The Exchanges

Q Was it just you and Kevin? Because I guess you launched this in January of 22,006. You really start working on it in 2006. It was just the two of you, you and your, your soon to be husband.

A Well, in the fall of 2005, or near the end of that year, we found our co-founding CTO, because neither Kevin or I are engineers, and we knew we needed a, at least a third to help us start this company, and we found Renaud Visage through, you know, he was somebody that Kevin had been somewhat familiar with, and he was just coming out of his last company, and so it just, it all worked out that the timing work that we could all assemble ourselves Pretty much by the holidays of 2005, and then in 2006, that's really when we, ah, officially launching at the beginning of 2006. I would call Renaud, like, the bravest man, you know, in business to start a company with a couple that's about to get married.

AI assessment note: “we found our co-founding CTO, because neither Kevin or I are engineers”

Q We got to keep at it. Julia, what do you think? I know you're going to think that's a good idea, right?

A I obviously think it's a brilliant idea, and thank you for the nice things that you've said about Eventbrite. This is an area where I feel really passionate because we are seeing these trends just absolutely explode on the platform, which is more, we, we sort of cheekily call it granny core, but it's anything that's getting people outside of the fast and And the furious and the frenetic and into a slower, calmer, more focused pace. And we're seeing that across the board, whether it be, you know, sauna raves where people actually aren't drinking, they're dancing in a sauna together, um, to mahjong clubs or to knitting circles or even silent book clubs. And this is exactly in the sweet spot of that, every pun intended, where you can actually create a Fully interactive event around this, telling stories, making it culturally rich, building that, that bridge through flavor, and also have other elements while you're waiting for your cakes to bake, right? Guy was so spot on in terms of it's a sweet spot for an event length, and that is brilliant.

AI assessment note: “I obviously think it's a brilliant idea, and thank you for the nice things”

Q Is it a new way you would describe it now versus three years ago?

A No, not in the way of, in the way of inventory, but in the way that we are thinking about how we can help make creators more successful. What we've stepped into now is Eventbrite is a place where you go to market your events through our marketing tools, where you go to advertise your events through promoted listings, and Eventbrite is a place where you go to discover great things to do. And that relationship with the consumer as the customer Is the biggest shift. And I'd say the big challenge ahead of us is that, you know, we're a ubiquitous logo on a ticket. If you go to New York and you ask 10 people on the street, seven of them will say, yeah, I know Eventbrite. Either they'll say, I buy tickets to it for my, you know, um, my pursuit or interest. I, I buy tickets to it for a school event. Um, I go to shows on Eventbrite. Or they'll say, Oh my God, of course I know Eventbrite. I mean, let me show you the events that I go to, you know, and it's, it's really like your playlist of memories. If you ask the same 10 people, where do you start when you don't know what to do on a Thursday night? Definitely not seven of them are going to say Eventbrite.

AI assessment note: “No, not in the way of, in the way of inventory, but in the way”

Q events are the backbone of Eventbrite, which was founded by Julia Hartz in 2006. And even though most in-person events have been canceled for the year, Julia is optimistic about the future. Do you think we're going to go back to, um, what events were like in January of 2020? Is that possible? I, I mean, I think the answer is yes, that we will. But what do you think?

A I'm incredibly bullish that live gatherings will reemerge. So I think that smaller, more, you know, controllable gatherings will come back first. And I think that is going to be what starts to bring us back together. I also think that there will be some really fun new formats. For instance, we've had over a thousand drive-in events on the platform in the last month alone. A great example is the band Magic Beans in Colorado. They have an annual music festival called Beanstalk, and instead of canceling the festival, they transition the festival to a two-day drive-in concert. And the reason why they did that was because they wanted to give the artists that play at their festival A platform to play live because they don't have the followings online that would really generate, you know, meaningful revenue, and they wanted to connect them to a live audience. And it was so successful that they're going to do a part two next month. So you see these pivots in format, and I think that it really shows the strength of the pent up demand for gathering. They easily sold out this new format, even though no, you know, probably many people hadn't attended a drive in concert before. And I think that when you look forward, you look way into the future. So that's the short term. When you look at the long term and you look at history, right? So the last massive pandemic that we faced as a global so…

AI assessment note: “I'm incredibly bullish that live gatherings will reemerge.”

Q I guess, um, like, 2003, you're invited to a wedding for a co-worker, and, um, you're seated next to this guy named Kevin, who would become your husband. Is that more or less what happened?

A Well, so these two particular people who were getting married had been really big brother and big sister figures in my life, and so I was tapped to deliver an excerpt from Corinthians at the altar, and I did not grow up in a church. I do not know the Bible, so I'm a little bit all around anxious about this particular wedding. And I got to the church, and I realized that I didn't bring a copy of the excerpt. I wasn't sure if it was at the altar. And so I thought, like, okay, I have to sit at the end of the pew. So I went to the end of the pew, and I asked this guy to move over so that I could sit at the end. And I was sitting there pretty stressed out, and this guy started striking up a conversation with me And that was that, and then I went up to the altar, and thankfully, my reading was there, and I got through it, and I came back, and I was so relieved, and this guy turned to me and goes, you are amazing. I'm so proud of you. I remember finally sort of focusing on him and being like, okay, what is going on? You know, like, he's just so friendly and not creepy friendly, like, earnestly just so friendly, but didn't even know his name, and so, um, He introduced himself as Kevin, and I remember standing on the steps of the church after the ceremony, and, you know, we were throwing rice at the bride and groom, and they were running down the stairs, and I saw him across the way, an…

AI assessment note: “I asked this guy to move over... He introduced himself as Kevin”

Q Yeah. You know, you left your job in 2005, and here you are, um, you know, public company, 1100 employees, valued at 1.8000000000 dollars. Um, how much of this do you think is because you just really are smart and worked really hard, and how much of it do you attribute to just being lucky?

A I would say that 70% of this was work ethic and, and staying focused, and I would say 30% is about luck and whether that's luck of, you know, meeting the love of my life and co-founder and co-parent, um, back on that fateful day in May of 2003 at a wedding, or the luck of finding really wonderful people to build this company I think there's a lot of, of fortune, and that comes to people, and it's about what they do with it, and I think the other way around, too, when you hit hard times or you feel unlucky, you know, you have to put it all into perspective, um, and there's always something to feel lucky for.

AI assessment note: “I would say that 70% of this was work ethic and, and staying focused”

Q That would prove to be an important internship, like an important turning point for you. Um, was it a different kind of job or internship?

A Yeah, I mean, I think that between Friends and MTV and landing at MTV in my senior year, I discovered two things for myself. One was, I was not passionate about production and everything that goes into actually filming. The second thing was, I just wasn't passionate about celebrity. And so when I landed at MTV, In the series development department, it was as if I finally found the perfect place, because development really marries business and creative. And being anchored in a network, and especially in a cable network, was really exciting and dynamic, and I'll never forget I was there when, when we got this demo tape, and from these guys who were doing just really stupid stuff, and it turned out to be jackass, and that was an incredible experience to watch something go from demo, All the way through to Series, and, and I have a lot of really great memories from that experience.

AI assessment note: “In the series development department, it was as if I finally found the perfect place”

Q So, had he already come up with an idea that would be involved with ticket sales?

A No, it really wasn't well-defined when, when I moved up. There were several ideas that he had actually prototyped and, and to some extent, had built early versions of. One of the things was about, um, this very simple transactional platform to sell tickets to any kind of event, and it was really, um, the conversation about why we would go and approach ticketing Was much, much less about the industry and more about the notion that experiences are so vital to human beings thriving, and that became, that was the first idea that we had to work on together, and, you know, just so happened to stick. But I really didn't give it much thought, and all of a sudden I was packing up my window office on the 42nd floor of Fox Plaza, which is the, you know, Iconic building in Century City, saying goodbye to this career that was on this uphill trajectory, and driving north, and literally the next day pushing sawhorses and plywood into a windowless phone closet in a warehouse in Potrero Hill where we had gotten some free office space with Kevin. And I remember pushing a sawhorse behind him thinking, I hope he's not crazy. Like, I, there's a reason why he's so excited, and I really trust that there's this reason. But there was a little bit of me that was thinking, like, should I really have done this? Um, that was terrifying.

AI assessment note: “No, it really wasn't well-defined when, when I moved up.”

Q Um, in the early days, were you really still focused on the San Francisco market, like trying to, because it sounds like there were sort of small events happening, like a tech blogger would have a meetup. Um, was that where you really were kind of focused on the, the local market initially?

A We really started with that focus. However, we were very intentional to roll out Eventbrite in a way that could be used by anyone anywhere in the world. And what we did was we set up this map where we could see where all the ticket sales were happening in real time, visualized. And I'll never forget the day when we discovered that someone was selling tickets to a speed dating event in New York. And that was really exciting, because it meant that we were crossing geographical bounds, so we were breaking out of the Bay Area, as well as format and category bounds, so a completely non-tech related event. And it really started to organically spread, and it was pretty incredible to watch it happen. Again, not overnight by any means, it was over several years.

AI assessment note: “We really started with that focus. However, we were very intentional to roll out”

Q but like, this is work. Bring your A game to work. That was just normal, par for the course. And that was the environment that many, many senior executives today and senior leaders in companies grew up with. But now it's different. Now it's bringing your whole self to work, including your challenges, including other things. How do you, how do you approach it? How do you accommodate for that?

A Yeah, I mean, I think about it as you don't have to trade one off for the other, and I want to build a company where you can both be cared for and feel the demands of opportunity. So compassionate and demanding is the paradox that I focus on a lot, and I think that it's, it's, I guess I find it's a fallacy that working hard and, um, being fulfilled with accomplishment is antithetical to wellness. And, you know, I think burnout is real, and I think the mental health challenges that we face during the COVID pandemic present an opportunity for us, an opportunity to have honest conversations, an opportunity to embed support into companies, which I think should be the case. And an opportunity to open up access to mental health support like we haven't had, you know, in our lifetimes, really. But I don't think work is the enemy. Like, I think being productive and being in community is the antidote to social isolation and mental health challenges.

AI assessment note: “compassionate and demanding is the paradox that I focus on a lot”

Q What is the, what's the, um, advantage of doing an Eventbrite? Like, for example, here we are, we're having a live conversation. What's the advantage of doing it as sort of a ticketed event, even if it's free versus just putting it out there and saying, you know, here we are?

A Well, I come back to that, to that notion of community. So, Eventbrite, the platform, Is effectively an event team in the cloud for event creators. We allow you to easily publish a great looking event listing, which is effectively your landing page, your storefront for the event. We give you tools to get the word out about your events, whether it's through distribution, you know, people can click and buy the ticket without leaving wherever they are. And then we have a really amazing suite of reporting tools and analytics so that you understand, you know, what worked, what marketing channel worked, what marketing channel didn't deliver. And who do you have now in your community? Which as event creators are becoming more and more frequent event publishers in this online event world. That becomes even more important. And so the team is now really coalescing around this idea of how do we make the frequent event creator more successful? And I think that when we look at the future, it's definitely a hybrid future. Our event creators have spoken loud and clear that this has opened up a channel for them to build a more global audience. However, they're at the heart of what they do are in-person gatherings, so they'll, you know, continue to be able to build both channels on one platform, which is uniquely beneficial to our, you know, our creator community.

AI assessment note: “we have a really amazing suite of reporting tools and analytics”

Q course in crisis management and crisis leadership, right? I mean, this is, you've had to, I mean, you had dealt with the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, but you're a much bigger company now, you're a public company, you're much more visible, and this is a worse crisis. I think there's no question about it. Just from a leadership perspective, um, how have you evolved and, and grown and become better?

A Well, I think that, you know, this is the worst crisis that has affected our generation. And there's something unifying in that. So there's the strange comfort in knowing that no one has seen this before in their lifetime. You know, I think as a leader, I've grown a lot and I've grown because I've learned to listen and lean on my team more. And these individuals are incredible. They show resilience every day. Nobody ever has asked what is in it for me. We've all been focused on the business and our customers, and I've never felt so supported by my team. So I, I, my gratitude is endless. And every day I wake up, I feel the energy and the support of the entire company. And I think that that has taught me to actually be a little less of a lone wolf in my leadership and to, to really slow down. You know, Bridget Schulte wrote this book, Overwhelmed, and it's one of my favorites.

AI assessment note: “I've grown because I've learned to listen and lean on my team more”

Q And you found some people who thought you were smart and interesting, and they helped you. It's much harder now. So do you have any, any thoughts about how you actually develop talent from within when we're, we're, we're, we're all, many of us are in a primarily remote or hybrid environment?

A Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think if you flip it, and you look at it from a blank slate opportunity perspective, rather than a recapturing of what was and what worked for us when we were wee little pups, I tend to find that, um, great things happen when you work on a multitude of different projects, and the advice that I give my niece, who just accepted her offer at Microsoft, she's going into a remote team, and my Biggest advice is take every single project that comes your way. Like, just absolutely knock yourself out. Because the more that you're participating and the more that you're working on different types of projects, that is a, that's actually an opportunity we didn't get early in our careers. I was, you know, I was like, uh, copying VHS tapes as an intern for, for MTV.

AI assessment note: “my Biggest advice is take every single project that comes your way.”

Q So obviously that was important, right? Focusing on, on, on that segment of your customers, but what about just keeping the business afloat when, when there was nothing coming in?

A Yeah. So virtual events started to rise, but the money wasn't coming in. So we were in a, we had to bring it all the way back to the basics. We have an aligned strategy around where we see the greatest opportunity and actually who we think is going to bring back the events economy in a hyper local way. Let's go build the best product experience for them. And so we did a ton of foundational work in 2020. We ramped out a bunch of old tech. We rewired, you know, how Eventbrite works because we had built it to serve an event. But actually not to serve the creator. So if you had many events, the Eventbrite product experience just broke down. And then we built out a three-year strategy, which we, which we published to our board at the end of 2020, and we said the most important thing that we can do for what we call a super creator, which is a frequent creator hosting at least one event a month, is we can help them find their audience, and we can help them grow their audience. And no one's doing this at a scale that we can do it at for these mid-market events. You know, there's a lot to be said about large ticketed events like Taylor Swift, and, you know, our lives are chained together and linked together through the ways in which we just get together. But the middle of that, if you imagine that a pyramid with the very top, the big stadiums and arenas, and the very bottom, how you int…

AI assessment note: “we had to bring it all the way back to the basics.”