Love affair with meetings
By Dan Berger
I never set out to build a company around small meetings. But looking back, it feels obvious. The signs were always there.
At Social Tables, the DC-based event planning software company I started in 2011 and sold to Virginia-based Cvent in 2018, I was surrounded by large events. Galas, conferences, citywides. Big budgets, big logistics, big everything. But after leaving in 2019, what stuck with me—apart from the pride of what we achieved—was just how powerful the small meetings were.
Executive offsites. Team retreats. The best things happen in the smallest rooms, I realized.
You see it in every meeting space. The shift that happens when a team gets aligned behind a lofty goal or big idea. When the terminal politeness ends. When the elephant in the room is called. When the quiet guy has the breakthrough strategy. It’s in those moments that you can feel the momentum start to build.
But for all the tools we had to plan events, there was still one thing missing: the right space.
Hotels aren’t designed for small teams. Vacation rentals don’t have whiteboards or proper seating. You’re either crammed into a side room or gathered awkwardly around a kitchen island.
After moving to Boise, Idaho (pandemic move), it became obvious that a concept built specifically for small gatherings doesn’t exist. That’s why I started Assemble Hospitality Group.
Assemble is a retreat venue designed from the ground up for small teams. Think fewer than a dozen people, full-property buyout, natural light, real privacy, snacks that don’t suck, an outdoor hydrotherapy circuit, and concierge services that do everything for you: from facilitation to sound baths and everything in between.
We built it around the moments that matter, at a time when they seem so far and few. The conversations that change the course of a quarter. The clarity that comes from pausing just long enough to reset. The feeling you get when a group actually becomes a team.
Social Tables helped people come together. Assemble helps them move forward.
Both of these companies started in a small room.
Photo: The Einstein Room at Assemble in Boise, ID
