{"id":21074,"date":"2024-12-06T13:20:51","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T18:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=21074"},"modified":"2025-01-15T12:02:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T17:02:47","slug":"event-planning-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2024\/12\/event-planning-made-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Event Planning Made Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amy<\/a>
Amy Sun Yan (right) and her sister Anna (left)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From chess and sudoku to the sport of bouldering, Amy Sun Yan \u201916 has always loved to solve a puzzle.<\/p>\n

Today, as COO and co-founder of Nowadays, she\u2019s taking on the notoriously difficult problems inherent in event planning\u2014a field that, until now, required gathering and evaluating hundreds of details and documents individually. Nowadays uses artificial intelligence to automate that process and present options in a clean, modern interface for easier decision-making.<\/p>\n

Founding a company wasn\u2019t always in the plan for Yan, who double majored in mechanical engineering<\/a> and biomedical engineering<\/a> at the Whiting School<\/a> and began her career as a banking consultant at McKinsey before moving into strategy and operations roles at Groupon, Meta, and Google. After eight-and-a-half years in corporate work, she was looking to make a greater impact\u2014and in 2023, her younger sister Anna proposed that they start something of their own.<\/p>\n

Both women knew the challenges of event planning firsthand, having served as class presidents at their respective universities (Amy at Johns Hopkins, Anna at MIT).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sea of emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls,\u201d says Yan. \u201cIt takes so many callbacks to get vendors to respond to you, only to find out they\u2019re unavailable on your dates, and you need to start over. We wanted to put the joy back in event planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Amy classifies herself as risk-averse, Anna convinced her to take the leap. The sisters were accepted into the elite Y Combinator program, which helps early-stage startups with funding, mentorship, and community. To date, it\u2019s launched more than 4,000 companies, including Airbnb and Stripe.<\/p>\n

Their vision for Nowadays is to handle end-to-end planning for any type of occasion. It already offers a streamlined selection for venues and travel. The bigger engineering challenge, currently in progress, is to cover every type of vendor, from UV face painters to dune buggy rentals and beyond.<\/p>\n

Such custom events are dear to Yan\u2019s heart. A prime example is a project now underway for Grant Delpit of the Cleveland Browns. Delpit\u2019s event will pair 120 children with 20 NFL players for flag football and mentoring. In addition to the satisfaction of supporting a worthy cause, the experience also earned the sisters a chance to attend their first Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

One year into the company\u2019s launch, the response has been extremely promising. Nowadays operates in 26 countries and has booked $3.4 million in revenue, with clients including Google, Supabase, and Notion. The growth has come exclusively through word of mouth, with no marketing required.<\/p>\n

Yan says she\u2019s all in on the entrepreneurial life. \u201cIf you have an idea, follow it,\u201d she advises. \u201cThe earlier you start, the earlier you\u2019re going to see traction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nowadays uses artificial intelligence to automate event planning challenges in a clean, modern interface for easier decision-making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":21164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","issue-winter-2025"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEvent Planning Made Easy - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Amy Sun Yan, COO and co-founder of Nowadays, is taking on the notoriously difficult problems inherent in event planning.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2024\/12\/event-planning-made-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Event Planning Made Easy - 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