How Eventbrite turned community events into a global platform

What do the hit shows Friends, Jackass and The Shield have in common with Silicon Valley tech firm Eventbrite, the digital ticketing platform used around the world? The connection lies in one of its co-founders, Julia Hartz, who spoke to us for our Business Leader podcast.

She used to work in television production in Hollywood, before taking the plunge in 2006 with her now-husband Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage and setting up a tech start-up in San Francisco. It meant a short-term pay cut, but they had spotted a gap in the market. The three co-founders believed they had “complementary superpowers” that would allow their company to take advantage of it.

Hartz and her team realised that anyone could become a merchant and set up payments and this was democratising lots of different industries. Could one of them be the ticketed events industry? Ticketing for large concerts was dominated by firms like Ticketmaster, but beneath that market, there were lots of medium-sized, often community-driven events taking place.

Eventbrite realised it could offer them a ticketing solution, taking advantage of the revolution in mobile phone ownership and QR-code technology. It started out by helping to organise meet-ups for people who worked in technology in The Valley.

As more people used the platform to access mobile tickets for events, word quickly spread. In the wake of the financial crisis, people also used it to organise networking events and create work opportunities for themselves. Eventbrite expanded across different states in the US, before it went global. Private investors were wary to begin with, but the organic growth of the company eventually persuaded them to come on board with significant amounts of capital.

“I went from Hollywood to Silicon Valley because the speed was so gratifying and I could tell there was disruption on the horizon,” says Hartz. Her days in “scripted production” in the machine of Hollywood television were vital to her success as an entrepreneur because they sharpened her storytelling skills, she believes.

It crafted the way she thinks about storytelling to her team, to help employees perform better for Eventbrite. And it has also helped externally, with customers, “connecting with our audience”. “The story you tell your customers through the product experience you create has to say, ‘we’ve got you’, because event planning and attendance is anxiety-ridden.” Storytelling skills have helped her to refine the customer experience, where tone is everything.

Not many founders stay with the company as it scales from a start-up into a large multinational. Hartz went from company president to CEO in 2016 when her husband Kevin Hartz needed to take time out for health reasons. This year she also became executive chair of the board of directors.

Talking about her own development as a leader, Hartz says the key for her has been to “create a collection of people you seek advice from” and not be afraid to “ask great questions of many people, without trying to show how smart you are in your questions.”

When it went public in 2018, Eventbrite was valued at more than $1.8bn. It took a big hit during the pandemic as a hospitality business focused on in-person events. However, it is showing signs of growth and it continues to boast impressive reach. Last year it issued more than 300 million tickets for 5 million events.

“You’ll never fail, as a storyteller,” says Hartz. “If you start with what your audience needs to hear, not what you need to say.”