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Jul 14, 2019 · 18m · top-founders

1450 20k Customers and $1m in ARR Event Management Company Started as Wife Project

Seth Shoultes · 8m spoken Nathan Latka · 7m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The Top Entrepreneurs, host Nathan Latka interviews Event Espresso founder Seth Shoultes to explore how a ticketing plugin built for his wife's craft classes scaled into an $80,000-per-month bootstrapped software company.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 45.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.4 Guest teaching 1.0 Guest disagreement 0.4 Nathan pushing back 2.6
05100:0010:000:00–2:33 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Promotion of Nathan Latka's Best-Selling Book Solo monologue by the host featuring an extended book promotion and an introduction to the guest's business metrics.2:34–7:36 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Event Espresso Overview, Revenue Model, and Pricing Nathan quickly does the math dividing $80k monthly revenue by 20k customers to find an average of $4/month. He pushes Seth on why this is lower than the $80/year advertised pricing, leading Seth to explain early lifetime and freemium plans.7:37–9:55 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 Origins of Event Espresso from a Scrapbooking Project Seth narrates the founding story regarding his wife's scrapbooking classes and early WordPress plugin development. Nathan interjects with friendly inquiries and light commentary on Seth's old job.9:59–15:27 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Sponsor Break: Software Discovery with Capterra After an ad break, Seth reveals the business grew only around 3% year-over-year. Nathan pushes Seth directly, pointing out that his current content and marketing strategies clearly are not producing expected growth.15:27–18:09 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 The Famous Five and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Nathan's recap of Event Espresso's business metrics. Both host and guest maintain a friendly, cooperative tone.0:00–2:33 · Guest teaching 0/10 Promotion of Nathan Latka's Best-Selling Book Solo monologue by the host featuring an extended book promotion and an introduction to the guest's business metrics.2:34–7:36 · Guest teaching 2/10 Event Espresso Overview, Revenue Model, and Pricing Nathan quickly does the math dividing $80k monthly revenue by 20k customers to find an average of $4/month. He pushes Seth on why this is lower than the $80/year advertised pricing, leading Seth to explain early lifetime and freemium plans.7:37–9:55 · Guest teaching 1/10 Origins of Event Espresso from a Scrapbooking Project Seth narrates the founding story regarding his wife's scrapbooking classes and early WordPress plugin development. Nathan interjects with friendly inquiries and light commentary on Seth's old job.9:59–15:27 · Guest teaching 2/10 Sponsor Break: Software Discovery with Capterra After an ad break, Seth reveals the business grew only around 3% year-over-year. Nathan pushes Seth directly, pointing out that his current content and marketing strategies clearly are not producing expected growth.15:27–18:09 · Guest teaching 0/10 The Famous Five and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Nathan's recap of Event Espresso's business metrics. Both host and guest maintain a friendly, cooperative tone.0:00–2:33 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Promotion of Nathan Latka's Best-Selling Book Solo monologue by the host featuring an extended book promotion and an introduction to the guest's business metrics.2:34–7:36 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Event Espresso Overview, Revenue Model, and Pricing Nathan quickly does the math dividing $80k monthly revenue by 20k customers to find an average of $4/month. He pushes Seth on why this is lower than the $80/year advertised pricing, leading Seth to explain early lifetime and freemium plans.7:37–9:55 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Origins of Event Espresso from a Scrapbooking Project Seth narrates the founding story regarding his wife's scrapbooking classes and early WordPress plugin development. Nathan interjects with friendly inquiries and light commentary on Seth's old job.9:59–15:27 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Sponsor Break: Software Discovery with Capterra After an ad break, Seth reveals the business grew only around 3% year-over-year. Nathan pushes Seth directly, pointing out that his current content and marketing strategies clearly are not producing expected growth.15:27–18:09 · Guest disagreement 0/10 The Famous Five and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Nathan's recap of Event Espresso's business metrics. Both host and guest maintain a friendly, cooperative tone.0:00–2:33 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Promotion of Nathan Latka's Best-Selling Book Solo monologue by the host featuring an extended book promotion and an introduction to the guest's business metrics.2:34–7:36 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Event Espresso Overview, Revenue Model, and Pricing Nathan quickly does the math dividing $80k monthly revenue by 20k customers to find an average of $4/month. He pushes Seth on why this is lower than the $80/year advertised pricing, leading Seth to explain early lifetime and freemium plans.7:37–9:55 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Origins of Event Espresso from a Scrapbooking Project Seth narrates the founding story regarding his wife's scrapbooking classes and early WordPress plugin development. Nathan interjects with friendly inquiries and light commentary on Seth's old job.9:59–15:27 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Sponsor Break: Software Discovery with Capterra After an ad break, Seth reveals the business grew only around 3% year-over-year. Nathan pushes Seth directly, pointing out that his current content and marketing strategies clearly are not producing expected growth.15:27–18:09 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 The Famous Five and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Nathan's recap of Event Espresso's business metrics. Both host and guest maintain a friendly, cooperative tone.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 99.9% · guest 0.1%0:00 · Nathan 99.9% · guest 0.1%3:00 · Nathan 16.2% · guest 83.8%3:00 · Nathan 16.2% · guest 83.8%6:00 · Nathan 26.1% · guest 73.9%6:00 · Nathan 26.1% · guest 73.9%9:00 · Nathan 50.9% · guest 49.1%9:00 · Nathan 50.9% · guest 49.1%12:00 · Nathan 28.6% · guest 71.4%12:00 · Nathan 28.6% · guest 71.4%15:00 · Nathan 43.8% · guest 56.2%15:00 · Nathan 43.8% · guest 56.2%18:00 · Nathan 92.5% · guest 7.5%18:00 · Nathan 92.5% · guest 7.5%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:50 Seth defends marketing pivot under growth pressure

When Nathan points out that content marketing is not driving significant scale, Seth acknowledges the limitation and explains their shift toward PPC advertising.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 13:36 Nathan confronts sluggish growth rate

Nathan directly challenges Seth's growth tactics, arguing that going from roughly $78k to $80k per month shows his current strategy is not working.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:18 Seth outlines open source fee-bypass value proposition

Seth explains how Event Espresso enables customers to bypass per-ticket platform fees charged by major competitors like Eventbrite and Cvent.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 6:07 Nathan catches pricing math discrepancy

Nathan catches the mismatch between the $4/month calculated ARPU and the $80/year current lowest tier, prompting Seth to reveal legacy one-time buyers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Promotion of Nathan Latka's Best-Selling Book 0000 Solo monologue by the host featuring an extended book promotion and an introduction to the guest's business metrics.
Event Espresso Overview, Revenue Model, and Pricing 6214 Nathan quickly does the math dividing $80k monthly revenue by 20k customers to find an average of $4/month. He pushes Seth on why this is lower than the $80/year advertised pricing, leading Seth to explain early lifetime and freemium plans.
Origins of Event Espresso from a Scrapbooking Project 3102 Seth narrates the founding story regarding his wife's scrapbooking classes and early WordPress plugin development. Nathan interjects with friendly inquiries and light commentary on Seth's old job.
Sponsor Break: Software Discovery with Capterra 5216 After an ad break, Seth reveals the business grew only around 3% year-over-year. Nathan pushes Seth directly, pointing out that his current content and marketing strategies clearly are not producing expected growth.
The Famous Five and Episode Conclusion 3001 Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Nathan's recap of Event Espresso's business metrics. Both host and guest maintain a friendly, cooperative tone.

Statements from this episode (6)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Event Espresso powers over $100M in monthly WordPress ticket sales
“We're also powering over a hundred million ticket sales per month from our Venespresso platform for WordPress.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 3:59
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Event Espresso and Event Smart generate $80,000 monthly revenue
“Between the two platforms, we're bringing in about 80,000 a month.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 4:41
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Event Espresso has roughly 20,000 paying customers
“We have about Around, I think, 20,000 paying customers.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 5:01
Assertion Supported
WordPress had only 5,000 total plugins in 2009, says Seth Shoultes
“At the time there was only a 5000 plugins, you know, total in the entire WordPress market space.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 8:39
Disclosure
Event Espresso reached $20,000 monthly revenue when Shoultes quit his job
“The company was profitable enough that I could just quit. I could quit my job and pay myself and pay myself. How much was it at that? How much was it doing a month? I think we were doing like 20,000 a month.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 11:20
Disclosure
Event Espresso reached scale entirely bootstrapped without outside capital
“Yeah, we're completely bootstrapped.”
Seth Shoultes Jul 14, 2019 ▶ 13:03
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