The Eventbrite Story | Julia & Kevin Hartz

Most people say, "I can't imagine starting a company with my spouse," or "We would kill each other." We were the opposite: we couldn't imagine not working together. So we started Eventbrite with Renaud Vassage, who is our co-founding CTO and— First of all, we didn't have any employees, so it was just Kevin and I in, like, a little place that you'd have phone calls, and we had dog beds in our office.

Those dog beds were where we would take naps, because we were bootstrapping the company, so we didn't have a lot of money for much else. And it was a really magical time. I think the vibe of what we were building as a founding team was really rooted in curiosity.

We would talk for hours with customers. We were always really acutely observational; others would call it, like, "stalking." And so we would watch and learn, and then build more features that would help them do what they were doing.

And we just kept growing that way, to the point where today Eventbrite is the second-largest trafficked events website in the world. But back then, during COVID, it was really challenging.

In a very short period of time, we went to negative revenue, which I'd never seen before in a public company. So dramatic action needed to be taken to get us through this.

And there was a moment in time when it was all just survival. But I learned so much during that time, and one of the first lessons I learned was—

Kevin and Julia, welcome to NEW ECONOMIES. It's so awesome to see you both, and this is the first husband and wife duo episode we've ever done on the show, so thanks so much for being here today.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you. Excited to be here.

So, you know, I'm sure we both meet a lot of founders, but I don't meet that many founders who have built companies, have taken companies public, have got married, have stayed in a relationship, have created a family. How have you managed to create a blossoming relationship which has endured for so long?

Whew.

Uh, well, I, you know, I think we attribute, like, when, you know, when we were working together, um, we didn't know how things were going to turn out, to be honest. And so we, um, really kind of came up with just, like, a simple rubric of, like, dividing and conquering, and finding, you know, what are each of our strengths, and focusing our time and attention on that.

And it just turned out to be perfectly complementary. Now, it's not like that with all couples, but it worked very swimmingly with us.

How did you both meet? What was that first encounter?

We sat next to each other at a wedding. It was my boss, my first boss from MTV, I was her assistant, married Kevin's classmate from university, and we, uh, we randomly sat next to each other during the ceremony.

It was, um, I think I might have switched the placards around because we had started speaking in, you know, during, um, the ceremony itself, and so when I saw she was at our table, I might have, like, moved it so she was— so Julia was next to me.

It was a good mood.

Wise. Good mood. And it's lasted 20, 25 years. You met in 2003?

2003.

Yeah.

So you both meet, and you probably get talking about where's life going to take us next, and you have this idea to start a company. And it's not just any company; it's going to be in the events space, getting people together, community.

What was that idea, and how did you both come up with this idea around bringing the world together?

Well, we approached it from, like, Julia and I approached it from different angles but arrived at the same conclusion. You know, I mean, maybe you can describe, like, how you saw it initially.

Well, I think that I had been working in television development, not in tech, and I— but I had the amazing fortune of sort of living vicariously through Kevin as he was building his second company, Zoom, XOOM, um, and, and was really, you know, focused on, uh, money transfers as this differentiator enabled by PayPal, which, you know, way back in the day was, was revolutionary, really, in, in democratizing different industries.

And so, uh, he and his, his business partner, Alan, were going after, um, you know, an industry that had been sort of fraught with high consumer fees and inaccessibility, and had this sort of, you know, 800-pound gorilla in, in the mix.

And, uh, and I got to see a lot through his lens of building that company. And so even though I was in a totally different industry and not in, uh, building, I was watching and learning and growing through the, you know, almost three years, uh, we were engaged, I moved up to San Francisco, and then we started to talk about, uh, what we could do together as an adjunct to, um, to Zoom.

Uh, and that actually became Eventbrite. And, uh, you know, I think that we both are excited about the idea of making something possible that wasn't possible before. And it seems crazy now, but back then, you really couldn't sell tickets to an event if it wasn't Madison Square Garden, and you had a, you know, very expensive contract with a very archaic software provider, or even it was, like, on-prem servers that were, that were, you know, serving the, the ticketing needs for these customers.

And, um, Kevin had a really distinct vision of what he wanted to build and why, and, you know, I was just, like, trying to keep up.

I, I mean, I would say, you know, like, Julia always saw this, um, you know, bringing people together around live experiences as, as, uh, just this one area of commerce, you could say, that, um, has this, has, like, a true social element, and, and, you know, this, this aspiration for more people to meet up, you know, people that have the same interests and likes, and, um, and, you know, you combine that with where I was, which was, okay, what are other payment areas?

Like, Zoom was, was very exciting, um, with the remittance side of the business, um, with the growth of that remittance business. But, you know, for, like, ticketing, um, was, you know, just that, that area that hadn't been pursued by an Amazon or somebody else of, of large size.

And, and it's a, you know, a ticket is a, um, it's a virtual good of sorts, you know, you don't have to fulfill an item. Um, and it has a certain nature to it where, um, you know, it's like a, it's like a, um, a good that expires after a short period of time, much like, you know, like shipping fish, you know, or something.

A ticket could be worth, you know, $5,000 one day and then worth nothing, you know, as soon as the show or the event or whatever is over. So there were all these attributes, uh, to, to tickets that, that were very interesting, and we wanted to, you know, cover all the, you know, we had aspired to cover all the categories and, um, sizes of events out there.

Were there— was there other categories or ideas you guys were thinking, tinkering with outside of events, in-real-life community platforms?

We had been kind of playing with, like, this is, you know, before Stripe, um, we were playing with, we were the first developers at, with the Zoom product, we were the very first developers on the PayPal API. Um, and so we were playing with other, you know, sort of, like, applications, like we were, um,

pay- payment enabling groups, um, so, like, email groups and things of that nature. Um, we were, we were paywall enabling sites, you know, you'd enter your FTP information and, and decide which, um, you know, which areas of the, like, tree of your site to, um, add a paywall to.

Um, and, and those did okay, but it was, you know, the Eventbrite— or what became Eventbrite, which really took off.

Awesome. So it's 2006, and you both decided to set on building Eventbrite. I think one of the most interesting parts of starting a company is always in its first 12 months. So if I was to join as your first employee, we're in 2006, what does that first 12 months look like of building Eventbrite together?

Well, first of all, we didn't have any employees, so we are taking a leap. I mean, it was, you know, three of us co-founders. We started Eventbrite with Renaud Vassage, who is our co-founding CTO and was at the company for many, many years.

Um, and he, uh, he actually worked remote, so it was just the two of us, Kevin and I, in, um, a windowless phone closet room. It wasn't even a real conference room. It was like a— it was like a little place that you'd have phone calls.

Um, two desks that were, uh, saw horses and plywood that we'd gotten from the, uh, con— you know, like the, the hardware store. Um, you know, a wall full of, of cuppa noodles, because we were bootstrapping the company, so we didn't have a lot of money for much else.

And, um, and we were in this space that was almost this natural, um, incubator. It wasn't— or organic incubator, rather. It wasn't really a program, but there were a bunch of companies that had sort of coalesced around this space.

And so, and one of them, um, I remember it was a, a high-end dog bed, uh, startup, and, uh, and so we had dog beds in our, in our office. Am I painting the picture?

Yeah, it's a good one.

Yeah. And then that— those dog beds were where we would take naps because we were working around the clock.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so we had it all. And we had sustenance, we had a place to rest our weary heads, um, and, uh, and it was— it was a really magical time. I think the vibe of, of what we were building as a founding team was really rooted in curiosity around, you know, people who design and produce live experiences are an entirely different breed of human.

And it was our job to understand their psychology and then build a product that was better, faster, cheaper, more effective than what was out there, which, honestly, for us, you know, wasn't very difficult because of really what we were creating the, the space, but then also to help them be better, faster, more effective at what they were doing.

And so we wanted very much the product to be as easy to use as Gmail. And so we would do things like have Kevin's father be our first user, uh, testing subject, and we'd sit through him using, you know, the early iterations of Eventbrite.

We would go to events and work the door to just understand what is that like, what kind of problems can we solve there. We would talk for hours with customers. Um, and so it was just a lot of curiosity, a lot of discovery, and that's how we built the first iteration of Eventbrite.

And I think really was a value that continued to be instilled in the company for two decades.

And so I imagine you probably found product market fit pretty quickly,right? Because back then there were so many creators, people wanted to meet in person, there weren't that many good platforms on the market. Did you— did you find out product market fit pretty, pretty quickly?

Well, we, we started very modestly, and, um, and what we did find initially was it, it tended to be around tech-related events, um, were the kind of earliest adopters. And there's— so there was a clustering, you know, around that early on.

And then, you know, sort of to unlock each next level, there were certain things we would do, um, you know, certain features or products or so on would, would unlock kind of the next audience.

I imagine, um, other categories like music was probably super popular, sports. Were those the main defining categories that really exploded early on?

Well, the best part about what we did was we actually didn't focus on one category or even one geography for that matter. I mean, sure, we were English, um, speaking first, uh, but because we had built the original, uh, Eventbrite on top of the PayPal API, we were actually available in many different countries.

And what that did, having, you know, it, it sort of runs completely counter to most, uh, marketplace or even, or, you know, any sort of consumer product, um, advice, which is like to focus. Um, we did the opposite.

We built something that could be used by a, you know, marathon, it could be used by a nightclub, it could be used by a conference. And the brilliance of that diffusion was that it created opportunity. So we basically put the product out there with a core, you know, audience that, that was kind of in our backyard, tech bloggers that were, that were using Eventbrite for meetups, but then we just let it grow and we watched where it went.

And so, you know, again, coming back to that curiosity and discovery, we were always really, um, uh, we— I would call it like acutely observational, um, others would call it like stalking. Uh, we were just really curious about our customers, and so we would watch and, and learn and then build more features that would help them do what they were doing.

But we started to be used by, you know, East Coast speed dating events, and that was really cool. So we leaned in there and we grew in that little pocket, and we just kept growing that way to the point where today, Eventbrite is the de facto trend forecaster for live experiences, because if it's happening, it's happening on Eventbrite.

I remember using the product, I was like 15, 16, organizing the high school events,right? And I remember back then, the AI was just so easy, but also it's a self-serve product,right? You could just kind of get going and, uh, hopefully not much too involvement is needed from, from a team point of view.

What is the hardest part of building a self-serve product? Because you have every, every event host, creator, or customer, whatever you want to call them, they're all going to have their own different needs and different feature requests, and yeah, everyone is different.

Well, I mean, you know, we just would spend a lot of time taking friction out of the system, like a self-service platform, you know, really the goal, um, is ease of use, um, and just this intuitive nature to it.

And, and, you know, so a lot of time was spent doing that. The flip side is that when you have a self-service platform, you ha— you're susceptible to fraud. And, you know, this is like the lesson from PayPal, the original OG PayPal team, um, and from Zoom is, like, fraud becomes a great mechanism of differentiation, uh, in the sense that you want to be able to stop the bad guys and not curtail the, you know, the good people using the, the service.

And building such a system is, is non-trivial. And, um, and, and that's something we spent a lot of energy on.

So this, let's jump to maybe 2016 as the, the, like, the landmark year,right, of all amazing companies. You reached 10 years, and this is what, you know, I think a lot of people call a crucible moment,right? It's 10 years old, company is, you know, growing super quickly.

Kevin, you were the CEO for the, for the first 10 years,right? And then actually, um, you perhaps both decided maybe it's time for a change. When you decided to almost switch roles, uh, Julia Kevin as CEO and, uh, Kevin as chairman, what did you both— what was that conversation between you two?

It just felt very natural, and, and it was like theright, theright move, um, to do. And, um, you know, it was a good point to hand the baton on. Um, moving into the chairman role was a little sad because I wouldn't be in the day-to-day, um, you know, with, with Julia, uh, you know, in, in the manner before, but, uh, it was time.

I would say the crucible— it was a crucible moment for us personally because our entire relationship had been founded on, you know, being side by side as, as co-founders. And so where most people say, you know, "I can't imagine starting a company with my spouse or we would kill each other," you know, we were the opposite.

We couldn't imagine not working together. So, um, it was really difficult to, to, uh, you know, go through the day-to-day without operating the company, uh, in the way that we had. Um, but it, it marked the beginning of a new chapter.

Uh, I would say the crucible moment for the company comes, you know, four years later, uh, during COVID. Um, but, you know, I think we, we really appreciate the fact that as, as people and thinkers and doers and leaders, we're incredibly complementary and, you know, we're just— we feel really lucky that we were able to, to do that for so long together.

When you took the reins over that first year, you'll probably think you maybe don't know what to expect. It's almost you've been working alongside Kevin and you're perhaps taking day-by-day. Was the first 12 months exactly what you anticipated or the complete opposite?

Um, I remember coming home after the first week and being pretty mad at Kevin.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, because he had made it all look really easy. And, you know, we just have really different ways of doing things and processing. And I was like, "Wow." I thought, you know, I was like in Candyland in my last role, and now it feels like Tron.

These are some good '80s, uh, you know, references.

Sure.

Um, and, and I'm like, "You didn't tell me how hard this was." And I just don't think you can— someone can describe the, like, what it feels like to be the person that is responsible for everyone. You know, it was just— it was such a massive responsibility and just this, like, full-on mind, mind, you know, challenge.

Um, and, uh, yeah, so I, I, you know, it took a long time for me— it took until about COVID for me to figure out how to do, like, really how to do things my way with full confidence.

When you came in as CEO, did the company culture change much at all? Is it pretty much the same? You both seem like very similar types of people anyway, from an outsider. Did, did the culture change much or pretty much stay the same?

We were— we are very similar in some ways and very different in others, but we had built the culture very, very carefully together and thoughtfully, so it didn't change, um, it didn't change much. I mean, I would say that, uh.

It, it became maybe a little less artistic.

No, no, I was going to say— actually, I was going to say the opposite. Like, I think that people maybe who think about this, I don't know that, that people sit around thinking about this, but oftentimes I would get the credit for certain cultural aspects of Eventbrite that actually, if you trace them back to the beginning, was Kevin's idea or Kevin's influence.

And, um, you know, and so I think it was the only maybe shift that I would say is like, I perhaps— I think it's fair to say that I am more careful than Kevin. And that actually, for, for a while was very appropriate for the, for the place that we were in, you know, needing to sort of scale and figure out how to integrate big inter— big acquisitions.

Um, and so, but I, I feel like, um, you know, there's a— there's a huge virtue in having a co-founding team that works virtuously together. Let's just put it that way. Like, it's really hard to do it on your own.

But thankfully, I had still had him, you know, as chair of the board and as you're always a co-founder, um, along with Reneau. And I, you know, and so I took his advice a lot, but it, it was— I, I, I wouldn't sugarcoat and say like, "Oh, and then we all— it was all really easy."

It was hard to not be together every day.

I also feel maybe from having read and looked at the story quite a lot, from 2016, it was probably some of the most difficult years,right? Um, I kind of think maybe there are two parts to the story. So 2016, the 10-year journey, the, the 10-year kind of landmark comes around.

Um, but then you're probably thinking, "How do we grow even quicker?" Potentially other acquisitions on the table, which we can leap into. And then probably the landmark of any company is to take it public. You're growing pretty fast, um, but then you're probably thinking, "Are there some acquisitions we can take?"

And at the time, there's this other competitor, uh, friendly competitor. I, I think you guys were called Tickerfly. Were, were you all on good terms? Were you friendly competitors or fighting against each other?

I, I think it's rare that you have friendly competitors. Um, there's usually, you know, some degree of edge. Um.

I mean, all told, we were friendly on the spectrum of, of vicious to friendly. Yeah, I mean, you know, it, it basically we were the brilliance of Eventbrite and why it is what it is today, which, you know, just, just kind of to level set, it's the second largest trafficked events website in the world or destination in the world.

And it's about five times bigger than its next competitor. So it's a, it's a very, very large marketplace full of live experiences, millions of live experiences that are really, really broad in diversity. And again, like, taking that choice that was very carefully made in the beginning and extrapolating it out, it was hard to compete with us in any given category because we had the benefit of all the other categories to drive consumer traffic, to drive, you know, awareness, to drive transactions.

And we're moving billions of dollars in, in micro transactions every year. So we have that heft of that platform as well. So when we arrived at the decision to acquire our closest competitor in one category, it was a large undertaking, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like a defining moment.

It was a moment to basically clean up some of that, um, kind of, you know, uh, like, uh, product experience for customers. And, um, but it was really challenging from the get-go. And the reason why it was challenging was because

two totally different brand, um, personalities, two totally different cultures, and then a little bit of that, like, and I think this is somewhat common in, in, um, acquisitions, you know, once we got in and started to really look at the platform, it was dying.

And so we had to move quickly to actually move the customers from Tickerfly to Eventbrite, and it wasn't pretty in some instances. So we were going through that sort of growing pain of, you know, building out our product suite to meet these ca— these really important customer needs, and then those customers having to re-platform to Eventbrite.

And the stress of that was just gnarly. I mean, it was just the sort of like, you know, it was a grind. Um, again, not, not, uh, not unique in any way, but just, just difficult. And so that's where we were in, in 2017 and then '18.

Um, we went public, and then '19, we were continuing to grow, you know, and figure out our, our, um, our world as a young public company. And then coming into 2020, we, we were actually playing from a, a strong position, um, because so much hard work had been done in the product, in the finances, and, you know, in the platform itself.

So we actually were playing from a, from a place of strength rather than a place of weakness.

With the, um, with the acquisition, how long do you think it actually took to get the whole product integrated and migrated into the Eventbrite suite?

I don't recall. I mean, it wasn't anything that felt, you know, a, like, a, a tremendous amount of time. It was just rough, like, rounding out the edges of the customer experience. It really wasn't about any sort of proprietary product that was unique to the market.

It was really about delivering combined and just a much better customer experience. And, you know, the core product, the core customer for this particular subcategory of what we served is our— were the customers who then ended up getting hit the hardest during COVID.

Um, these are, are, are the fabric of the United States, so only domestic. Um, but there are small music venues, independent music venues. And so such a precious cohort of customers, truly, I mean that, uh, and, and culturally so important to, to our country.

When an acquisition happens, you hope everything is going to go smoothly. But I think there was one— I don't know if you're open to talking about it. There was a— was there a crisis moment? Was it a, a hairy moment?

Everyone's going to have their own opinion on this when maybe the, the acquisition was happening, but you, you were basically attacked,right? What, um, what was that whole story about?

Well, I referenced that before, but the platform that Tickerfly was built on was dying, and it had poor— it had a porous surface. So that allowed— it was Tickerfly who was actually hacked, and that allowed, you know, bad actors in.

So we had to move quickly. And I just don't think that we were incredibly transparent about it because, you know, that's theright thing to do. But I just don't think all customers had the full story of what— of what was going on behind the scenes aside from, like, the facts, you know?

And so the nuance of that is if you want your customers to be having the proper experience and able to grow their businesses safely and, you know, and prosper, you have to have just like, you know, a, a, a really strong platform.

And the benefit of starting from this genesis of, you know, money transfer and, um, and, uh, micro transactions was that we had the foundation of the, um, anti-fraud mechanisms. Now, I mean, no one should ever say that they are airtight, uh, because you're constantly, you know, battling bad actors, but we had the benefit of that.

And so, um, so it was, you know, a fortunate thing that we could— that we could do what we had to do to help these business owners be able to grow and not lose money.

And obviously, uh, probably the, the biggest crucible moment was in March 2020. I remember because I was living in South Korea, and that was a pretty big, uh, lockdown in the country. And of course, when a lockdown happens, when COVID happens, the one thing that does stop is all events stop overnight.

Was there a moment you realized before the pandemic and everything shut down that we perhaps need to all get— we need to basically scramble together to try and save the company?

Well, we, we had a, you know, few indications. Um, you know, we had a cosmetics executive on our board that had seen some changes in Asia, um, you know, ahead of time, and one of our Sequoia partners did as well.

You know, we were— we were communicating with Ryan and Airbnb a bit back and forth, and, um, you know, obviously he had a big drop in volume, um, but, you know, he also has a platform that was ideal for those that want to get out of the cities and find, you know, and so the business rebound— his business rebounded very quickly.

Ours was in kind of a sustained, um, you know, shutdown where we went to negative revenue, um, which, like, I'd never seen before in a public company, you know, like, um, in, in kind of a very short period of time.

Um, and so kind of dramatic action needed to be taken, um, to kind of shore things up and ensure we had, um, cash to get us through this.

I mean, this is— this is a moment where I can imagine you're both scrambling together in a room trying to just figure out what does the next even few weeks look like. If we were to go through that moment again, it's March 2020.

We haven't mentioned that you are obviously like a, a public company, and there are whole pros and cons with that, I guess, during COVID. Those first two weeks of actually the whole world going to lockdown, what did that look like for you, for you both?

I mean, there was a lot of uncertainty, you know, it, it felt very, um, scary and, and, uh, we had the benefit of knowing, you know, the infectious disease head at UCSF, Joe DeRecy, who's a really smart, incredible person who was very clear about how bad this would be and how potentially long it would, it would be.

And I remember, you know, coming home from the office on the last day when everybody went home, and I, I felt like I needed to, you know, be the last one out. And it's like locking the door, and I, you know, like never saw the office again.

And I came home, and this room had been set up by Kevin as like this war room with these like big gaming monitors, you know, those like curved ones, and they were all set up in this sort of 360 position with two chairs in the middle.

And I just thought, like, I'll never forget that visual because it felt, it was like the most romantic thing to know that, like, I wasn't going to be alone and that Kevin was basically saying, "I'm going to be by your side," even though he had was really busy, you know, building companies and starting his new fund.

And, um, and that meant the world to me. So I did, I wasn't alone, that's for sure. And, and I think just, you know, it obviously tense times, but I learned so much during that time. And one of the first lessons I learned from Kevin, um, and some of our, our advisors and mentors was, you know, don't sit around trying to negotiate with fate.

Like, assume it's going to be bad, move fast, take action, and don't look back. And I think that that, like, that big, huge push, you know, beyond like when I get stressed, I sort of freeze. I like couldn't 'cause I was, Kevin was like pushing me, going, "Go, go, go.

This is not going to be good." And because of that, we had such a great advantage to, um, be ahead of the, of the crisis. However, because when you're earlier than most in your acceptance that it's going to be bad, you tend to have like really weird interactions with people.

And so we were trying to tell our customers to stop paying, you know, the, the cost for an event that was not going to happen, and they thought we were nuts. Um, so that was, it was, it was very intense.

I also think like during those times, so many of my friends were creators or fitness instructors, and

they, they offered refunds to all of their fans, but a lot of the fans actually continued paying. Did you see that as well? I thought that was a big surprise.

We, um, immediately threw out our roadmap. And, you know, one of the, I mean, we took several big actions, but we immediately paused the work that we were doing and, you know, otherwise normal business circumstances. And we started to help customers reverse their ticket sales and offer refunds.

But then I think a great idea that Kevin had was, "Why not instead of just offering refunds, you offer credits too?" And that was brilliant because alongside a refund option, so you could choose between the two, customers of our customers wanted to support them, local venues, you know, local creators.

And so they took the credit option too, and it was just a, it was a really nice way of showing that support during a really uncertain time. Um, but we were, we were processing more refunds than revenue within like 14 days of COVID hitting in the US.

That's crazy. Within 14 days, a 20-year-old company perhaps going up in smoke overnight.

Mm-hmm. Poetically, a 14-year-old company at the time.

What was your biggest lesson do you think during those few months to a year when COVID happened?

I mean, for me personally, um, it was reinforcing this notion that, you know, there's always going to be a few people that aren't on board, um, and they have to go. Like, everyone has to, um, everyone has to be aligned in the direction, um, and charging along and can't have their own agenda.

Sitting around and waiting and hoping is not a strategy. That, you know, taking matters into our own hands and asking ourselves, "What would we do if we could do it all over again?" And then doing that was the better way to, to set ourselves up for success.

Because while most people were just trying to figure it out, we were already completely capitalized and running, you know, toward helping our customers try to salvage their businesses. I mean, there was a moment in time when it was all just survival, and then it was recovery.

And the recovery cycle took much longer than anyone had, you know, hoped or had predicted. And we were, we were really well-suited to thrive during that time because we had made these quick actions and decisions.

Well, you guys came out on the other side, and I actually think since COVID, one of the biggest things that I've seen is in real life is back. People, when they get together, there are community type of businesses like doing super well.

You've got the likes of Time Left, which you might know of, High Rocks for Wellness, I think is really interesting. Do you think the in real life experience is coming back and can big companies actually be created from, you know, this consumer type of product?

I don't think it's even coming back. I think it's essential to the human experience. And I think that, you know, whether it's, um, the advent of social media, mobile, um, big data, remember that? Like, you know, uh, virtual reality to AI, like it's, it, it through, and then through a global pandemic.

I mean, I think that every, every wave of change has brought us closer and closer to understanding the premium quality of being in real life as humans. And, you know, my opinion is that the only way to create indelible memories, the ones that stay with you, is to be IRL.

And so it just continues to unfold in that manner. Um, I kind of laugh though, because during COVID, there was such a fervor over this idea that we would be, um, only gathering online and doing online events. And that was like, it sort of popped on the platform for maybe two or three months, and then it completely reversed.

Um, and, and again, it's like, you know, taking the long view on human nature is probably a good, a good bet.

Yeah. I, I mean, I, I have like a slightly different perspective. I kind of think of, uh, Sean Parker and Napster, um, and what happens at the beginning of like tech cycles is that, you know, it just like rips through the, the industry.

And, you know, Napster just like took down the music industry to the extent that, uh, I used to, before I met Julia, I lived in a loft in San Francisco, and my neighbor had this big fancy loft. He was Sony music exec, lost his job, and apparently fell on bad, bad times.

And, you know, it was like almost impossible to believe that an industry could be so decimated. Whereas this with live events is that, you know, the internet like swept through and, you know, people kind of turned inward for a while.

And now, um, you're seeing platforms very much cater to, um, live experiences of all sorts, whether health and wellness or, um, whether music or, or otherwise. And so it's like the Spotify or now Suno, you know, is that it's actually made the, the market much bigger and amplified things.

You know, we, we went from, from, um, yeah, Napster to, um, to Spotify and Daniel Ek. Um, and in the same way, we see that happening now. And, and so it's, it's a, a great renaissance period. We're very happy, uh, for Bending Spoons.

So Bending Spoons comes along and acquires Eventbrite, which is awesome. I think Bending Spoons is such an incredible company to watch, and I'm super excited for them. How, how did those conversations come about?

Well, we've known Luca and the team for a number of years and have, you know, watched them grow and gain traction and, you know, really start to compound value. And, um, I think that, you know, we, I mean, I was maybe not the first one to this conclusion.

I think I was really busy running the company and focused on that and thankfully have, you know, people around me like Kevin who are looking at the landscape, you know, and far out to the distance. So I was sort of the more the short like view and Kevin was more the long view on this.

And I think it came, you know, to a place where we understood that the, that the world is rapidly changing. I know that's an, and that's an understatement. And, you know, Eventbrite is something that could potentially outlast us all, which would be amazing.

And I think because of what we've built as a brand and a service and a marketplace, it really needs like careful stewardship to get through this next period of, um, of change.

Anti-software.

Anti-software.

There's a, there's an anti-software vibe out in the market if you haven't noticed.

Yeah.

Um, but, you know, these things are all cyclical.

I think with Eventbrite, what, um, Bending Spoons is doing is so awesome. I mean, to have you guys now, Vimeo, AOL, Evernote, probably a whole bunch of other products. And I think it's going to be really exciting where they go next.

Yeah. I mean, I think they're very smart and I think they're very capable. And I think they have a long view that really serves the purpose to create these forever companies or to, um, you know, to, again, to steward them.

Sometimes you have to revive them, sometimes you have to rearrange them. But I think the, the way that they're thinking about, um, customer experience is what resonated. Because if we weren't going to be the, you know, owners of this company, I wanted Eventbrite to be in the hands of somebody who understood the importance of improving the customer experience.

You know, and it, now we're three months out from the, from the deal closing and, and ownership changing. And I have to say like what I'm seeing is really exciting and positive. And, you know, when you go through a transaction like that, you really get to know the person after you've agreed to sell, but before you've closed.

And it's sort of like, you know, when you're hiring someone and you offer them the job and then there's like a negotiation, you actually really get to know them. And I have to say everything that I saw was a net positive in terms of how they think about treating people and being fair and direct, how they think about treating customers, how they think about innovation and design.

Um, so obviously I'm a huge fan and I'm rooting them on from the sidelines, but it was a huge change to, you know, go from Eventbrite being our firstborn to Eventbrite essentially graduating, you know, and, and we're like, uh, we're not empty nesters by any stretch of the imagination, but from that perspective, we are.

It's been a pretty crazy year for you both already. So you've had Eventbrite getting acquired. Kevin A* Star Capital just raised its third fund, $450 million, which is awesome. What's the latest with A* and, uh, what's the game plan for the rest of the year?

Well, A* is a seed, pre-seed and seed-focused fund. Um, so we're looking out there for, you know, the next big companies and we're backing founders off in the first money in the, in the door. Um, you know, with everything from tiny checks all the way up to, you know, five or 10 million for a seed round.

Um, and we're generalists and, and that's been a lesson of mine over the years is to, to, to always have an open mind to where the world is going next. And the smartest people tend to find themselves, um, in those categories.

Uh, you know, the example de jure, of course, is Elon and, and SpaceX starting that in the early 2000s. Um, after coming off of PayPal, he, you, you wouldn't have imagined, you know, is there really a market there or anything else?

And, um, that's been proven quite spectacularly. Um, we, you know, are, are in our third fund. We have a great team and, um, we've backed seeded companies like Decagon, which is AI customer service and growing like a weed and used in some of the biggest companies on, on the planet, uh, to Simily, which is, uh, which can actually predict user behavior.

Um, and it's been becoming a replacement for things like Qualtrics, uh, companies like Qualtrics for surveying and the like. You know, um, I prefer the red sneakers, Nike sneakers over the green in Indiana or, or the like.

The, these founders also seem to be getting so young. I mean, if you look at like YC, some of these founders are like 18, 19, getting to five, six million dollars in annual revenue in the space of six or 12 months, which didn't happen maybe 10 years ago.

I, I spoke to two founders, um, yesterday, uh, that were 18 and 19, and they were both on their second company. Their first companies, um, had each independently grown to many millions of dollars in revenue. Um, one actually growing to over 30 million in net revenue bootstrapped.

Wow.

It's insane. I, I always like, you've mentioned on a few, few shows before is the, uh, is the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates kind of, you know, tie into 1970s, I think it is now, fast forward 50 years.

Yeah.

Here it is.

Accelerated and, and how, um, yeah, Peter Thiel and Thiel fellows had, you know, was very prescient about what's happening today. And that is, um, a lot of, you know, dropping out and starting up.

It's insane. Um, what's next for you both? You know, you've started one company together, taking it public. Is there, is there more, more fuel in the tank for a second?

Oh, I, we think definitely. Um, we did, uh, work on a business, uh, with a joint development with Atomic, um, Jack Abraham's firm, uh, and it's called Sauron and it's a home security business. And we're, we're just running it in, um, a few dozen homes now.

And we'll be starting to scale that towards the end of this year. But given that it's hardware, software, and, and the whole kit and caboodle, it takes a little longer than this, the software stuff.

What would you be doing if you weren't running companies? If you weren't in tech, what would be the, the backup career do you think?

I would be a background dancer for Janet Jackson.

Great choice.

I didn't, I didn't know there was any other option. I don't know, maybe film.

I can see you as a film, film producer. This has been amazing. Thank you both so much for the inspiring story and, uh, so awesome to have you both, both on the show. Thank you so much for your time and we can't wait to see where you both go next.

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Thank you. It was great.