you disclosed recently your gross revenues.
Can you talk about that at all?
They’re astronomical numbers.
We’ve had really strong gross .
So 2009 we did a
100 million in gross
ticket sales.
in 2010 and we’ll be
worth more of 400 million this
year, close to half a billion which is exciting for us.
You know, I think when we hit the
billion dollar mark, extremely excited.
And what do you
see as, I mean, does,
there’s a lot of talk like Groupon
just filed their S1 two weeks
ago and everyone was so,
like, you know, excited about their
incredible revenue growth but then,
you know, there’s been a lot of
questions around whether this
is a defensible business model, they are just competitors move in and copy.
What do you guys see as, kind of, your moat, so to speak efensible.
Is it just the fact that you
have all of these long tail relationships and loyal customers?
Well, it’s really a few different areas.
So firstfirst and foremost is
that we’re a Silicon Valley company
and we’re building great product
and tech and really innovating
on that side.
So, you know, one example
of that is when you’re building
a payment and ticketing platform
and we’re building one that
allows customers to sign up and start selling tickets immediately.
You’re of course going to
attract an array of different fraudsters.
So, we have actually a data
services and anti-fraud team
to actually detect…
That’s absolutely, this is the lesson from Zoom, lesson from PayPal.
It’s a very difficult problem
to solve, is how
do you trade off the security and convenience.
You want to make it very convenient for your 99% of the good customers.
Why does every company have to solve this symptom?
Why isn’t there, like, one company.
I don’t understand, so I’m
surprised that a ticketing has
to have their own fraud team, I guess.
You know, there’s components, there’s…
way it works is the merchants
have to pay for the
charge backs, so there’s an incentive
to do it, but…
I think credit card companies have
different anti-fraud techniques, but
when it comes down to it,
there’s a certain set of
circumstances where fraudsters will find
a way, and there
doesn’t seem to be any universal piece.
Now, you can use different tools from, you know..
I see.
So, you’ll have your own event specific
signals that indicate fraud that can’t be kind of?
OK.
Yeah, exactly.
It’s very nuanced.
I think that’s why.
It doesn’t make much sense
when you put it that way, but it’s extremely nuanced.
And for us, it’s definitely a
competitive advantage to have it in house.
Not many ticketing companies
are looking at the problem the way we are.
People, so someone with a stolen credit
wants to then use it to
go to an event, I guess,
because that’s a common thing.
I had my credit card stolen and
they went to a drugstore and
a gas station, apparently those are like the easiest things, I don’t know.
It’s not typically someone buying a
ticket with a stolen credit card
and actually showing up to the
event, it’s actually, just becauseWe
are self service platform and anybody
can create an event, you know,
that presents opportunity for
fraudsters to run credit cards through our system.
And so we’ve built this
team of super intelligent people
who can attack these fraudsters
algorithmically and, and
basically, you know, not even,
I mean, I would say
like paid So they create
xactly, you’ll get like
a Ukranian gang say
market, you know, there’s
this dark, seedy market on
RSC and so on for
stolen credit cards and how
do you extract the money from that.
So you run them through
and then really the
as possible, get it into their bank account.
So, you of course draw
these nefarious characters and
you’ve got to be able to
identify and stop those before that money goes out.
And it’s not about stopping everything.
It is exactly what you
just touched upon, which is that
we actually have committed ourselves
to trying to get our customers
the money as quickly as we can.
So, their ticket sales that
are running through Eventbrite should be
in their pocket, you know, in real time, ultimately.
But, to do that you have
to have a good, intelligent
line of defense and that you’re
not just getting, you know, completely…
Interesting.
So, you have a new product that you just announced?
Yes, we have great tech.
We have been working on
this almost a year, our mobile box office team.
We call it Eventbrite at the Door.
And it’s a way to
collect money, look up
will call, run reports at
the door of events so traditionally
all of our sales has happened
at the pre sale and online.
That is really what you want
Yeah I’ve done, the print out of the ticket or whatever, right?
That’s exactly right.
And with this iPad
based application, you can
now collect money at
the door, swipe credit cards,
collect cash, and really tie the two systems together.
Can you talk about that at all?
They’re astronomical numbers.
We’ve had really strong gross .
So 2009 we did a
100 million in gross
ticket sales.
in 2010 and we’ll be
worth more of 400 million this
year, close to half a billion which is exciting for us.
You know, I think when we hit the
billion dollar mark, extremely excited.
And what do you
see as, I mean, does,
there’s a lot of talk like Groupon
just filed their S1 two weeks
ago and everyone was so,
like, you know, excited about their
incredible revenue growth but then,
you know, there’s been a lot of
questions around whether this
is a defensible business model, they are just competitors move in and copy.
What do you guys see as, kind of, your moat, so to speak efensible.
Is it just the fact that you
have all of these long tail relationships and loyal customers?
Well, it’s really a few different areas.
So firstfirst and foremost is
that we’re a Silicon Valley company
and we’re building great product
and tech and really innovating
on that side.
So, you know, one example
of that is when you’re building
a payment and ticketing platform
and we’re building one that
allows customers to sign up and start selling tickets immediately.
You’re of course going to
attract an array of different fraudsters.
So, we have actually a data
services and anti-fraud team
to actually detect…
Because actually you’re an anti-fraud you don’t do it, you don’t?
That’s absolutely, this is the lesson from Zoom, lesson from PayPal.
It’s a very difficult problem
to solve, is how
do you trade off the security and convenience.
You want to make it very convenient for your 99% of the good customers.
Why does every company have to solve this symptom?
Why isn’t there, like, one company.
I don’t understand, so I’m
surprised that a ticketing has
to have their own fraud team, I guess.
You know, there’s components, there’s…
Yeahthe
way it works is the merchants
have to pay for the
charge backs, so there’s an incentive
to do it, but…
You know, that’s right.
I think credit card companies have
different anti-fraud techniques, but
when it comes down to it,
there’s a certain set of
circumstances where fraudsters will find
a way, and there
doesn’t seem to be any universal piece.
Now, you can use different tools from, you know..
I see.
So, you’ll have your own event specific
signals that indicate fraud that can’t be kind of?
OK.
Yeah, exactly.
It’s very nuanced.
I think that’s why.
It doesn’t make much sense
when you put it that way, but it’s extremely nuanced.
And for us, it’s definitely a
competitive advantage to have it in house.
Not many ticketing companies
are looking at the problem the way we are.
People, so someone with a stolen credit
wants to then use it to
go to an event, I guess,
because that’s a common thing.
I had my credit card stolen and
they went to a drugstore and
a gas station, apparently those are like the easiest things, I don’t know.
It’s not typically someone buying a
ticket with a stolen credit card
and actually showing up to the
event, it’s actually, just becauseWe
are self service platform and anybody
can create an event, you know,
that presents opportunity for
fraudsters to run credit cards through our system.
And so we’ve built this
team of super intelligent people
who can attack these fraudsters
algorithmically and, and
basically, you know, not even,
I mean, I would say
like paid So they create
xactly, you’ll get like
a Ukranian gang say
market, you know, there’s
this dark, seedy market on
RSC and so on for
stolen credit cards and how
do you extract the money from that.
So you run them through
and then really the
as possible, get it into their bank account.
So, you of course draw
these nefarious characters and
you’ve got to be able to
identify and stop those before that money goes out.
And it’s not about stopping everything.
It is exactly what you
just touched upon, which is that
we actually have committed ourselves
to trying to get our customers
the money as quickly as we can.
So, their ticket sales that
are running through Eventbrite should be
in their pocket, you know, in real time, ultimately.
But, to do that you have
to have a good, intelligent
line of defense and that you’re
not just getting, you know, completely…
Yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
So, you have a new product that you just announced?
Yes, we have great tech.
We have been working on
this almost a year, our mobile box office team.
We call it Eventbrite at the Door.
And it’s a way to
collect money, look up
will call, run reports at
the door of events so traditionally
all of our sales has happened
at the pre sale and online.
That is really what you want
Yeah I’ve done, the print out of the ticket or whatever, right?
That’s exactly right.
And with this iPad
based application, you can
now collect money at
the door, swipe credit cards,
collect cash, and really tie the two systems together.
With more than $400 million in projected gross sales for 2011, Eventbrite is getting big enough that it has to worry about fending off the criminals. In the above clip of Founder Stories with Chris Dixon, Julia Hartz discusses Eventbrites’ digital shield, while her partner in crime Kevin Hartz describes a new box-office iPad app the ticketing site recently rolled out.
Speaking to theft, the majority of illegal activity on Eventbrite is not from thieves purchasing tickets with stolen cards says Julia, rather the real issue is entirely different. She says “we are a self service platform and anybody can create an event and you know that presents an opportunity for fraudsters to run credit cards through our system.” To combat the issue of crime, Eventbrite has created its own in-house security team, which Julia calls “a competitive advantage.”
With one team locking down fraud, another team locks down mobile sales. In the back end of the clip, Kevin Hartz discusses their new feature, “Eventbrite at the Door” an iPad app that was roughly a year in development and provides convenience by allowing event organizers to “collect money at the door, swipe credit cards, collect cash and really tie the two systems together.”
In the exchange below, the husband and wife team discuss, well, being a husband and wife team. Says Juila, “We learned a really valuable lesson early on from Michael and Xochi Burch who funded Bebo … they said divide and conquer, never work on the same project at the same time. We have actually followed that to a tee for the last five years.”
The two go on to discuss hiring based on IQ vs. EQ, their long range plans for Eventbrite (their exit strategy is “when we die”) and offer advice to rising entrepreneurs.
Make sure to watch episodes I and II of Chris Dixon’s interview with Eventbrite.
And, be sure to check out past interviews of Founder Stories.
The last thing I’d ask,
so you’re married, and that,
how is that, that’s, there’s…
You’re still married.
Yeah.
There’s often, there is debate.
There, this is, you know,
there’s a few famous companies
where they’ve been sort of
think, I don’t know
from where but we find it
to be extremely advantageous for us.
I think in any company especially
in a start up you look for
a strong founding team and a strong partnership.
And so that’s what we have.
You know, as I mentioned we
were engaged when we started
Eventbrite and we had
never lived together before, and so
we went from being in
a long distance relationship to living
together and working in
a windowless, but
we have complimentary skills.
But it’s not all you know
fluff and warm and fuzzy.
So we have pretty strict rules for ourselves.is
that we follow to make sure
that one doesn’t to
collide into the other and we
don’t affect our relationships or
affect our baby, the business, Eventbrite.
And so we learned a
really valuable lesson early on
from Michael and Sochi Burch
who founded Bebo, who are
sort of our mentors and good friends.
They said “Divide and conquer; never
work on the same project at the same time.”
We have actually followed on that
to a T for the last five years.
And you prioritize, we have
a small daughter and she’s
three, that adds a whole
other layer of complexity so
we prioritize accordingly and we’re partners.
So it really works for us.
And I think it sets the tone for the company and the culture.
We have an extremely balanced culture.
Our executive team is
comprised of five females
and three males right now.
So it’s actually maybe not so balanced.
But we just have a great
culture where people know that
we care deeply about the
company and that we
just happen to make really great partners.
You mentioned your complementary skills.
Do you need a third How do
you guys generally think about team composition?
Mean like who
brought which skills to the table?
So Julia is really
focused on culturing team building
and really finding that right chemistry.
Does she have a big roll apart of the company?
Yeah, she’s a. You know,
I would say one of the challenges
I had at Zoom is I
hired a lot on IQ and
not as much on chemistry or
EQ and Julia’s helped
bring that to the company
and that’s been absolutely critical.
Just kind of in the PayPal DNA,
right, sort of like there
is like hyper intelligent people who…
Not that they’re low IQ.
But they were just like super super high IQ and like…
and the issue is, and
fortunately, for the most part it
didn’t happen at PayPal, was
that under stressful situations
when you have those personalities
and you don’t have chemistry, you have a lot of tension.
So really thinking about the chemistry
as well as the intelligence.
And Angela has really brought that to the company.
Renaud is our
CTO and architect and
has really been, you
know, chief in building the platform.
And I don’t know what I’d do.
I’d be gone.
Going to shows.
Kind of takes it to new heights.
It’s all about strategy.
Yeah.
So, what is your
long term, is your long term goal
to, I guess you’ve
sold the company, and obviously
a very successful company.
Is your goal to sell the company?
Is it your goal to?
We’ve got a big independent company
that we’re just getting started.
We’ll do 400 million
in gross ticket sales this
year and we want to
grow that to the billions and tens
of billions over time.
We’re moving internationally, we’re moving
up into larger events, we
have, we’re only
really one percent of the way
there in terms of building
this business out.
So we’re in it for the long run.
and we want to be an independent
stand alone public company when the time is right.
Do you, I mean, you’re someone who started 3 companies.
You want this to be your last
or, I mean, a lot
of people they, serial entrepreneurs
they want to go do another
one or something but this like
this is your This has a
very long, you know legs.
It has very long legs
to it, so it seems a life time of work.
So you can see it being interesting.
Yeah, somebody else just recently asked us what our exit strategy is for the two of us.
And I said when we die because at some point.
Yeah.
We really have out, like, wow
if we’re lucky
enough we’ll be doing this enjoy, we love the team.
It’s a very cohesive team.
I think it’s a
very special group that we’ve
taken years actually to assemble and have that right chemistry.
So, it’s a special thing to
be able to come accomplish all these great things.
So if people watching
are say aspiring entrepreneurs.
What would be your top advice you might give them?
I would say be astutely
observational and flexible.
So for us, I think our
biggest successes have come
out of always keeping your
eyes open and always being
willing to capitalize on what could be a new opportunity.
That doesn’t mean you get, go off all over the place and get scattered.
Really really understand what those
opportunities are when they present
themselves and immediately jump on them.
I think that’s one of the reasons
why we’re so deeply ingrained with
social commerce because we saw
that trend as it was
happening, as we were
watching the data and the metrics, you know, fanatically.
And I would say complementing that is talent density.
So it’s a very frothy period right now.
There’s a lot of opportunities out there
and I fear that the talent
has been spread thin
and really maintaining very high
standards and keeping, you
know, really being
patient to bring the right
people, again, with the right chemistry on board.
Yeah, people have, a lot of
people have found that I talk
to have said that the biggest
competition now is not, you
know, Google, Facebook, other start ups it’s people starting a company themselves.
Absolutely.
There is a theory that says the
reason that Google and PayPal were
so successful is that they
came out of the dot com
wreckage when they could scoop
up all the talent when all the startups had dissipated.
And that’s a big challenge right now.
Are you still actively angel-investing?
I have slowed down significantly and
part of it is Is is because you’re busy or because on and off the air or both?
A combination of both.
It ‘s, one is that
we’ve got so much
on our plate and so much
to do with the events right now, but
secondly it is hard to
distinguish so many companies getting
started, that I’m stepping back a little.
My last investment was a
company called Pintrest, though, and really love the business.
And you’re also an investor
in Airbnb, which seems like
a wildly successful company.
Airbnb is incredible.
My perspective of it, it’s distributed storage.
So, if you think of hotels as
a, you know, as kind of enterprise class storage.
We have to maintain these structures, and so on.
Is it peer to peer?
Yeah, Airbnb is this wonderful model.
It was, Keith Jauther and
I invested in it two years ago.
And it felt weird, but
just seeing the people using it.
You always look and see the
behavior on the service
and then seeing Nate, Joe, and Brian.
They’re a remarkable trio of
founders, very inspiring and
again, it’s how I
learned is by seeing
great entrepreneurs like that in action.
Yeah.
OK.
Great.
Well, that’s a great investment.
I think we’re out of time, so thanks much for being here.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
OK.
so you’re married, and that,
how is that, that’s, there’s…
You’re still married.
Yeah.
There’s often, there is debate.
There, this is, you know,
there’s a few famous companies
where they’ve been sort of
think, I don’t know
from where but we find it
to be extremely advantageous for us.
I think in any company especially
in a start up you look for
a strong founding team and a strong partnership.
And so that’s what we have.
You know, as I mentioned we
were engaged when we started
Eventbrite and we had
never lived together before, and so
we went from being in
a long distance relationship to living
together and working in
a windowless, but
we have complimentary skills.
But it’s not all you know
fluff and warm and fuzzy.
So we have pretty strict rules for ourselves.is
that we follow to make sure
that one doesn’t to
collide into the other and we
don’t affect our relationships or
affect our baby, the business, Eventbrite.
And so we learned a
really valuable lesson early on
from Michael and Sochi Burch
who founded Bebo, who are
sort of our mentors and good friends.
They said “Divide and conquer; never
work on the same project at the same time.”
We have actually followed on that
to a T for the last five years.
And you prioritize, we have
a small daughter and she’s
three, that adds a whole
other layer of complexity so
we prioritize accordingly and we’re partners.
So it really works for us.
And I think it sets the tone for the company and the culture.
We have an extremely balanced culture.
Our executive team is
comprised of five females
and three males right now.
So it’s actually maybe not so balanced.
But we just have a great
culture where people know that
we care deeply about the
company and that we
just happen to make really great partners.
You mentioned your complementary skills.
Do you need a third How do
you guys generally think about team composition?
Mean like who
brought which skills to the table?
So Julia is really
focused on culturing team building
and really finding that right chemistry.
Does she have a big roll apart of the company?
Yeah, she’s a. You know,
I would say one of the challenges
I had at Zoom is I
hired a lot on IQ and
not as much on chemistry or
EQ and Julia’s helped
bring that to the company
and that’s been absolutely critical.
Just kind of in the PayPal DNA,
right, sort of like there
is like hyper intelligent people who…
Absolutely.
Not that they’re low IQ.
But they were just like super super high IQ and like…
Yes.
and the issue is, and
fortunately, for the most part it
didn’t happen at PayPal, was
that under stressful situations
when you have those personalities
and you don’t have chemistry, you have a lot of tension.
So really thinking about the chemistry
as well as the intelligence.
And Angela has really brought that to the company.
Renaud is our
CTO and architect and
has really been, you
know, chief in building the platform.
And I don’t know what I’d do.
I’d be gone.
Going to shows.
Kind of takes it to new heights.
It’s all about strategy.
Yeah.
So, what is your
long term, is your long term goal
to, I guess you’ve
sold the company, and obviously
a very successful company.
Is your goal to sell the company?
Is it your goal to?
We’ve got a big independent company
that we’re just getting started.
We’ll do 400 million
in gross ticket sales this
year and we want to
grow that to the billions and tens
of billions over time.
We’re moving internationally, we’re moving
up into larger events, we
have, we’re only
really one percent of the way
there in terms of building
this business out.
So we’re in it for the long run.
and we want to be an independent
stand alone public company when the time is right.
Do you, I mean, you’re someone who started 3 companies.
You want this to be your last
or, I mean, a lot
of people they, serial entrepreneurs
they want to go do another
one or something but this like
this is your This has a
very long, you know legs.
It has very long legs
to it, so it seems a life time of work.
So you can see it being interesting.
Yeah, somebody else just recently asked us what our exit strategy is for the two of us.
And I said when we die because at some point.
Yeah.
We really have out, like, wow
if we’re lucky
enough we’ll be doing this enjoy, we love the team.
It’s a very cohesive team.
I think it’s a
very special group that we’ve
taken years actually to assemble and have that right chemistry.
So, it’s a special thing to
be able to come accomplish all these great things.
So if people watching
are say aspiring entrepreneurs.
What would be your top advice you might give them?
I would say be astutely
observational and flexible.
So for us, I think our
biggest successes have come
out of always keeping your
eyes open and always being
willing to capitalize on what could be a new opportunity.
That doesn’t mean you get, go off all over the place and get scattered.
Really really understand what those
opportunities are when they present
themselves and immediately jump on them.
I think that’s one of the reasons
why we’re so deeply ingrained with
social commerce because we saw
that trend as it was
happening, as we were
watching the data and the metrics, you know, fanatically.
And I would say complementing that is talent density.
So it’s a very frothy period right now.
There’s a lot of opportunities out there
and I fear that the talent
has been spread thin
and really maintaining very high
standards and keeping, you
know, really being
patient to bring the right
people, again, with the right chemistry on board.
Yeah, people have, a lot of
people have found that I talk
to have said that the biggest
competition now is not, you
know, Google, Facebook, other start ups it’s people starting a company themselves.
Absolutely.
There is a theory that says the
reason that Google and PayPal were
so successful is that they
came out of the dot com
wreckage when they could scoop
up all the talent when all the startups had dissipated.
And that’s a big challenge right now.
Are you still actively angel-investing?
I have slowed down significantly and
part of it is Is is because you’re busy or because on and off the air or both?
A combination of both.
It ‘s, one is that
we’ve got so much
on our plate and so much
to do with the events right now, but
secondly it is hard to
distinguish so many companies getting
started, that I’m stepping back a little.
My last investment was a
company called Pintrest, though, and really love the business.
And you’re also an investor
in Airbnb, which seems like
a wildly successful company.
Airbnb is incredible.
My perspective of it, it’s distributed storage.
So, if you think of hotels as
a, you know, as kind of enterprise class storage.
We have to maintain these structures, and so on.
Is it peer to peer?
Yeah, Airbnb is this wonderful model.
It was, Keith Jauther and
I invested in it two years ago.
And it felt weird, but
just seeing the people using it.
You always look and see the
behavior on the service
and then seeing Nate, Joe, and Brian.
They’re a remarkable trio of
founders, very inspiring and
again, it’s how I
learned is by seeing
great entrepreneurs like that in action.
Yeah.
OK.
Great.
Well, that’s a great investment.
I think we’re out of time, so thanks much for being here.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
OK.
