Interview - Matt Rolnick

Matthew Rolnick is the VP of Strategy and Innovation for Yaymaker, a one-stop events shop for private parties and corporate team-building. He is the author of “Find Your Yay”, an Amazon Best Seller book published in September 2021. He is also a Udemy instructor teaching Entrepreneurship and two other courses, for which over 100,000 students have enrolled.

His company, Yaymaker, provides simple and stress-free event planning services whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid. They offer a huge list of fun, unique, and interactive experiences for small to large-sized events as well as targeted events for public consumers and corporate organizations. It was originally known as Paint Nite® which started over ten years ago in Boston, where an artist at a bar taught people how to paint, they had a good time, and it grew. Since then, they have hosted more than 300,000 events across North America and added more exciting experiences such as Plant Nites, Ukelele Making, Candle Making, Chunky Blankets, Themed Trivia, Musical Bingo, and a lot more. Today, Paint Nite and Yaymaker work as two separate brands with the former focusing on a business-to-consumer model and the latter focusing on corporate team-building events.

Paint Nite works by partnering with very talented and engaging artists all over the world, mostly in US and Canada. People can go to their website and find events to sign up for in their area where they can go and have a good time by themselves, with a friend, a significant other, or a group. They also offer Paint Nite experiences to private parties and corporations which can be in person, virtually or hybrid. An amazing host comes in person or does it virtually and puts together an incredible experience.

Yaymaker is the umbrella brand of Paint Nite with a focus on corporate team-building experiences, corporate culture, and employee engagement. Companies can reach out to them and ask for a corporate team-building event to improve their company environment and relationships. Yaymaker offers hundreds of experiences including fun activities, games, motivational speakers, food and drink tastings, and even a water sommelier for somebody that wants to try a different experience.

When the pandemic hit, businesses crashed and had no choice but to pivot. Yaymaker was not spared and their revenue went to zero. To make things work, they started offering their experiences virtually, focusing on companies and organizations. They sent supply kits directly to people’s homes and did the events on Zoom with a virtual host. They’ve worked with large tech companies, universities, law firms, insurance companies, non-profit organizations, and many more. Now that the pandemic restrictions have slowed down, they are getting more requests for in-person versus virtual events.

“We want to bring people together in doing these events. We want to find whatever a company, organization, or group wants. We want to be able to find that solution for them.”

Paint Nite is the #1 experience on their platform. The secret sauce? It is a catalog of thousands of paintings that people can learn how to do. They also incentivize the original artist who created the painting. Just recently, Yaymaker launched their Motivational Minutes speaker series where people can find thought leaders and incredible professional public speakers on a wide variety of topics including leadership, mental health, and Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI) topics for Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Pride Month, AANHPI Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Disability Inclusion, Native American History, and many more.

Yaymaker can also create a theme and customize an event including the type of swag to include in people’s kits. They have different formats and price points depending on the group size and occasion. If you are interested in holding a private event with your friends, a bridal shower, birthday party, you name it, make it more exciting with fun and unique experiences by visiting www.paintnite.com. If you are a big corporation or organization looking to improve your company culture and employee engagement, talk to their very accommodating team at www.yaymaker.com. You can also reach out to Matthew Rolnick on LinkedIn or email him directly at mrolnick@yaymaker.com.