Brandon DesJarlais is a professional skateboarder who’s bombed down steep mountain roads on a longboard, stunt doubled for Vin Diesel in “xXx 3: Return of Xander Cage,” and started a nonprofit called Beyond the Board.

But when he started a skating community group called Vibe Ride in Los Angeles, he faced a new set of challenges — keeping a growing community connected and engaged.

When he first discovered Heylo, he noticed some important differences from the 5 other apps he’d tried. “It was pretty clear quickly that this is actually designed for group leaders,” he said.

The group started using Heylo to share their event calendar, welcome new members, and keep the good vibes flowing for their growing community. But about six months ago, they hit a wall.

A hypothesis about Heylo

At that point, Brandon and the Vibe Ride leadership team noticed a problem: only 50% of people who came to their events were checking in on Heylo. At the same time, less than 50% of members were using Heylo.

“We kept getting questions like, wait, when’s the next event? Or wait, is it in the same spot?” Brandon and his team felt frustrated. All the info was on Heylo.

Other problems popped up. They noticed a decline in event attendance. And when members shared community events and resources in Heylo, the info wasn’t reaching as many people as it could have.

Brandon and his team had a hypothesis — driving members to check in at events on Heylo would transform the group and create added value for the whole community.

Getting intentional about event check-ins on Heylo

Brandon and his team decided to get intentional. They weren’t just going to tell people to check in — they were going to make checking in meaningful.

First, they simplified their message. Instead of a long-winded explanation about Heylo, they boiled it down to a crisp, 15-second pitch: “Heylo is the community platform we use to manage check-ins, and is the best way to connect with members in the community and stay up to date with all our upcoming events.” And they said it at the beginning of every event, no matter how many people were Vibe Ride veterans.

They introduced a dedicated check-in host at every event — someone friendly who could show people how to check in before events started, because Brandon assumed at least half of the group would miss the opening message.

“And during an opening circle, they're not going to raise their hand and be like, wait, I don't know what Heylo is.”

Another thing that worked: they shared a monthly leaderboard that celebrated active members — highlighting who showed up, who was consistent, who was building the community. “There was this social status with check-ins,” Brandon said. “The trickledown has been huge.”

The power of Heylo event check-ins

Here’s how check-ins can work for your group:

1. Super easy for your members. When your members open your Heylo, they’ll see a prompt to check in no matter which screen they’re on. The prompt shows who else has checked in and how many events remain to reach their next milestone.
2. Helpful for hosts. Hosts have a dedicated check-in screen where they can check in attendees and see who’s new, who hit milestones, and the number of total attendees.
3. Members earn status and badges. As your members check in more, they’ll accrue check-ins on their profile. Badges help new members know who attends the most and provide credibility to your most dedicated people. Recent milestone achievements are automatically prioritized at the top of the member directory.
4. Generate shareable content. Heylo automatically generates cards for members with your group’s branding when they achieve milestone badges for easy sharing on social media for all their followers to see.
5. Leaderboard to celebrate top attendees. Heylo automatically generates a monthly leaderboard so everyone can see who made the most progress each month.
6. Track your progress. Check-ins can be exported to a CSV file by member and event so you can see your top members or best performing events, or report your data to partners and sponsors.

A rapid transformation for Vibe Ride

After the team’s push to be more intentional about getting people to check in at events, the numbers tell the story:

• In July 65% of people checked in for events. A few months later, ~90% of people checked in for events.
• In August, 12 people joined 4 or more events. By October, that number jumped to 20, a 67% increase.

And those increases happened after their peak summer season.

The bigger picture: growth and connection

After putting more attention and energy into encouraging check-ins, Brandon reported that the core group of members, people who continually show up, has doubled.

And “the experience has been so, so, so much better for people because there’s such a stronger level of familiarity, and many more people who embody our values and our energy and our mission,” he said. “So when new people show up to our group now, it feels so much more connected.”

It’s part of Brandon’s philosophy of group building: “If you’re not growing, you’re shrinking,” he says.

Ultimately for Brandon and his team, every new member, every check-in, every shared moment is about building something bigger than themselves.

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If you’re a leader who wants to chat with Brandon about how you can increase engagement in your group, we recommend a quick 1:1 session with him here.