DayOf Co-Founder Marc Eder describes himself as a “decently outgoing person,” but not one to be overly social when attending a conference event with thousands of other strangers. He expects others may feel the same.
But what if decently outgoing, even shy people, had access to a service that carefully curated easy-to-sign-up options for events, restaurant reservations and exclusive offerings to help them truly explore the locations of their conferences? That’s the question Eder aims to answer with DayOf.
This Durham startup, launched in January 2025 by Eder and Mykhailo (Misha) Shvets, is built to optimize conference experiences for attendees. It is also meant to collaborate with convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) to serve event organizers and local businesses by generating additional revenue when visitors come to town.
Eder described conferences as standout opportunities in the market, where predictable demand can be turned into revenue. Often, conference attendees travel through company-subsidized flights and hotel stays and have additional funding to take out clients and do team outings.
“This is a price-insensitive audience,” Eder explained—perfect for building into a “scalable, repeatable channel” to help low-margin businesses such as restaurants that could benefit from a few thousand extra customers.
The road to DayOf
Eder has long had an interest in the travel tech world, but acknowledged the space as one that’s currently “underinvested.” What initially attracted him to the industry was his frequent travel, but what made him stay was its market dynamics.
“It’s arguably the world’s largest total addressable market, which is around $6-$7 trillion, depending on how you look at it,” Eder said. “The only thing that’s bigger is construction. And yet it’s incredibly fragmented, except it’s also incredibly consolidated.”
Ever since this realization, Eder has sought a path into the market. Before launching DayOf, he and Shvets had designed a custom optimization solver that took into account a visitor’s availability, location, and priorities and centralized 100 recommendations into a feasible itinerary.
Creating that technology led the DayOf co-founders to formulate the concept of a logistically-qualified lead, or—to put it more simply—the idea that logistics drive intent, and can be utilized systematically for the purpose of event planning.
Eder framed the company as more “event tech” than travel tech, and despite the shaky history of investment into the space, expressed optimism for its potential.
“The ultimate satisfaction is to start in a space, where, in the travel industry, planning companies, are like, the butt of jokes… and to have found something when there’s a potentially massive market, a real upside and potentially awesome outcomes,” Eder said.
DayOf so far
Thus far, that optimism, along with plenty of hard work, has paid off. Eder and Shvets have brought the idea to 40 different CVBs across the country, and, according to Eder, 19 expressed interest.
DayOf has conducted several pilots testing the platform’s ability to provide exclusive offerings for conferences. Eder has most recently run pilots in Vancouver, Canada, for International Conference on 3D Vision 2026, which saw over 300 researchers, students and industry professionals, and in Durham for the CED’s Venture Connect 2026 at the Durham Performing Arts Center, where over 1,000 people attended. He cited partnership with Discover Durham during Venture Connect as DayOf’s biggest one yet.
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Startup: DayOf
Co-Founders: Marc Eder, Misha Shvets
Founded: 2025
Team size: 2
Location: Durham
Website: dayof.travel
Funding: Bootstrapped, raising pre-seed
Eder has worked as part of several startups and holds a PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While DayOf is the first startup he has led, he described the experience so far as “a lot of fun.”
Eder highlighted the FISU World University Games, set to be hosted in 2029 in Raleigh and Durham, as a key opportunity for DayOf to shoot for when it comes to having its platform utilized in the future.
“I would love to build our backyard,” Eder said. “I’ve put down roots, we’re living here. It’d be great for this to have an impact in our backyard.”
“If you’re a local, experienced provider in the Raleigh-Durham area, in the Triangle, and you know you like what we’re doing… reach out,” Eder added.
