Our Story
Have you ever seen something rich with potential that was squandered away due to poor planning, lack of clarity, and loads of scarcity? Us, too.
In early 2014, CEO and founder, Dawn Serra had started her own business as a sex & relationship coach. With a popular podcast hitting the airwaves, people started noticing.
Invitations to be a speaker at online summits started to come in, and while she jumped at the chance to speak at many of them.
Cringe-worthy trends
With each invitation & summit, Dawn noticed that many of the invitations were nearly word-for-word the same. It was clear people were learning about online summits from someone, and she wondered - why this model? Why this approach?
Some of the cringe-worthy trends that emerged included:
- Speaker line-ups featuring only white folks (and nearly all thin, young, rich white folks, at that).
- Invitations that touted how amazing Dawn was and how much they'd love to interview her, but *only* if her email list was a certain size.
- Talks that were superficial and didn't offer much value or nuance (or worse, were hour-long sales pitches).
- Hosts who had little-to-no list themselves and only invited big names to speak at their event (so that they would gain access to those people's lists).
- Paying speakers in "exposure" with lavish promises that you'd get in front of *insert ridiculously high number here* people.
- Content that wasn't accessible.
- Price points that only certain people could afford.
- Zero community engagement and conversation. Most were broadcast out to the world and left at that.
Asking better questions
Later that year, fed up with the scarcity, tired of feeling manipulated by summit hosts, and feeling disappointed in the quality of the content as an attendee, Dawn decided to put on her own online summit - a big, bold vision with a totally new approach. This one would be different.
Dawn wondered:
- How can I create a speaker line-up that featured a diverse range of voices and perspectives?
- What would it look like to offer a range of prices, scholarships, and sliding scale spots so more people could buy products?
- What if I trusted that every person who registered possessed unique and important wisdom? How could I bring that into the experience?
- How could technology be used to deliver a more cohesive & user-friendly launch?
- What would it mean to create from a place of deep values and community?
- Why did this matter? What change was I seeking to make?
- What would help attendees take the content of the talks more meaningfully into their lives?
In early 2016, with the help of her partner (and soon-to-be husband) Alex, Dawn held the first ever Explore More Summit. It featured 30 speakers over 10 days and every single conversation was specifically crafted to offer great depth & nuance. Both the speakers and those who attended asked when it would happen again. In fact, two speakers asked if Dawn would help them put on their own online summit using her approach.
Over time, other entrepreneurs started noticing the potency of what we were creating and asked for help in doing something similar. What started as a favor for a few colleagues turned into repeat requests to produce summit & conferences for others.
Radical Summits was born and word spread like wildfire.
Over the course of the past three years, 100% of our business has been from word-of-mouth - something we deeply treasure and hold as precious.
We know the power of online events, and we help entrepreneurs and visionaries just like you to turn their seed of an idea into a reality - and we help you avoid many of the common pitfalls, mistakes, and cringe-worthy trends that still happen in the online event space.
The world needs more passion, more care, and more curiosity. And we're here to help you do just that.