as a driver behind pursuing this in the first place. Because you always could fail and failure is a more likely outcome than not when it comes to building any sort of venture. But you have no chance at succeeding unless you certainly try.
But at the end of the day, when it comes to a pursuit like this, at least one of the tactics that has been so critical for our own progress and success so far has always been putting the user first. And we are developing everything we can for the benefit of our customers. And we have no chance for success unless our customers love what we're doing and spread the word to their friends who might be getting married as well, or their friends who might be wedding planning as well. So by ensuring that every single client has that successful experience, this has allowed us to take on a bit of a life of our own. And that's been really our secret sauce.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (41:33.506)And for someone who maybe is sitting with that fun idea or that passion back when you were in, um, selecting good companies or people with vision to invest in, what was like the key factor to saying yes or no? I know that wasn't always your decision, but like what sort of pitch or company or founder would you get excited about?
Steven Greitzer (41:57.607)So, wow, a variety of things. I would say first and foremost, making sure that the founder has an authentic connection to the problem that they're solving. That's not just some sort of money -making opportunity that they're chasing after, but it's actually something that they have some sort of expertise and demonstrated passion toward, I think is critically important. The quality of the founder and their team as well in terms of their experience, expertise, building anything, and actually showing that they can be responsible of those resources to go and make something happen is critically important too. And then when it comes to the problem that you're solving, making sure that there's some sort of balance between near-term viability, that this is something that can get to a point of generating perhaps enough revenue to sustain itself and it could actually work as a business is critically important.
But also that it has aspirations toward a real market opportunity that could grow and solve this problem for many, many people was critical to at least the game that I was investing into back in the day and how I, the framework I used to evaluate this opportunity to. So it's a myriad of things. And I think that ultimately at the end of the day and to bring this full circle to the query experience that did not work out so well for us, I think that also solving an actual problem that's worth solving on behalf of people who need that problem solved, it might seem simple enough, but at the end of the day, just simply having a creative big idea doesn't necessarily matter as much as making sure that you are providing a solution to a problem that's else.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (43:28.962)Mm -hmm. It's great advice. Last thing. One of the things that is kind of fun about how many weddings and how many users you guys have had over a short amount of time is you now have some real data about the wedding industry. What are a couple of those data points that might be interesting to wedding planners?
Steven Greitzer (43:51.783)So I'd say that the larger trends that we are a part of, that I imagine many wedding planners are feeling themselves as well, is that couples want, perhaps almost more so than almost anything else, to feel that their wedding has been personalized for them, that it's truly an authentic display of their own genuine truth in their own relationship. And our tool has been designed very effortfully to accommodate for that, to ensure that every single one of those 90,000 somewhat weddings on our platform are distinct to that couple, to that officiant, and to the others that are using our tools, as opposed to feeling like it's any sort of carbon copy of anyone else's. And what's really interesting about our vantage point into the ceremony in particular is we also get to get a better sense of how America as a society is evolving too. It's fascinating that today a majority of weddings are officiated by friends and family as opposed to clergy, which traditionally officiated and presided over the vast majority of weddings, which is emblematic of other trends of society, such as how majority of Americans are no longer members of an organized religious institution and their own connections to potentially their familial faith and the like have been evolving with this generation. Within that, as well as what we're seeing at pretty staggering rates is how many interfaith weddings we're seeing in America, where you might have a Jewish Muslim wedding, a Hindu Christian wedding, a Catholic and atheist wedding, or some combination thereof, and still desire by the couple to somehow acknowledge each of their traditions and backgrounds and incorporate that somehow within the wedding ceremony, perhaps having balance with their fiance's cultural background as well. So that's been a really interesting thing to see too.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (45:41.826)I love it. I love that when tech enters the industry, we often get to learn more because as planners, we're busy, our heads are kind of down, we're working with our clients and we kind of forget to take a step back and look at how things are changing. And so we've seen in every facet that couples are wanting more personalization in everything. And it's just such a good reminder that every touch point of any vendor in the industry, they need to keep focused on that.
Well, thank you, Steven, so much for coming and being a guest. For everyone listening, you can get 20% off your subscription to help your clients write personalized and impressive ceremonies, vows and toasts with code PLA20. PLA20 is your code for 20% off. And be sure to find Provenance at @ourprovenance on Instagram.
Steven Greitzer (46:14.887)Thank you so much for having me.
Heather Hoesch Olsen (46:40.738)Of course, visit the show notes so you can make sure to see more information, tools, resources, and see you next time.
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