In this episode of Acquired, hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, along with CEO Julia Hartz and her co-founder husband Kevin Hartz, delve into the compelling journey of Eventbrite. They explore its inception in 2006 by a husband-wife team, the company's unique challenges and growth leading to a successful IPO in 2018 under Julia's leadership, and the strategic pivots made during the COVID-19 pandemic that brought Eventbrite's business from booming to near-zero revenue. The conversation also touches on Kevin's new venture, a $200 million SPAC, and the potential for Eventbrite's resurgence post-pandemic, likening the future to the vibrant return of social gatherings after the 1918 pandemic. The episode concludes with a reflection on the resilience and innovation that have defined Eventbrite's story and its ongoing evolution.
"You guys are probably getting annoyed because we should get started." "No, I mean, I think we have enough tape here of just breakfast sandwich conversation that that can be the episode."
The quotes indicate the casual and friendly atmosphere among the speakers before diving into the main content of the podcast.
"Welcome to season seven, episode two of acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert." "Today we come to you with the long overdue story of eventbrite."
The quotes set the stage for the episode's focus on Eventbrite, its history, management, and current challenges, as well as introducing a discussion on SPACs.
"We read every single survey response which thank you for all of your thoughtful feedback." "So we have a favor to ask today. To pick your favorite episode and share it with a friend or on social media to help our little experiment of seeing if we can move the needle just by asking."
The quotes emphasize the importance of listener engagement and the role of sharing in promoting the podcast.
"Our next sponsor for this episode is one of our favorite companies and longtime acquired partner pilot for startups and growth companies of all kinds." "Which is wild because when we started working with them way back when they were just a startup themselves, and now they're a billion dollar plus company backed by Sequoia, index, Stripe, and even Jeff Bezos himself."
The quotes outline Pilot's role as a sponsor and its evolution from a startup to a major accounting firm for startups.
"I had the good fortune of being a seed investor in Pinterest. It's an excellent breakdown, the best I've heard to date." "So I had the good fortune of meeting Peter Thiel, also. Keith Ravoys. I was undergraduate. Peter was a graduate student at the law school, and we were involved in student politics together."
The quotes reflect Kevin's deep involvement in the early Silicon Valley ecosystem and his connections with influential figures like Peter Thiel.
"So it was May 24, 2003. I could never forget that date until just now." "So it was it. That was it. One line, and I was caught."
The quotes capture the personal history of Julia and Kevin, setting the stage for their future collaboration on Eventbrite.
"We were the first developers on it. And we kicked around a lot of different ideas, including ticketing." "We had launched. We were sending money to the Dominican Republic, and we started to go out and fundraise."
The quotes highlight the entrepreneurial journey from PayPal's API development to the creation of Zoom and the initial challenges faced by Kevin.
"Like, Kevin, we could do a whole sort of valley history thing here, bring us through selling a company to PayPal, and then take us all the way up to starting eventbrite. And then I want to get Julia's side of the starting eventbrite story."
The quote indicates a shift in the conversation towards a deeper dive into Eventbrite's origins and the combined efforts of Julia and Kevin in its founding.
"I got my foot in the door really early on by interning during college... And I was able to really identify what I wanted to do in Hollywood pretty early on."
This quote explains how Julia Hartz's early internship experiences helped her identify her career path in the entertainment industry.
"You could tell that disruption was coming, but it was really sort of coming from content, not from technology."
This quote highlights the pre-streaming era's focus on innovative content as the main source of disruption in the entertainment industry.
"However, spending two years going back and forth between San Francisco and LA really showed me the stark differences between what was happening in Silicon Valley during that Renaissance period and what was happening in Hollywood."
This quote reflects Julia Hartz's realization of the contrasting environments and opportunities between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
"And at that point, I knew that it would be a lifelong relationship."
Kevin expresses his immediate connection with Julia and his confidence in their future together, both personally and professionally.
"It was a wonderful thing where we got to spend 24/7 together. So it seemed very magical. And I captured this talent along with our third co-founder, Renault Visage, who always gets left out because everyone wants to talk about the couple."
Kevin discusses the formation of Eventbrite and the importance of recognizing the contributions of their co-founder, Renault Visage.
"And meanwhile, I had no idea what this was going to be like. I was not the kid with the lemonade stand, so I didn't know sort of, if I would make a great entrepreneur, but I did know that I love to learn by doing."
Julia Hartz shares her initial uncertainty about entrepreneurship but emphasizes her eagerness to learn through experience.
"And we really feel, and I feel strongly that that's the right way to build a company. That capital can be a good thing, but a lot of times, financing really hinders companies that it gets one focused on the wrong things."
Kevin explains the philosophy behind bootstrapping Eventbrite and the importance of focusing on the product and customers over raising capital prematurely.
"We wanted to build a platform that did that. We wanted to put something in motion, and we would have creators, our merchants, find the business, publish on eventbrite, sell tickets, hold their events, and the attendees would learn about eventbrite, and some of them would convert to creators or merchants, and you'd wash, rinse, repeat again."
The quote explains the core business model of Eventbrite, which is to create a self-reinforcing ecosystem of event creation and attendance, fostering growth within the platform.
"We weren't fundraising the entire year, but we did go out towards the end of 2008. It was the fall of 2008, and I don't know if you really great. You two young chats are old enough. But it was a tough time for the economy. The sky was falling."
Julia Hartz reflects on the difficulty of raising funds during the 2008 economic downturn, highlighting the resilience and eventual success of Eventbrite despite numerous rejections from venture firms.
"But the Internet creates the opportunity for niches to individually be large. And so this whole long tail of creators that otherwise didn't have tooling and were thus collecting checks at the door or not having an events because it was too high of a friction thing, this basically unlocked new value for that massive long tail of."
Ben Gilbert discusses how the internet enables niche markets to become significant, and how Eventbrite capitalized on this by providing tools to a wide range of creators who previously operated offline.
"At some point when we did have some money, we would try to find consultants to help us, and it just was impossible to try to peg down every one of these categories."
Kevin Hartz speaks to the difficulty of determining the TAM for a diverse and dynamic market such as the one Eventbrite operates in, where traditional methods of calculation do not apply.
"We landed on September and all along. So one thing that I think maybe you guys don't know about me is that when I make a plan, that's the plan. So I decided that since Kevin's birthday is on September 18 and Roloff's birthday is on September 19, that obviously we'd be going public that week."
Julia Hartz describes her determination to stick to the initial plan for Eventbrite's IPO, illustrating her commitment and the significance of aligning the company's public offering with personal milestones.
"Stacey Cunningham, said that they had looked through the archives and had not yet found a picture of that many women executives on the podium."
The quote highlights the notable presence of women executives at Eventbrite's IPO, suggesting a break from tradition in the male-dominated finance industry.
"Pete from Citadel, our market maker, our opener, he said he'd never seen that many children on the floor."
This quote emphasizes the family-oriented atmosphere of Eventbrite's IPO day, which differed from the typical business-focused environment.
"We actually didn't see one woman on the roadshow. We saw one, actually. Sorry, we saw one, and I'm dear friends with her."
This quote reflects the scarcity of women in the investment banking roadshow process, highlighting gender disparity in the industry.
"You're meeting with portfolio managers of long only funds."
The quote corrects a common misconception about roadshows, clarifying that the meetings are with investment decision-makers, not bankers.
"We were really fighting this gravity of overspending and creating inefficiency."
The quote discusses the struggle against the tendency to overspend and become inefficient, which can be exacerbated by large amounts of private capital.
"We raised $225,000,000 as a public company."
This quote signifies Eventbrite's ability to secure funding during a crisis, demonstrating the resilience and adaptability of the company.
"We had almost been in a position that the sun was shining. When you look back at everything else compared to what happened in March, we had a phenomenal January and February."
The quote contrasts Eventbrite's strong performance before the pandemic with the sudden and severe impact of COVID-19 in March.
"We immediately made a cut that was deep and it was painful, and it was a cut that we made not just for cost cutting sake, but actually to prepare the company to narrow its focus."
This quote explains the strategic reasoning behind the difficult cost-cutting measures Eventbrite took in response to the pandemic, aiming to streamline and focus the company.
"I think it would have been harder if we were private."
The quote suggests that the transparency and structure of being a public company facilitated Eventbrite's ability to navigate the crisis and secure funding.
"Crusoe's cloud is purpose built for AI and run on wasted, stranded or clean energy."
The quote promotes Crusoe Energy Systems' unique value proposition, focusing on its environmentally friendly and cost-effective AI cloud services.
"The a plus outcome is the silver lining of being able to dramatically focus the business on the core of the business."
The quote from Kevin outlines the potential positive outcome of refocusing on Eventbrite's core strengths and business model.
"Kevin@Eventbrite.Com I'm a terrible salesperson, so I'm not going to pitch eventbrite."
The quote humorously conveys Kevin's reluctance to directly promote Eventbrite, instead focusing on the value of community engagement and support for the arts.