When Sergey Dzemidzenka’s wife asked him to find a service that could collect RSVPs for a family wedding, and at the same time provide some sort of gift registry, the hunt began.  

His family had just immigrated to Canada from Russia (2013), his English wasn’t that good, and he struggled with finding the right keywords on Google. They wanted something that just showed the items they were after – regardless of where a guest found it to buy.

After searching for the right mix and examining different potential competitors, Dzemidzenka still couldn’t find the right combination of event planning and registry. e

Dzemidzenka, a software developer by trade, figured the surest way to solve this issue was to create the system himself.

“When you cannot find a solution, you tend to create one,” he said. 

Thus, Calgary-based Partylabz was founded. At first, as he built it, he used it for family, then began advertising. He was working a regular job, then putting in an additional three or four hours a day on weekends and evenings to keep up with the demand.  

In 2018, business was picking up and they started adding paid options to help cover some of the costs of hosting the site and some of the advertising.  Then, COVID-19 hit, and the event market crashed as people could no longer get together for traditional-style weddings.

“This year (2023), we just decided that COVID has officially ended in a majority of countries, so we decided I have the opportunity to work as full time now, not  as a spare project,” Dzemidzenka said.

Partylabz provides a suite of options, including event website, guest lists, RSVPs, signups, polls and, yes, a registry. It can help you organize volunteers, food, other event duties, too. It’s a full-service event management platform.

Learning to be a business

Dzemidzenka said they recognized quickly that they wouldn’t be able to survive if they didn’t start making money.

“We spend money, and we don’t get enough money back from users so I needed to learn how to do the business side,” he said.

That’s when he enrolled in the Alberta Catalyzer – Velocity program through Platform Calgary.

“It was like a bunch of different knowledge, and during these classes, this helped me more or less organize,” Dzemidzenka said.

He said he was asked questions about things in his business that he’d never looked at – like intellectual property, or when you have clients all over the world.

The primary goal now is to become self-sufficient, Dzemidzenka said. It was the Velocity program mentoring that helped him rethink the business model – putting them in a better financial position.

Within the next year, they want to drive enough users to the site so they can take on Partylabz full-time. He believes they have an advantage being a full-service platform. Other services, like EventBrite, for example, connect people with tickets for posted events.

“We really would like to basically be the number one among competitors,” he said.