I've worked in marketing and events for 25 years. Through Get Loose and Easy Boat Hire I've organised more than 6,500 events across Australia, and if that taught me one thing, it's this: what separates an event people talk about for years from one they've forgotten by Monday is rarely the big idea. It's the detail.
I've always loved building things, too. Give me a problem worth solving and room to be creative and I'm happy. Of everything involved in running a business, marketing is the part I've enjoyed most – working out what makes something special, then finding the right way to show people. Party Hero brings the two together. At its heart, it's a marketing platform for the thousands of businesses that make up Australia's party and events industry.
An idea I carried for years
Party Hero was in my head long before I wrote any of it down, because I'd seen the problem from both sides. People planning a celebration find it hard to compare their options, find suppliers they can trust and keep everything in one place. And the suppliers – the venues, boat operators, entertainers, caterers and everyone else who makes a party happen – find it hard to get a steady flow of enquiries, market themselves properly and keep on top of the admin.
I knew what needed to exist. In 2025 I started building it.
Party Hero brings party venues, boats, entertainment, activities, transport, accommodation, event planners and party suppliers together in one place. Clients can browse and compare, enquire directly, or use Plan My Party to be matched with suppliers for their event. Suppliers get a listing built to win work and tools designed to save them time.
The biggest thing I've ever built
Party Hero is the biggest project I've ever taken on. Around 10,000 hours of my own time went into it just to reach the initial launch phase: planning, designing, writing, testing, and a lot of late nights going back over something because it wasn't quite right yet.
Where Party Hero was built (Potts Point, Sydney).
I often compare it to the making of Grand Theft Auto 6. I've always admired what goes into a game on that scale – the huge tasks and the tiny ones, thousands of them, all adding up to one of the biggest and most thought-out entertainment products in the world. The effort the team behind it has put in is remarkable. I recognise that feeling: every big decision rests on hundreds of small ones nobody ever sees.
Obsessive about the small things
I'm obsessed with what I do. My goal has always been to be the best at it and, at the same time, to be different. The two drive each other. Being better earns you respect. Being different is what makes people remember you.
That's how I built Get Loose and Easy Boat Hire: with the same obsession. Both offer experiences people can't get anywhere else. Party Hero has had exactly the same treatment.
I agonised over the shape and colour of the logo. I've been over every page more times than I can count – the spacing, the wording, the photos, the way a listing reads on a phone at eleven at night when someone is finally getting around to planning their partner's 40th. I've rewritten headings because one word felt off. I've sent pages back because a single photo didn't belong.
Most people will never consciously notice any of it. But they feel it. A page that's been thought through properly feels trustworthy, even if nobody can say exactly why. A page that hasn't feels cheap, and people leave.
That standard runs right through the platform. Every listing is written fresh, and every photo is checked before it goes live. Every page is checked automatically after every change, and every mistake that slips through becomes a new check, so it can't happen twice.
If it has our name on it, it has to be right.
Built to be shared
What I love most about Party Hero is that it isn't just for me. Get Loose and Easy Boat Hire are my own businesses; Party Hero is built for other people to share. It's there for businesses right across Australia to use and grow with. That's where my love of marketing really comes in – I get to put everything I've learnt about getting a business noticed to work for theirs.
The Party Hero head office team at foundation.
That's also why Party Hero is a people business. Suppliers need to trust that we'll represent them properly and send them real enquiries. Clients need to trust that the businesses they find on Party Hero are the real deal. You earn that by doing the right thing every time, and by sweating the small things that show you actually care.
It's all in the execution
Success is 1% idea, 99% execution. Anyone can copy an idea. What they can't copy is years in the industry, the relationships, the skills, creativity, endless hard work and sleepless nights, and the thousands of small decisions that make something work properly.
Most of that work is invisible. Behind every listing on Party Hero is a system built to make sure it's right. Behind every enquiry is another system making sure it gets to the right place.
None of that happens overnight. Building the systems that actually power a business takes time, patience and a lot of trial and error. You build something, you test it, you find where it breaks, and you rebuild it better. Then you do it again. Most people only ever see the finished product, not the hours of work that keep it running smoothly in the background.
The systems are what let Party Hero grow without cutting corners, and they're why the experience stays the same whether we have a hundred listings or a hundred thousand.
AI is a tool, not a shortcut
AI was never part of my original plan for Party Hero. As the build went on, I found that AI tools, used properly, genuinely help with parts of the work. But I'm amazed at how many people think they can create a business overnight with it. A website that looks fine on the surface is not a business. A business takes customers who trust you, suppliers who want to work with you, real industry knowledge and years of hard decisions. No prompt writes those for you.
AI is powerful in the right hands. It doesn't replace creativity, judgement or skill – and it certainly doesn't replace caring about the details.
What's next
Party Hero is growing city by city, with more locations to come across Australia. Suppliers can register their interest at partyhero.com.au, and anyone planning a celebration can start comparing options today.
The journey will keep evolving every day, and that's what excites me most. I'm looking forward to the experiences it will create – for me, for the businesses that grow with it, and for the people who use Party Hero to plan events they'll remember for years. It's built for the long run, one detail at a time.
Connect with Jason on LinkedIn
About Party Hero
Party Hero® is Australia's party planning marketplace, connecting people planning a celebration with venues, boats, entertainment and event suppliers – all in one place. Party Hero is operated by Party Hero Marketplace Pty Ltd.