How a Crisis Turned Julia Hartz Into the CEO Eventbrite Needed

0:00I was the second youngest woman to take a company public. I was like the 21st founder CEO woman to take a company public. What was that transition like stepping into the role of CEO? The first word that just came to mind, I'll just be honest and say it is terrifying. I don't think anyone ever feels ready for it. Always, always, always, always stop and talk to your customers. Just stop what you're doing. Stop the strategy. Stop the execution. Stop the metrics. and just have human conversations with your customers. What would you do if you could do it all over again?

0:35Isabelle Johannesen: That was Julia Hartz, co-founder and former CEO of Eventbrite. Over nearly two decades, Julia learned that building a company isn't just about becoming a household name, but it's navigating the tough moments that will ensure its longevity. In this conversation, Julia walks us through the eventful financial journey of Eventbrite, from bootstrapping to raising venture capital during the 2008 financial crisis to taking the company public and eventually leading it back to private ownership. We talk about managing a crisis, balancing customer needs with shareholder expectations, making hard decisions as a CEO, and why the best founders aren't the ones who avoid mistakes, but they're the ones who learn from them fast enough to bounce back.

1:17Isabelle Johannesen: I'm Isabel Johanesson, and you're listening to Build Mode. This season, we're taking a look inside the fundraise. Hi, Julia. Welcome to Build Mode. Hey, thanks for having me. We're so excited to have you on and to chat with you today. You have had a rollercoaster of a career and are in a really exciting kind of reset phase right now, huh? I am. And, you know, as you said that, I hated rollercoasters growing up. But now I love them. I love rollercoasters. Yeah. I want to start off with talking about something else that I love selfishly. You started your career working for MTV on the set of Jackass.

1:51Isabelle Johannesen: I sure did. Please tell me about this. Well, I generally when I tell people that I wait to see their response and then I either say I'm sorry or you're welcome. You're welcome would be the correct response in this case. Yeah. All right. Thank you. That gives me direction. I was an intern. I think being there during that time was so incredible because I was an intern when the jackass guys sent in their demo. I feel so lucky to have been there during that time because it was so unique. and the vision they had was so specific. So I graduated college that year and I started working in that department.

2:29And so I got to see the first season and movie of Jackass developed and produced and executed. And, you know, I have to say like their vision throughout and their persistence for what they wanted to do and show on television was unparalleled, right? So it was an honor. and a privilege.

2:51Isabelle Johannesen: Very cool. You know, I don't know what this says about me, but I grew up watching Jackass. Is that you're awesome? Maybe. Or, you know, there's probably some other more child appropriate TV shows to be watching. But alas, I just had to ask. Now we can get into some of the more relevant things for this podcast. But so you co-founded Eventbrite with your then-fiancé, Kevin and were the CEO for a while. So take us back to the very beginning. 2006, was it when you founded Eventbrite? What was sort of the insight at that time that you decided this is what we need to to start building? Yeah, well, you know, it was a confluence of our stories being woven together.

3:31So it was Kevin Hartz, my fiance at the time, co-founder, husband, co-parent, life partner today. We were about to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, which is incredible. And he came from, you know, a background of having been one of the first investors in what became PayPal. And I think was really motivated by the idea of democratization. I think that team, you know, lots been said about the PayPal mafia, but that team really brought something to consumers that we didn't have before, which was the ability to pay each other. using online means. And what started as beaming money from Palm Pilot to Palm Pilot was then morphed into this merchant processing platform that turned anyone into a merchant.

4:22And that was such a, again, groundbreaking idea that allowed anyone to start businesses online. So with that, Kevin and his business partner, Alan Braverman, at the time had developed a bunch of what I would call sort of apps driven by the PayPal API to bring that democratization into other verticals. So not unlike, you know, apps and sort of that wrap layer being built on top of foundational models today. One of them was event ticketing. Another one was subscription payments for Yahoo groups, which Yahoo turned off right away. And then another one was international money transfer for immigrants to send money home to their families better, faster, cheaper than Western Union.

5:10That third one actually got traction and was funded by Sequoia Capital. So they had to turn their attention fully to that. And they let everything else just be in maintenance mode. When I came along, I'd come from a background. I was at FX Networks at the time. So I'd moved from MTV to FX networks and I was working on a bunch of original content, including NipTuck, Rescue Me, The Shield. I mean, I was in the right place at the right time. I was so fortunate. But I also had been working on a show that was about fandoms that we were we were piloting with the documentarian Morgan Spurlock. And I'll never forget going to this really niche fandom meetup and being totally and completely overwhelmed and confused about the subject matter.

5:58but in the back of my head, I realized that there was this palpable energy and connection in the room of people getting together in real life. And it always stuck with me how incredible that was and how we were sort of trying to replicate that. You know, on screen, it was really hard to do. And then our third co-founder, Renaud Visage, he, in addition to being an amazing engineer, is also a prolific photographer. And I really think that his why was a curiosity around helping people turn passion into profit. So we all get together. That was not a short story, but long story short is about we all get together.

6:38And the meaningful moment is that one of our earliest scaled customers was Michael Arrington and TechCrunch. Full circle. And it was Michael understanding that he had created content that people wanted to interact with, and they also wanted to interact with each other. And truly, this was our first inspiration. And we built the product to meet the needs of people like Michael. Now, I don't need to tell you that that's a really hard first customer to have. I mean, you know, we had lots of other tech bloggers, but I would say that Michael stuck out as very unique in that, you know, he was willing to call us up and give us the feedback.

7:22And Kevin and I were the check-in desk for the first ever TechCrunch Disrupt. We had a guest list and we were checking people in and taking their feedback. And I've got the receipts and the pictures to prove it. But that was really what inspired us was this idea of democratizing an industry, making it possible for anyone to sell tickets to any kind of event, bringing people together through live experiences and creating a new form of almost scaled content online that was bringing people offline and really into that space where they could create indelible memories and exchange that energy.

8:03Isabelle Johannesen: I mean, what an amazing story. I think there's even a lot of Silicon Valley history in your story and in Eventbrite that's been along for that journey. Are you calling me old? No, I'm calling you insightful. You've got a really interesting perspective that I want to dig a little bit deeper into. But let's talk about the event industry specifically. So I mean, we talk a lot today about bringing people back together, getting off of our phones and getting IRL and meeting people face to face. But that has taken some twists and turns lately. thanks in part to COVID. I'm curious sort of your, you know, 90 ,000 feet view on the industry.

8:39Isabelle Johannesen: So at that time, of course, it was a lot of excitement about bringing people together. How long did that hype kind of rise? And then how did COVID affect it? And where do you think we are today? You know, it's been 20 years since we started Eventbrite. And so that does make me old, by the way, that wasn't just facts. But I think that what has been most shocking to me has been the prevalence of or the premium to in real life events and experiences and connection. And, you know, in 20 years, we've seen the rise of social media. We've seen the adoption of mobile. We've seen the advent of big data.

9:23We've pondered a world where we might be gathering virtually. We have endured a global pandemic. We are now on the precipice of, you know, this, I don't even know what words we're using to call it, but this really amazing disruptive and creative time. every time live experiences continue to be at the nucleus of what people want. And, you know, during COVID, there was a point about 14 days in when our company that was 14 years was essentially no longer in existence. We were processing more refunds than revenue. We had negative revenue such that all of our Tableau dashboards had broken because we hadn't contemplated going below the zero axis.

10:14And I thought, wow, what it, well, I thought a lot of things, but one thing I thought was what an interesting time to be living through a moment where it's such a black swan event that the entire basis of our business has disappeared seemingly overnight. And yet, even in that darkest moment, there was this light on in the back of my head, Like, don't forget that connectedness is in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's right there above physiological needs and security is is the need to connect. And I think that is something that has really driven me. And and, you know, but again, I say it's the most shocking thing because, wow, there have been so many times when people have told me that live events are dying.

11:03I mean, wow.

11:04Isabelle Johannesen: And you were at the helm of the company through that, you know, major scary moment of COVID. So you became CEO in 2016 when Kevin stepped down and you stepped up. Yeah. So what was that transition like, stepping into the role as CEO? The first word that just came to mind, I'll just be honest and say it is terrifying. It was not something that I think I don't think anyone ever feels ready for. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most first time CEOs and even second or third or fourth time CEOs are learning as they're building and sometimes just making it up as you go along. And I'll never forget one of our earliest investors, Rulaf Botha, who's served on our board for 14 years, said something to the effect of be careful what you wish for.

11:52And I mean, there is quite literally besides my husband, no other person on this planet or my mom, too, who is more supportive of me than Rulaf. But I'll never forget those words because I'm like, oh my gosh, did I even wish for this? I'm not sure, you know. But going through the period of time from like 2016 to 2019 was definitely for me like a kind of a mental game of like, what would Kevin do, you know? And am I doing it right? And am I good enough? And is, am I, I don't think anyone's ready, but I was asking myself, am I ready? Am I prepared? And then COVID hit. And I had to leave all of that behind in order to, A, I was the best person to run the company through a crisis like that.

12:42And B, there was no time for me to be asking those questions anymore. So it was a gift in a way, you know, to go through such a massive, unprecedented crisis. I got so tired of saying that word. I probably didn't say unprecedented for about two years after 2020. But, you know, I took over in 2016. We acquired our largest competitor in music, which is our largest category in 2017. We went public in 2018. And 2019 was just about like growing pains. And, you know, after all of that change, figuring out how to move forward and scale and become lean and focused. So we came into 2020 unwittingly prepared for a massive disruption.

13:27Isabelle Johannesen: Well, I mean, yeah, it's better to be prepared in that situation. But I can imagine you learned some lessons in crisis management through all of those twists and turns. What are some of your key takeaways as your time as CEO of Eventbrite? One moment that comes back to me is I think it was around March 13th or 14th of 2020. And we had all vacated the office. We had this beautiful 50 ,000 square foot office that was busting at the seams at that point. I remember there were like lines for the bathroom. And that was like my biggest issue coming into 2020. It was, you know, how we were going to build more potties.

14:03And I remember the day that we decided we should all go work from home. And I remember being the last person in the office. And that's something I think I learned from my father, who was a prolific manager, just to, you know, really. And he was in Vietnam. And so, you know, he's like embedded in me like servant leadership. And so I was literally the last person I was going around turning the lights off. And I never saw that office again. And I remember having this like this really heavy moment feeling like, wow, this is big. Like we met up on Zoom the next day and I remember seeing, you know, a lot of uncertain faces in my team and people's kids were like bouncing off the wall because they weren't in school.

14:52And, you know, dogs were coming in and out of the out of the frame. And I was like, the first thing I said was, let's make a pact and a new cultural norm that we don't apologize for our kids or our dogs, because I'm pretty sure that's going to like make it into their, you know, into their psyche. And we don't want them to be going to therapy about that. There's going to be a lot more to deal with. So let's just like stop apologizing and just, you know, play through. The second thing is, and it just kind of came out. I hadn't really planned to say it, but I said, you know, given what you know about this business, what would you do if you could do it all over again?

15:26And I got people starting to talk and like loosen up and get creative. And by the end of that meeting, we had a one pager of what we would do differently if we could do it all over again. Because I think as as like companies scale and grow and teams grow, you know, you you inevitably acquire barnacles. and you don't always like sloth those off on a regular basis and you're not thinking about, and that's, I'm not even talking about team size, I'm talking about strategy. You know, egos get involved, you get kind of precious, there's sacred cows, all the things. And so we really got focused and I was not surprised but really pleased at how quickly we could identify the critical few things that we should really focus on.

16:10And then at the end of the meeting, I was like, well, let's go do that because we're going to do it all over again. And I think that gave us direction and a North Star to be brave enough to move forward and move forward quickly. We were completely restructured and reset in our strategy by April of 2020 and ready to endure a very long hardship. We knew it was going to be long. I can get into that later, but I think the things that I learned in that moment was, you know, have the bravery to rethink the core concept. Be okay with taking a really bold leap, even in times of uncertainty. Don't delude the idea of something being very, very bad, you know, just because it's scary.

17:05And plan for the worst. oof i'm not sure if i'm inspired by that or horrified because i need a drink oh yeah great

17:14Isabelle Johannesen: me too it's like 11 a.m on a friday yeah i mean really taking myself back to that five o 'clock somewhere um let's talk a little bit about some of the other chefs in the kitchen because even though of course you and kevin were at the helm of this you had a lot of investors um and board members and eventually public shareholders um let's talk specifically about the fundraising journey along the way. So, I mean, you have raised a lot of money for Eventbrite over the years. How was the fundraising journey? Was there ever a point where, you know, in the beginning, sure, there's a lot of excitement around bringing people together.

17:46Isabelle Johannesen: Was there ever a point where investors were hesitant to invest? How did you convince them in your pitch? I'm going to need to take you in the way back machine, and you're going to have to trust me that I'm telling the truth. I'm buckling up. It's hard to believe. But when we started Eventbrite, We were, we made the almost academic decision to bootstrap the company. So we used our own money to do, to build the company. And we were fortunate to have money to put into the company. It was all of our money. So there was a big personal risk that we were taking in starting this company. And because it was our own money and we didn't have an infinite amount of it, we spent less than a quarter of a million dollars in the first two and a half years.

18:31And it was just the three co-founders. We didn't have money really to hire a team. We had a few maybe contractors. We also then raised an angel round from friends and family and early angel investors that bridged us to our first institutional fundraise. But when we decided that we were ready to go out and take money from a venture firm, it was really when we had traction. We had product market fit. We had traction in our earliest categories. We had line of sight to scaling and we were profitable. And we were so excited to go out and pitch Eventbrite to the world. And it was fall of 2008. And that couldn't have been a more terrible time to go out and pitch Vampright to the world.

19:22We met with 27 venture firms and we got 27 no's. Now, something that I think is brilliant about Kevin, who is, you know, as prolific of an angel investor as he is a startup founder, is that he's just, I mean, maybe the most transparent person I've ever met in my life and has changed me as a person through that because we're sort of obscenely transparent in our lives with the, you know, with our family. And I think that like that is such a different mentality for people sometimes. So what I mean by this is he left our 2009 operating plan with every partner that we met with. And, you know, as we were getting these notes, we're like, OK, we'll we'll come back and check in, you know, next year.

20:112009 ended up being and incredible years for us because we were set up well and we were so lean and efficient and operating out of necessity, but also because what ended up happening is that, you know, that kind of why for Renault ended up coming true. People started as they were losing their jobs through the financial crisis. I mean, talk about a time when the bottom fell out. Like it really fell out. People started to teach classes to make money. They started to go to more networking events to find jobs. They started going out to be with one another because during hard financial times, people actually want to be out with each other.

20:48It was a time when people were drinking. So, you know, there was that. Good for business. And good for business. And we soared through 2009. So in Q4 of 2009, we went back out to not all 27, but a select few and showed them our results. And it was like this, you know, really surprising reaction to that, which was this novel idea that we'd actually beat and exceed our plans that we'd left them with because so many businesses had to reset, you know, and rebase during that time. So we had more than a few offers and we knew that we would want to work with Sequoia again. They had funded Kevin's prior company, Zoom, X-O-O-M.

21:32And, you know, so we were thrilled to partner with them. And that's when Ruloff joined the board. But I do think that there is a lot of meaning in the hardship. And, you know, the reason why I started this story with you're going to have to believe me is it's just not the same anymore. And it hasn't been for a while. And I sound maybe coruginey, but I think that's a shame. Yeah, I agree. And then, you know, once we had Sequoia on board, I have to say it was a lot easier to get Lee Fixel, Henry Ellenbogen. I mean, some of the most, again, important investors of our time to really back us and push us forward and help us scale to, you know, IPO.

22:16Yeah.

22:17Isabelle Johannesen: And I love one of the nuggets in there of, you know, founders being able to go back and repitch an investor that has previously rejected them, especially, you know, I think a founder's worst nightmare might be being rejected by Sequoia, right? But how did it work when you came back to them? Of course, showing new results. But do you think that investors are generally, you know, wanting to kind of keep in touch after they reject a startup? Or I've even heard that investors don't often give a hard reject and they'll just say, like, not right now. Yeah, I mean, I can view the world through the lens of venture now.

22:49Kevin has his fund, A Star, and they, you know, they're, they're doing quite well and very busy. And so I, you know, kind of keep one ear open. I think that, well, I would say that Kevin is, is again, being a very transparent person is very sure to let people know if it's not going to be an investment they're going to make, which I think is a great, a great benefit and a great virtue. But yeah, I mean, I think our story, I would say, says that, you know, even if you do get a flat out no, to not treat that as a never. And certainly if you are able to retrench and work hard and prove out your thesis, you know, you deserve to update everyone.

23:34We were just super humble about it. And remember, at the time, starting a company together as a couple was not in vogue at all. And so, you know, on top of proving out business and I think really customer acquisition, because we were doing it in such a different way than other competitors, we were building a self-sign-on machine that was growing more from a viral coefficient than, you know, inside sales. I think that was second to the business question was and customer acquisition was, you know, how is this going to work? And so, again, the transparency thing, we would go into meetings and just that would be the first thing we'd tell them.

24:18Like, here's our operating plan and here's what happens if something goes wrong and we divide and conquer. And here's what we'll do if, you know, you know what hits the fan. And and that seemed to kind of like help get that table that that question off the table. And so I also think like maybe the lesson there is hit the most obvious questions first, even if they're the most uncomfortable. Yeah.

24:42Isabelle Johannesen: No, your weaknesses and don't be afraid to just spray paint it on your forehead. You know, at the time it was a perceived weakness because of all the horror stories that had gone before all the like bad examples that had gone before us. I don't typically rest on any laurels. I will say I think Kevin and I proved that you can successfully scale a business, a culture, a company and a relationship. And then we have this hat trick where he was CEO for the first 10 years and I was CEO for the second 10 years. And I actually don't know how we made it through that. Like that was not something I would maybe recommend for other people.

25:19But it was it was incredibly fulfilling. and exciting. Why wouldn't you recommend it? I'm curious. It's a tough thing to have one person be the CEO and then switch and have the other person be the CEO. I just think that's like diabolical sometimes, you know, because it's really hard to not. First of all, it's really hard for the person who's not the CEO to not be like, what are you doing? And then it's super hard for the person stepping into CEO to be like, am I doing it right? It took a lot of communication, a lot of trust. But I'll never forget after the first week of being CEO, I came home and I was pretty frustrated with Kevin and he kind of didn't understand why.

25:59And I finally like found my words and I said, you know, when you were CEO, it looked like Candyland and it's actually Tron. And I'm like, I was like such like classic 80s references. I'm like, I just don't understand. Like, how did you make it look so easy? You know? And I was I was like kind of mad at him about that, which obviously he didn't deserve, but I found my way. And I was so lucky to have him by my side as a mentor, to have Ruloff. Again, I mentioned them before, but Lee and Henry, they were incredible starting team voices to have as these coaches that if you really open yourself up and listen to them, you had these incredible nuggets of wisdom and cheat codes to figure out how to make the right decisions going forward, which really mattered in the early days, but it was critical to our survival during COVID.

26:58Isabelle Johannesen: Well, you know, I have to say, Julia, you've made it look easy in your own way, too. I mean, you're one of the very few women to lead a successful tech IPO. Let's talk about that for a minute. So what led up to the decision to take the company public? We always knew that going public was a goal for us, that once we hit a certain revenue threshold, Once we felt that we had predictability, once we knew that we could scale Eventbrite in a really responsible but also aggressive way, we knew we wanted to be a public company. And why? Well, because we felt that public companies are the shining example of transparency, of, you know, of validity.

27:41And we wanted to access the public markets, that capital, which really came in handy when we needed it during COVID. So I'll never forget. I went to a public company CEO's wedding, a tech company CEO's wedding, right before we decided to launch our IPO. And at the bar, there were other public tech company CEOs. And they all, I've known them for years, but they all were like, why are you going public? Like, it's terrible. And I remember, you know, nodding and being like, okay, this, I don't think they're changing my mind, but I made a pact to myself that if we chose to go public versus any other route, I would never complain about it.

28:29And I would just, you know, I would embrace it. I would tell the truth, but I would never, I would never really bitch about it. And I don't blame them. I just thought like, I want to try to do something different. When we did go public the day we we rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange floor, I was struck by kind of three bittersweet moments amongst this just really joyous day. We brought together our families, our earliest employees. We call them Breitlings, our earliest customers. We had kids there. I mean, it was phenomenal. There was a donut wall. Enough said. And I but there were three things that kind of struck me as like these pangs.

29:09One was and this was all these were all like little facts that were dropped to me during the day by the New York Stock Exchange. One was that I was the second youngest woman to take a company public. Two was I was like the 21st founder CEO woman to take a company public. And the third thing was just an observation, which that after we rang the bell in the in the reception afterwards, they said, you know, we looked across all of our archives of bell openings and we've never had as many women on the podium as you had today. And it was just our executive team, you know, it was 50-50 as it had been for years and years and years.

29:48And that, you know, so it was like struck me like this is 2018. This is crazy that, you know, I feel like I'm breaking these glass ceilings that just shouldn't even be there. It didn't feel good to me, but the moment and the celebration did. It really was such an epic day. I would say like day two, you know, yeah, reality sets in. You've got this quarterly cadence. you've got a lot more investors than you had before. You know, being what I would, what somebody called it to me, somebody I really greatly admire. So, but they said a micro cap company. It's hard to be a micro cap company in the public market.

30:29And it really does start to feel at some point, like, is it worth the overhead of the cost and the time and the effort? If you don't, you know, you really earn the investors that you that you get. Another wise person said that. And at some point you have to like decide whether or not it's, you know, it makes sense for the company.

30:51Isabelle Johannesen: Yeah. But I mean, on that note, like what else do you wish someone would have told you before going public? What are some of the sort of shock factors that founders might not realize if that's their end goal today? I think that I thought that based on what I'd heard, that going public was going to take all of my time. And I'm not like, I'm really aware and humble of the fact that like, we had our fair share of challenges as a public company, right? And I do think that I imagined that the majority of my time would be spent in IR and sort of public company stuff. stuff and you know really if you know your numbers and you know your business which any good CEO does you don't really need to over prepare you need to be understanding your investors and what they're looking for so that you can speak the same language but that doesn't have to be something that you're brilliant at the business results speak for themselves to a certain degree and you know, it's performative to some extent, earnings calls and that sort of, you know, that sort of ceremony.

32:01But I turned it into a fun thing. I mean, most things that I do, I try to find a really like fun way to do it. So we would have, you know, post COVID when we were working mostly remotely, we'd have camp earnings. And so camp earnings started on the Monday of the of the investor week and ended on the Friday. And we'd all get together and work in the same room. And, you know, there were tequila shots involved. And it was just a really great way to sit and talk about the business all week. And that was like, to me, that was just so fun. And so many great ideas came out of that week where otherwise be a dreaded week.

32:39Isabelle Johannesen: I mean, hey, tequila shots, donut walls, sign me up. This sounds like a great time. I know we should be doing that right now. We should be. But it's not always all fun and games. So, I mean, when you went public, you listed at a one point six seven billion valuation. But then Eventbrite recently sold for about five hundred million. Is that right? Yeah. So talk me through what happened with this recent sale. Now you have to get me the tequila shot. Yeah, yeah. That's like anyone, anyone obvious pivot. So and that's that's what I just mentioned. Like I'm alluding to the fact that, like, I don't think that I have all the answers of how to drive value as a public company because I didn't.

33:17You know, in in that time span, we also went down below zero and came back. So I'll give I'll give us that. Right. We rebuilt the company over time. And in that time, the market shifted, too. So I don't sit. That's painful to hear those numbers. But I don't sit around every day and think about, oh, my God, like, if only, if only, if only. I think that would be a torturous place to be. And I don't think it's productive. I am really proud of what we built in terms of what Eventbrite means for culture, what it means for humans, what it means for business owners, you know, and I'm really proud of the decisions we've made.

33:57And my hope is, you know, while transitioning the company out of the public markets at that price didn't I mean, would never feel good to a founder CEO. my decision process was about what will actually allow Eventbrite to be a value-based company of great value on the top line, great value on the bottom line, and most importantly, value to our customers for hopefully longer than we're alive. And so I think sometimes you have to sort order your priorities in a way that makes sense for your customer. And it's painful. And so, you know, I just don't think I don't think there's any sort of like I would never try to spin it in a way that, you know, makes it feel good.

34:46But that's not the point. And so while, yes, I wish that I'm sitting here saying we went public at one point six seven billion and we went private at 10 billion, that would have been incredible. I know that we made the right choices along the way in spite of some quite literally unprecedented black swan, you know, insane events. And I learned a lot and I made a ton of mistakes and I always learned from those mistakes. So, you know, I'm excited about the future. Like when I think about Eventbrite as part of Bending Spoons, knowing that team and knowing how they think about great product and customer and, you know, the future, I know that Eventbrite's going to be able to withstand whatever is changing, however fast it's changing and continue being there for our customers.

35:44And that so that like that definitely helps me sleep at night. Good.

35:48Isabelle Johannesen: I'm glad you can sleep. No, but really, I love I love your outlook on on, you know, everything that has happened and how you've persevered through all of these ups and downs in the markets and really pulled Eventbrite through. I'm curious how sort of what were you struggling to do when it was public that you think making it private was going to fix? Well, I mean, I start by saying the landscape has completely changed, right? So we're not alone in a consumer driven business that needs to think entirely different about how you deliver product, the speed to market, the innovation opportunities. You know, Eventbrite is a well-known brand for a reason.

36:34And that's not because we spent a lot of money in marketing. It's because we built the product to meet our customers' needs, and we rarely deviated from that in 20 years. So in order to do that in this landscape and in this market, you have to be able to dismantle a lot of things and rebuild them quickly. So we always knew that whichever route we took, it would need to go through a massive disruptive moment. And while we had disrupted ourselves during COVID and rebuilt, there's nothing like the time that we're in right now. That is, you know, we've never seen this before. The second thing is that, you know, as stewards of our capital, we needed to make sure that there is longevity in that and return capital to our investors.

37:29And again, you know, I wish it could have been a lot more. We never sold a meaningful amount of stock in the company. So Kevin and I are one of the major shareholders of Eventbrite. And we weren't taking money off the table during this entire journey. And that's not to draw pity. It's to say, I know what it feels like to be a long term shareholder of Eventbrite. And, you know, I think that the decision of why this, why now really came together through collaboration with our board. I mean, oh, my God, I feel so lucky and proud to have assembled some of the best people in business and really to have gone through some really crazy times together in a very collegial manner.

38:19I think, you know, I listened to a lot of wise voices that maybe were telling me things that I didn't want to hear. I was probably the last person, you know, who wanted to go this route. But once it became clear that it was the right thing for the business and for our shareholders, I was fully on board and really level-headed and focused about it. So I'm proud of myself for that. But it's not easy. You know, there's a lot of changes that impact a lot of people's lives. And that's really difficult.

38:48Isabelle Johannesen: Yeah, nothing about this sounds easy. I mean, I can only imagine, but I can also only imagine the kind of push and pull between creating this mission driven company where you want to create value for your customers while managing shareholder expectations and needing to create value for them. Do those two things ever kind of pull in opposite directions and how do you navigate that? all the time. But I can tell you without a doubt, if I had made a list of, you know, all the ideas that investors had for us and what they wanted, and I went out and I did those at the time that they wanted us to do them.

39:25I mean, we definitely wouldn't be sitting here talking about Eventbrite as a living, breathing company. So there's, and that's not to, I think, like most of the of the feedback that I got from investors along the way and most of it, whether it's solicited or unsolicited, I would call it all solicited because any feedback is great feedback. And it's the it and the reason why I think that, you know, it's important to layer on an editorial lens at a critical lens of CEO is that it's amazing how fast the pendulum swings in the public market, I mean, like it's almost laughable, right? I wish somebody would just like call timeout and be like, OK, let's let's just chart what is the most critical, important thing that investors care about over the last 18 months.

40:16And you kind of would look at it and be like, OK, this looks like a toddler trying to choose what they want for dinner. I don't think anybody means to do that. I think that there's a lot of competing priorities that are happening and there's a lot of noise and there's just a lot of factors. But if you have to have a backbone as a CEO to say, I hear you, I respect your opinion, I'm taking this feedback, but I'm also going to lead from the front on what I know is right for my customer. And every time I deviated from that North Star, it ended very poorly and it was painful. So I think that's probably the most critical job of a CEO is to listen, to be open to the feedback, to take it in, even as painful as it is.

41:01There's some really awkward meetings, you know, to realize it's not personal, even when sometimes it feels pretty personal and to make the right decision for your customer.

41:12Isabelle Johannesen: And I mean, so now from a consumer perspective, there are competitors in the space that are becoming more and more popular, the likes of Partyful or Lumar, things that are becoming household names. How was that affecting the stock and how did that impact your decision to sell? I'm going to say something I'll probably regret, but do you remember Hopin? No. Okay. So Hopin was a virtual events platform that raised billions of dollars during COVID. And you don't know it. Right. Yeah. So what that reinforced for me didn't teach me because I'd already learned it many moons prior to that. But what that taught me was competition's great.

41:58Irrational decision making, especially when it involves capital during such a critical time when other companies could have used that capital, is irresponsible. But yet I was in meetings with investors who were like, maybe you should sell to Hopin. Like, I mean, they're doing great and they're going to. And it was just like, OK, I respect what's happening. But I also know after years of running this company that people are going to come back to live events. And I had confidence. I think the two words that come to mind is healthily paranoid. I think being healthily paranoid is staying aware of what the competition is doing, understanding why consumers want to use something and being healthy, which is you stay focused on your mission, how you serve your customers, incorporate great ideas.

42:51I think the Luma team is incredible. I think they have an incredible product sense. I think the partyful team really hit on something that people needed, which was this sense of who do I go out with? Who should I be going out with? How do I connect with new people? Like it was a I think their execution of the classic viral coefficient is chef's kiss. So I can say those things and be totally enamored by certain parts of how they're approaching things without flipping out and saying, oh, my God, the sky is falling. So I would say those companies affected Eventbrite. Not much at all. It draws more people into this space.

43:37But that doesn't mean that they weren't doing things and don't do things remarkably better than Eventbrite. Eventbrite's the second largest trafficked events ticketing site in the world. Our brand awareness and affinity is heads and tails above the competition, including the giant, the incumbent on top by a long shot. That just doesn't happen overnight. And so I have to say, like, I think the proof is in the pudding. And I really think that the lesson for founders is, again, I come back to healthy paranoia. You know, as much as I'm like talking right now, listening is way more important. Getting to know those founders and learning from them, which Kevin taught me very early on and really served me well.

44:26We should just call him up. Call Kevin. Just call Kevin.

44:29Isabelle Johannesen: Just call Kevin. Just call Kevin. That sounds like a good podcast. It does, actually. No, but I mean, I think Eventbrite paved the way in so many avenues for people to really, A, come together, but to be build platforms to continue to bring people together, whether it's competition or not. I mean, at the end of the day, people coming together is a good thing. And I think one thing I want to touch on here is advice for founders who might be building a marketplace today, a consumer facing marketplace. That is a challenge. It always has. It always will be. But you navigated it fantastically. And I think there's a lot of people out there who would love to hear your kind of three top tips for building a marketplace.

45:07Well, I would say when you said we navigated it remarkably, I'm like in my head, I was like, we had some really big public stumbles that I immediately think of. But that's just the way my brain works. I think the first thing is to know your identity. I think that for Eventbrite, one of our challenges was that we started as a creator focused company. You know, one company I just admire so much is WAP, which I think is redefining sort of this vertical integration for how creators build businesses. And it feels very familiar to our earliest days in the events category because we were focused on the tools and the enablement for people like Michael Arrington to be able to be successful in selling tickets to events.

45:54That is our core DNA and our identity. Throughout the years, as we started to scale and as more and more creators came to us to actually grow their audience and sell more tickets, we kept trying to shift our identity to consumer. And, you know, I believe that you can be both a platform and a marketplace and probably like in minority in that way. I don't think it's about choosing between those two, but I do think you have to choose who your primary customer is. And I think you have to be really careful and thoughtful about the things that you do to shift that identity and losing those customers along the way.

46:33And we certainly had a few, you know, dust ups in that regard that were super painful, where we were trying to shift the business model toward consumer and we were losing our creators because we were confusing them.

46:48Isabelle Johannesen: Can you give a couple other examples of times where you wish you had done something differently so that some of the founders listening can learn from your experience? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So it starts to feel like therapy. Tell me how you really feel. Another one that just came to mind is when we acquired our largest competitor in music, there was a very strong overlap to the customer that we were serving. But the playing field was entirely different. And I think we had a very bullish perspective that we could bring all the customers along and we had underappreciated how impactful that would be to their businesses and everyday operations.

47:32And these are independent live music venues. These are like some of the most important institutions in America is independent live music venues. and we were in a real big hurry with a deep sense of urgency to bring those customers over to the Eventbrite platform because their current platform was disintegrating. And I don't think they, we did a very good job of telling them that and I think they were very confused about why we wanted to replatform them as quickly as we needed to. And it was in some respect, parts of that was just like a deep disaster for us and them, like lots of trust broken.

48:18And I don't think we were giving the proper context to them. And I think we were overly ambitious in how quickly we could do it. And that was a hard lesson to learn. And so I think the lesson, because it took years to rebuild that trust, is to always, always, always, always stop and talk to your customers. Just stop what you're doing, stop the strategy, stop the execution, stop the metrics, and just have human conversations with your customers. And use those opportunities to read between the lines and infer what it is you can do to help them and what it is you are doing that hurts them. And I think that just I mean, that's kind of one of the major headlines, I would say.

49:08I, you know, both lived through and experienced and then the big lesson.

49:13Isabelle Johannesen: Yeah, I mean, I think these days the advice is build fast, break things and just, you know, charging forward with, you know, maybe at the expense of your customers. I think that's great advice. So you clocked in or clocked out on your last day at Eventbrite a little over a month and a half ago. How was your first couple of months, couple of weeks of, I would say freedom, but I'm sure it's very bittersweet. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I had I had a lot of time to prepare, you know, from the deciding to go down this route with the board to collecting a lot of advice to, you know, announcing that we had the intention to do this to then closing.

49:51It was more than enough time for me to prepare. I learned this crazy lesson on the 11th hour of my CEO tenure that I just thought I kind of makes me laugh, but it was like really painful, which is we announced that we intended to do this. And, you know, you announce that you enter into a definitive agreement and then you have to go through all the regulatory and compliance and closing ceremonies. companies and I got on a Zoom with my leadership team probably a few hours later. We had it was just so happened that it had had landed right on our board meeting. And so I was like, OK, we got to kind of turn our attention.

50:35How are we going to use the time with the board? It's really important that you run the company business as usual because deals fall apart all the time. So I remember getting on the Zoom and these are some of the finest people that walk this planet. And yet and who have been in the trenches with me through thick and thin and are like all in just roll up your sleeves, get it done, people. And I saw dead faces, just like expressionless faces of these people that I know so well. And my heart sank and I was damn near inconsolable that night. I think I pretty much like put myself to bed early with like a bottle of champagne and, you know, just was like, oh, my God, this is this is like terrible.

51:18I really it all kind of hit me in like a very terrible way. Woke up the next morning. I'm not one to dwell and I don't I don't stay low for long, thankfully. So I tend to like bounce off the bottom of the pool. So. Came back to the group the next day and I'm like, OK. I've never done this before, so I don't know what the next few months are going to be like. Some of you have been through this, so I'm going to listen to you. But here's what I think we should do. I think we should do what's right for our customer. I think we should look out for one another and do what's right for each other. And I think we should have fun because YOLO.

52:02I mean, we knew that we would not be together for that much longer. You know, the structure of the deal, was very clear. Like, maybe like six months leading up to, like two years leading up to that, I'd been driving the company with a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel while also being that kind of CEO that's like, if you keep fighting in the back, I'm gonna pull this car over, you know? Like my mom used to like put her hand back and like, you know, it would be like a game to like, but I was like a really like sort of intense, stressed, micromanagerial CEO in the last two years. I'm not proud of it.

52:36The minute I like let go a little bit, all these amazing things started happening. And I don't know if I went a day for that period of time without hearing from somebody totally different in the organization that we were having a good hair day. You know, I'm like, OK, I don't know if this is like bittersweet or for all being like waxing nostalgic. It was actually true. And it was it was like this impeccable 11th hour leadership lesson that, you know, who knows if I'll ever put it to use again. But it was pretty phenomenal and humbling.

53:13Isabelle Johannesen: I love your outlook on all of these situations. It is so refreshing. And I think that, you know, it takes a lot of, you know, personal conviction to know how to handle some of these really challenging, really public situations that you've been in and that you've led through. I also want to kind of close out by talking about what is next, because you said you don't know if you'll ever be in that situation again. But have you thought about would you ever start another company? Would there be an event for it 2.0? I'd be lying if I said that Kevin has not shared an Apple note with me. That's up to about 27 ideas.

53:47So I certainly have a willing, you know, co-conspirator and supporter in him. and that would be incredible. I've collected a lot of advice on this and I am doing what feels right for me, which is I am really absorbing the difficulty of not having a structured day. I mean, the difference between Kevin and I, he's in between offices, so he's working from home, so it's really apparent. Like his day, which used to be like my day, is making a decision or an observation every single 30 minutes of the day for nine hours a day. And I am not at all. And so it's like this really interesting juxtaposition to watch him and the velocity and sort of the momentum that takes you through a day versus not having that.

54:44And I would say that like, while I love the fact that my cortisol system treats a Tuesday the same as a Sunday now, that's amazing and that feels really restorative. I actually think it's harder to not have the momentum. And so I am going through that difficulty of adjustment because I think I've never not had a job since I was 15. And I know that's not very unique, but I literally have not had a moment in time when I didn't have a job. I worked all through college. And I think it's really important for me to see what happens when I'm not in that velocity momentum machine. And I have to make a lot of independent decisions that are like scary in a different way.

55:28I am in a rabbit hole with cloud code that is so delightful and interesting. And I know I'm not alone in that either. But being a hobbyist of AI, I think is incredibly important right now. I am taking a lot of customer service requests from my daughters and I think delivering on them quite well. I think my CSAT's pretty high and I think that I'm also just spending time with things I really care about. So, you know, helping people that I haven't had the time to spend a lot of good quality thinking time with them, you know, and giving back in ways I think that are really meaningful. So it's not comfortable by any stretch, but it is, I think it's important to have this moment in time.

56:16I'll leave you with this, which is that when I was eight years old, I was cast in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as Frozen Bunny number three. And my job was to stand on stage for an hour frozen. And I sort of feel like I'm resetting to one on that moment. Like I'm just, I'm a little bit frozen by design. and I think I'm going to start from the beginning again. And that's what's really important to me is being able to learn and grow and do it all over again if I can in some really meaningful way and not like let my ego get the better of me.

56:54Isabelle Johannesen: Well, you know, I can't wait to see what you do as, you know, frozen bunny number three for the second time. Thank you. Honestly, I think you and Kevin are such a power team And I think there is, you know, once the dust has settled. That was really weird. It was really worth sharing that story with you. I'm so glad you did. I think I also would have been something along the lines of a strange tree in the background. It's hard. Yeah, it's hard to stand still. I completely empathize with that. But we can't wait to see what you get up to next. I know Kevin was actually a started Battlefield Judge just this last year at TechCrunch Disrupt.

57:27Isabelle Johannesen: So I feel like we've gotten to connect with both of you in the last couple of months. So really looking forward to see what's next for you, what's next for Eventbrite. And thank you for chatting with me today. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This has been fun. Build Mode is a TechCrunch podcast. Each episode is produced and edited by Maggie Nye and hosted by me, Isabel Johanesson. Our art and design is also by Maggie Nye. A big thanks to Morgan Little, who leads our audience development, the Foundry and Cheddar video teams, and most of all to you, the builders and everyone else in the wider startup community.

58:00Isabelle Johannesen: We'll see you back here next time.