

Our YC Interview Experience - abelcuskelly

1. our company is called pogoseat and we've developed a web app for in-game seat upgrades.  we're monetizing empty seats for the venue and giving fans the freedom to roam and an fan entertainment platform to find &#38; engage with other fans, players and local business services at and around the venue.<p>2. the interview was exhilarating to say the least.  like other groups (i think), we got in about 25% of what we wanted to say and the 10 minutes felt like<p>3.  we wanted to discuss our different pricing model options, our ability to license our technology and partner with different white label ticketing system solutions and talk about how we've got 4 more hackers who we just brought on board but that we didn't have come to the interview and we got to none of that. i think yc was concerned that we actually had 5 founders, which we dont.  We just brought extra folks from the team so careful about doing that bc you likely wont get a chance to introduce them as non-founders.  we didn't start out with a pitch and we didn't show our demo.  PG launched right into the questions and we were off and running.<p>3. i think it's important to keep in mind that PG and co. have strong reasons for asking the questions they do.  they usually get right to the heart of the matter and in our case, our entire conversation basically centered around 2 key points.  i would say the conversation was fairly cordial for the most part and was way closer to a lively discussion that to an interrogation.  i think personally i talked too much and listened too little (hard when you're excited about the discussion, but something to keep in mind).<p>4. how did we do?  well, we definitely didn't hit a homerun but i don't feel that we totally crashed and burned either.  from what i've heard from yc alums, almost no groups that think they killed the interview get accepted, so i guess we've got that going for us.<p>5. we hung around yc campus for a couple hours after our discussion with YC partners and it's awesome to network and meet all these exceptionally talented and intelligent people doing exciting things.  Not only that, but Amir, one of the founders of another yc applicant company, i think called tinkerheavy, already introduced our team to a MIT buddy who works for the Houston Rockets business strategy group on ticket pricing, partnerships with vendors and providing business intelligence to the Rocket's their various biz units.<p>looking forward to a phone call this evening but even if we dont get it, the experience and the people you meet make it worthwhile.
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abelcuskelly
So we didn't get the call. Bummed but happy with our answer for the reason
given by yc for not funding us as its surmountable. We were comforted a little
by some progress we made this afternoon with one of the pro NBA sports teams
we are discussing pogoseat with and working toward an initial exploratory seat
upgrade release test with a very limited number of seats so the can can
experiment with it and get the feeling for how it would work and operate in
conjunction to complement dynamic pricing which they are experimenting with
this year too for pre-game start ticket pricing. we of course would like to do
our own in-game dynamic pricing for upgrades as game gets further in and off
of game events once we collect enough data to provide it.

Paul didn't think we sufficiently convinced them how our seat upgrade pricing
strategy was going to work, which i dont feel we did either, and that we
wouldn't be able to reach an optimal price discount % that works for the
upgradeable seats without diluting regular ticket sales. valid concern.we were
not prepared to answer both of these questions satisfactorily during our time
with them.

Lets consider a 0% discount to what the ticket would cost to purchase by an
individual fan, perhaps we may find pricing is optimized somewhere between
there and the minimum price threshold that must be paid in total by an
upgrading fan which is the price that upgraded to seat costs a season ticket
holder per game on average.

We can and will increase revenue streams for the venues and sports franchises.
Price discount on seat is not necessary if demand or the venues preference
doesn't dictate the need. We will be making money in other areas outside of
seat upgrades such as in-game data analytics we will be able to collect and
down the road from a revenue share with other 3rd party developer apps that
sit on our pogoseat fan entertainment platform and make a fan's experience at
the game more engaging, entertaining and memorable.

So below is our response to Paul, still learning as we go along too so
feedback or any critiques are welcome and appreciated.

\--

thanks for your time. we apologize we were not able to communicate more
clearly our strategy of generating additional revenue streams for venues. your
comments will absolutely help us in our future talks with venues.

1\. we understand what you're saying. i believe you think that upgrades will
incentivize fans to buy cheap seats and then upgrade and that the total
dollars of those 2 tickets will be less than if a fan bought a good seat to
start with. this is a valid argument and one we've thought over and talked to
numerous venues with.

2\. both seat upgrades and dynamic pricing are different solutions to the same
problem. we are of the opinion that dynamic pricing is a long way from
completely eliminating empty seats. if ever. i think both elements will play a
part in maximizing venue revenue.

3\. the venue has the option to simply charge the actual price difference
between 2 seats (0% discount). some scenarios where this may come into play
include:

    
    
        * a fan ends up in a undesirable section (wrong fans, rowdy fans, unexpected poor view, etc)
        * through our social layer you discover friends who you didn't know were at the game, and they're in a different section with upgradeable seats next to them
        * you scope out a section with a cute girl, fun-loving fans, etc
        * fans may not want to be committed to attending an event and buy nosebleed seats.  once at the game, however, the fan may want to make the best out of the opportunity and want to upgrade
    

4\. bottom line is that fan's emotions and actions change once in the game
(especially after a few beers and when the game is close).

5\. lastly, you mentioned today that you were worried that investors would be
pushing us to move quickly, while it's in our interest to move slow.
fortunately for us, we have plenty of investment capital and the huge allure
of yc to us was your mentorship and the resources that the yc network could
provide (including our fellow classmates of course). to this point, if you
know of any hackers in the event ticketing world, we would absolutely love a
warm introduction if you feel comfortable providing one.

once again, thank you for your time. we wish you the best of luck with your
newest batch of yc teams. there were some strong minds and great energy in the
room today and there should be no shortage of excitement and creativity this
summer

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matdwyer
Just as a comment on your idea, it is pretty cool - I'd use it in conjunction
with Stub-hub somehow.

Here is my situation - I have seasons tickets to the Toronto Blue Jays in the
upper deck. The tickets are worth $12 bucks each game, but I only pay $1.35
with the seasons pass (no joke). If person X doesn't sell their ticket on
Stubhub by gametime, I get a text message or push notification saying that I
can upgrade my seat for $10 to sit 10 rows from first - I'm doing that for
sure. But if its at all close to the original price then not a chance. I'm
thinking it would have to be under 25% of original price for me to budge (I'm
cheap)

From a team perspective, wouldn't this encourage people to get worse seats and
gamble to try to get better ones?

Just something to think about

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abelcuskelly
We hope to be able to have stubhub send us all their unsold inventory at game
time for us to put up for upgrade. money made off the seat sale is split
between the reseller (such as stubhub), the venue and us. We also would like
to allow season ticket holders a chance to conveniently submit their seats to
the venue for a nominal fee with one click on 'not attending' for each game
they can't make if they want to make some extra money on the side. Initially
though we are constraining the available seats for upgrade to only the venue's
unsold inventory. once we get traction with upgrades from that seat inventory
we can consider expanding our offering to resellers (we have already talked to
some who want to dump their unsold inventory to us and take a cut of whatever
is made) and season ticket holder and individual fans.

that's a hell of a discount, nice! Then again its the Blue Jays.. we just
spoke with the Rockets today and they related that the average ticket price
per game for their season ticket holders is about 20-30% lower then if you
just bought a one time regular game tickets.

thanks for the input.

-abel

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matdwyer
Abel, Yeah seasons tickets are a very good deal.

Keep in mind that in alot of good markets (I'm used to hockey in Toronto) that
seasons tickets are given in advance to scalpers, who sell them for above face
value!

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allanscu
Is the assumption that all seats do not get sold at a game/concert so people
that already have tickets to the event can upgrade their seat just prior to
the event starting - so you're trying to capture that incremental revenue that
otherwise would have been flushed down the toilet?

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evanowens
yes, we're targeting the teams/concerts with the highest percentage of unsold
seats and we're focused on upgrades once a game/show starts. fans will have to
have a ticket and already be at the game/show. we're giving fans the freedom
to roam while at the same time generating revenue for all seats that would
otherwise have been empty (13,000 seats per game at tampa bay rays games for
example - MLB averaged 68% occupancy in 2010).

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allanscu
There's definitely a market for such a service. I've been to many games and
concerts and would gladly pay an upgrade if I could. However, I see this as a
feature and not a full blown product. Tickets.com or LiveNation can easily add
this feature in since they are already heavily integrated into the team's
ticket inventory. What's keeping the big boys from adding such a feature
already?

(I'm not knocking your product, b/c I'd love to use it once it becomes a
available).

~~~
abelcuskelly
Great question Allan, thanks for asking. Number of reasons here, one being
that mobile ticketing technology is at beginning stages of adoption. Second,
its not too tough to integrate with some venues and team's ticket inventory,
at least for the open systems.

Also, ticketmaster is required by their existing contracts to return all
unsold tickets (and they sell about 70% of the tickets) and $$$ to the venue
for tickets they did sell for the venue 2hrs before game begins. We will fit
into the ecosystem at game start and will be selling any unsold venue
inventory (including the inventory sent back from ticketmaster).

From our conversations with industry consultants, ticketmaster is a mess,
built on old technology and given the size they have reached with merger with
Live Nation they would have a lot of trouble managing a real time tech given
their tech foundation. They are focused on their core business and for them to
get into upgrades with mobile technology would strain them too much at this
point. More importantly, most fans we talk to hate ticketmaster- notably due
to their unreasonably high fees due to their top position in the industry.

We are approaching the problem of empty seats from a social angle and looking
to create a social engagement fan platform where fans can do everything from
our mobile platform from winning a free upgrade, to ordering concessions, to
finding their friends and upgrading to a seat near them. We understand social
networks and how to drive increased spend thru smart marketing such as
competitions vs. other team's fans in the stadium, promotions with budweiser
and so forth.

This is not either ticketmaster's or tickets.com's core business or even one
they have indicated an interest in. We see a huge opportunity here and hope to
become the provider of in-game data analytics from how the score, time left in
game, weather, player injury during game, etc effect prices of their tickets.
Since we will be facilitating and tracking not only where a fan is initially
sitting but also any activity they engage, including moving to a better seat,
it will be easy to collect a ton of useful data.

There are about 150 ticketing systems out there, tickets.com being one of the
major ones and there is a lot of fragmentation and chaos happening in the
industry. We want to provide an option for white label ticketing system
providers (white label just means they sell thru the venue's website rather
than their own like ticketmaster.com does) to license our pogoseat platform or
just the ticketing upgrade saas.

So if we execute correctly and bring enough value from the fan interaction,
social engagement and excitement angle we will be partnering with someone like
tickets.com rather than competing against them.

Look forward to feedback.

Thanks!

~~~
zachcuskelly
Our primary competition will be ticketing systems that decide to create the
functionality of in game seat upgrades. However, such ticketing systems like
Veritix, Outbox and Pacolian will be fundamentally limited in that any upgrade
functionality they create will likely only be used within their family of
venues (AEG being the largest with 105 venues) and they are unlikely to
license to their competitors or their competitors to pay them money for this
add on features. Our goal will be to create groundswell from the fan
perspective.

As Abel said, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, LiveNation/Ticketmaster
(around 3000 venues) is having enough trouble just trying to put out daily
fires, thus effectively stifling any innovation designs they may have.

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kholmes79
Great job Abel and Evan! Great to see Founders Network members doing well.
Pogoseat is a simple idea, easy for consumers to get, easy to use and a strong
business case for venues ~ additional revenue per attendee.

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coryl
Great idea! You always see empty seats at sporting events, and wonder if you
could sneak into them.

Being able to sell them at discount allows stadiums/venues to gain revenue
they otherwise wouldn't have.

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togasystems
I may or may not have snuck into platinum hockey seats. When standing room
only tickets are over $100, I couldn't imagine forking over the cash for
platinum seats.

Side note: How about integrating selling your Premium seat half way through or
maybe trading?

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evanowens
being a founder of pogoseat, i'd like to add that our new friend amir
connected us with his bud at the houston rockets, winston. winston has already
setup a meeting with us tomorrow morning and indicated that the rockets have
explored in-game seat upgrades and would be interested in learning what we do
and discovering how upgrades can work in conjunction with dynamic pricing.
great example of cool people meeting cool people and helping each other out!
thanks again amir!

