

SeatGeek Raises $62M - barryhappy
http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2015/04/02/seatgeek-scores-62-million-for-its-ticket-selling-app/

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mtsmith85
I interviewed at SeatGeek five years ago when they were a very small team. I
was super intimidated at my first "startup" interview. No need to be; Jack and
Russ were some of the nicest guys and interviewers. I remember after the
interview they spent a bunch of time talking about the ways they had scripted
Adobe Illustrator (I believe) to make the then very awesome, but now quite
rudimentary, seat maps.

Really thought they had a great product on their hands and have used it quite
a bit. They've done great work building both a great product as well as an
engineering and product driven company.

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tricolon
I also remember interviewing when there were around ten people, and also being
rather intimidated by just how much they cared about getting seating maps
right. I've been a fan—and user—ever since.

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rdxm
as someone who lived through/participated in phase one of the "ticket
disruption" to include secondary markets, i'm skeptical this is relevant and
really i think the vc dudes just flushed a bunch of money down the toilet. TM
owns this market and frankly, the issue has nothing to do with tech, and
everything to do with the way professional sports and concert marketing works
from a biz perspective. then there's the whole regulatory issue.

wish them good luck, but this is one of those domains that just sucks...

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anon808
seatgeek has an amazing ui, maybe the best ui for finding tickets. That alone
is very valuable. The problem is that with this round total raised is $100M.
VC's expect to double or triple their money, as par. That sets a simplified
expected exit valuation of $300M for this to be a success. Ticketmaster was
last sold for $400MM in 2009. The bar for success is now extremely high.
Anything below the high expectations generally means that this fantastic
product will be considered a failure and most likely sold for scrap. What a
horrible situation, why create these artificial expectations?

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untog
You didn't really counter any of the OPs points, though. A great UI is cool,
but not if you don't have any tickets to sell because Ticketmaster already
owns the entire market.

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hayksaakian
is the UI good enough that people pay a markup on TM for the sake of the
buying experience?

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teammatters
This is cool to see(congrats to them), as I too have had interactions with the
founders when they first started. Just looking at a few emails we exchanged
and thinking why I haven't I reached the same level of success when I've had a
ton of great serendipitous moments/opportunities to seize.

It all boils down to pretty much being a solo founder. I always hired or found
code monkeys to help turn my front end coded designs/ideas into a working
product. None of these coders cared the same 500% percent I do for my start-
ups. I.E. In December a Fortune 500 company wanted to become our client and I
wanted to make this happen. I wasn't sure if I should make this company sign a
licensing agreement or not. An advisers said they should, though I wasn't sure
and wish I had a co-founder who cared as much as I do to discuss this decision
with. It was a turning point for my start-up and the deal ultimately fell
through (crushing).

Having a team/co-founders that are vested the same 500% is utmost important.
Especially, if your not a schmoozer with tons of charisma and or a unicorn
with great luck!

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pgwhalen
As an avid sports fan and all around event-goer, this is very exciting. I'd
love to see someone match (and surpass) the quality of StubHub.

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phmagic
I hope SeatGeek doesn't get picked up by eBay. That's a sure-fire way to halt
all future product development.

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randywatkins
Major congrats to one of the most outstanding teams I know

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woj
(I work for TM)

SeatGeek has a wonderful product but I feel we're positioned in the market a
lot better because of the access to a large number of primary tickets. We can
uniquely do some things (like giving fans early access to onsales). Our
products are currently lacking but we have many things internally going on
that will change that.

(If you are in LA and would be interested in helping, email me)

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pixelmonkey
One of the best startup teams in NYC -- and maybe on the planet!

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drussell
Congratulations! That's big time. I think just in time too. I have a feeling
(as do others) that valuations may start declining soon to try and head off a
bubble. Peak market is now! Perfect timing if you ask me - congrats again.

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jaytaylor
Congrats guys- I know for a fact you have a terrific DevOps team!

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josegonzalez
Aww shucks :)

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reustle
Keep up the good work ;)

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matth
Fantastic team and founders. Love these guys and gals.

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frankdenbow
Agreed, solid humble folks. Glad to see them pushing things further

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hberg
Hooray for the SeatGeek team!

I love their UI and onboarding process, and used it to get tickets to one of
last year's world series games.

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DataCreep
So it does what other companies have been doing since the beginning of time?

Oh, but it's an "app". Totally innovative, then.

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pbreit
Name one service that does what they do (hint: the 3 companies mentioned in
the article don't). And the web site is at least as important as the app.

