

Ticketstumbler (YC summer 08) "growing 50 percent a month" - ksvs
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/11/10/weekly15-Software-startups-are-launching-with-just-bootstrap-funds.html

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fallentimes
I actually didn't want this article submitted so I flagged it. Kidding,
kidding. There are, however, some out of context quotes and a ridiculous
looking picture (the photographer was nice, but quirky). Oh well, I <3 press.

 _To clarify:_

-We've never said that we'll never take money. In an ideal situation, startups would not have to take money and if we can get away with it great, if not that's okay. We're well aware that the odds are against us on this one.

-We've been very open with this with our potential investors. The sharp money is still investing in this economy and luckily some of them are still interested in us. You think a VC will argue with you when you say you want more months of operational information so you can make a better informed, data-driven decision? Nada. I've talked to four potential investors this week alone.

-Due to the economy, sales have stayed relatively flat as average sales have gone down while volume has gone up. However, we're still working out bugs and have over $1 billion worth of tickets on the site. Most people don't even know we have concert tickets yet, which is by design. We'll be chasing more PR soon, which will hopefully lead to real salaries for myself and Tom.

-We don't have a model, a deck, a pitch book or executive summary. We'll make them on demand if they are ever needed. If you want to do it right, it's a very time consuming process. In the short term we thought it was a better use of our time to talk to our users (I respond to literally every non-form letter email), create content, develop and sell.

-Obviously models can reflect growth rates. My point was: when you are growing quickly in the early stages, by the time you get to the final boardroom meeting, everything can very easily be out of date. This is especially true when you haven't spent any money on advertising.

-Month over month traffic is up 67% as of today. This is largely due to Obama Tickets, more pages being indexed, SEO and good ol Google.

-I haven't had a haircut since I quit my job. \m/

Edit: Of course as I write this our contact page is down. We're on it.

Edit 2: It's back up.

~~~
pchristensen
Willikers, Dan, you're like the uber-caveman in this picture!

~~~
fallentimes
PG prefers to call us "barbarians".

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nuclear_eclipse
I have to say, Congratulations to Tom and Dan. Turning a profit from the get-
go is very rare, and they managed it quite well. It's great to see that
snowball rolling downhill...

Cheers!

~~~
fallentimes
Thanks.

Things are/were pretty close though. If we would have moved to SF, bye bye
profitability. That's one of the main reasons we're in Boston.

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hooande
I think Ticketstumbler's unofficial motto is "Love us with money". Buy tickets
y'all

~~~
fallentimes
Now with concert ticket goodness. Hopefully theater tickets, more providers
and roughly $2 billion worth of total tickets in early 2009.

~~~
palish
Hmm... It's probably prudent to reach $2 million before talking about $2
billion.

Wait, are you saying you'll actually sell $2 billion worth of tickets, or just
offer them for sale?

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fallentimes
lol...offer them for sale. That's how much inventory we hope to have.
Currently there are $1 billion worth of tickets offered for sale on
TicketStumbler (we don't own the tickets, just like Expedia doesn't own the
air planes).

Shit man, if we had $2 million in sales already I'd be on an island somewhere.
It'd be 99% profit.

~~~
palish
Right, yeah. It just doesn't seem like Ticketstumbler will necessarily become
more valuable just by increasing inventory. (So why use that fact as a bullet
point when describing why Ticketstumbler will become valuable?) Increasing
inventory is necessary but not sufficient.

Your best bet is probably to focus on ways to differentiate Ticketstumbler.
For example, what reasons are there for me to buy a ticket through
Ticketstumbler than from any other source? Etc.

~~~
fallentimes
It's valuable because the more ticket providers we have, the cheaper prices
will be and the better seats we'll have. This certainly has a limit, but I
don't think we're there yet, especially since we don't even have theater
tickets.

The real value in Kayak wasn't that it included the big airlines, it was that
it includes Southwest (not included anywhere else), Frontier, Airtran and many
long tail airlines and forces the big airlines to compete. I traveled 250k
miles in the past two years and often found myself on no-name airline flights
that I would have never heard of if it wasn't for Kayak. And it has a super
clean UI, isn't spammy and doesn't charge fees.

Our value is/will be: clean UI, no TicketStumbler fees (we're free!), no Ads
on the main site, simple to use, natural language search and user dashboards &
interactive maps (both coming soon).

~~~
palish
_It's valuable because the more ticket providers we have, the cheaper prices
will be and the better seats we'll have._

Yeah, that's true. What I'm saying is, that by itself isn't enough to be
successful. Because of your next point, actually:

 _I traveled 250k miles in the past two years and often found myself on no-
name airline flights that I would have never heard of if it wasn't for Kayak._

That example is a very different from a preppy highschooler buying a ticket to
a concert. For one, you _had_ to travel. If all of a sudden there weren't any
airplanes, it would still be necessary for you to travel. But it's not
necessary for people to go to concerts.

Also, consider the number one reason why people go to concerts: because their
friends are going. So one way to differentiate yourself from the competition
might be to offer group discounts, for example. You could even sell them at a
loss for awhile, just so you can use that as a way to market Ticketstumbler.
Like "Going out tonight? Stumble into your next concert with Ticketstumbler.
The more friends you bring, the more cash you'll save."

What I'm saying is, try not to hyperfocus on making Ticketstumbler like Kayak.
It isn't, and can't be. So those types of comparisons are a good way to
communicate to someone about what Tickestumbler does, but are a bad design way
to design the company.

~~~
fallentimes
_> For one, you had to travel._

Not true. 100k of those miles were done for personal stuff (family, friends,
vaca, etc).

The number one reason people go to concerts is because they like music, but I
see what you're saying. The challenge isn't just helping people find friends
to go with, it's helping them find music to listen to and making them aware
when their favorite bands are in town.

The aforementioned user dashboards and interactive maps will eventually have
everything else you mentioned.

We've never "hyperfocused" on making TicketStumbler like Kayak, which is why
we have four blogs, a news site, directory listings (not just search), a video
site and are much more open about what we do than Kayak. Also, one of our next
projects will be completely out of left field (as to how we relate to Kayak).
I think you really get what we're trying to do though so thanks a lot for your
feedback. If you have anymore suggestions my email is in my profile.

~~~
palish
Hehe, I'm sorry if I came off as critical. I really respect what you have
achieved with Ticketstumbler.

Yeah, people go to concerts to listen to good music. But in the same way you
don't typically go to a bar just to get drunk, people don't typically go to a
concert just for the music. Socializing with friends is a very strong force
that compels people to actually drop $50+ on a concert ticket.

Also, it probably won't be beneficial to try to help find new friends for
people to go with. IMO, it would be kind of creepy to stand next to a total
stranger for an hour if it "felt like" we should be talking and getting to
know each other. :)

~~~
tdavis
Actually, the only reason I ever go to a bar is to get drunk. Perfect record!

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galenmoore
Can't comment on the photo, but I think "out of context" is a little harsh.
Here's why: <http://tinyurl.com/5bvwzz> -Galen (the MHT reporter)

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fallentimes
Yeah I just wanted to make sure everyone had the whole story. I certainly
understand why it happens (I wasn't mad or anything) and how articles get
trimmed down often outside the writer's control.

I just didn't want people to think we'd never ever take money. For angel
funding you often don't need a model and sometimes don't need a deck. Rest of
the article was great (even if the picture was a bit embarassing :-D). The
other clarification points were for the Hacker News headline (I didn't want
people to think revenue or profits were growing 50% per month), the picture
(ha) and to expand on points made within the article.

Nothing tops this picture, however: <http://is.gd/7yx4> (This one was at Tom's
expense instead of mine)

