Eventbrite S-1(sec.gov)
sec.gov
Eventbrite S-1
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1475115/000119312518255960/d593770ds1.htm
105 comments
Keep in mind that Eventbrite doesn't charge anything to host free events, which is all many of their organic customers ever host. That said, the amount of revenue you can get from music festivals and venues, which require a sales team to make the deals, dwarfs what you can get from most other customers. There's a reason Eventbrite bought Ticketfly. For that same reason, Live Nation has bought some of Eventbrite's customers and moved their ticketing to Ticketmaster.
It's not just the sales team. Eventbrite has a fantastic user interface and features that really work for people with complex ticketing requirements, better than any other ticketing platform I've ever used.
I chuckled when I read "For example, we previously experienced interruptions in performance of our platform because of a hardware error that AWS experienced" on page 26.
I never expected one of the mishaps I dealt with while I worked there to appear in an SEC filing! If you want to learn a lot at the expense of a few gray hairs, I can highly recommend working in ops in the ticketing industry. I've spoken about some of the things it taught me at https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa17/conference-program/...
I never expected one of the mishaps I dealt with while I worked there to appear in an SEC filing! If you want to learn a lot at the expense of a few gray hairs, I can highly recommend working in ops in the ticketing industry. I've spoken about some of the things it taught me at https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa17/conference-program/...
Is reading S-1 filings a thing (nerd)?
I think when it is a company you worked for, you might be more likely to do it. You probably still have a bit of attachment to it.
I’m happy my stuff didn’t require multiple pages :)
As an early Eventbrite employee who saw the company grow from 10 to 200 people, this feels surreal.
Are you happy about it?
I moved on from Eventbrite years ago, but the lessons I learned and the friends I made were incredible. I'm happy for everyone involved.
We're still removing your code. Thanks buf. :)
Ha! Would've IPO'd 5 years ago without all that nasty code.
suggestion - throw up a "isbufgoneyet" site that tracks % of original buf code no longer in master (according to git blame or whatever is the best way to do it). would be a fun afternoon project.
In the summer of 2012, I rewrote literally every line of the front end to prep for international launches in the sense that every line had me as the git blame author. I'm actually pretty curious how much is left.
I always wondered how the stock exercising process feels like for an early employee who has left company few years before the IPO. Is there any feeling of lost opportunities amidst all the happiness of the exit?
Hopefully you're also happy to be exercising some stock options!
Buf!
Good to see you're still around. :fist-bump:
Good to see you're still around. :fist-bump:
Now there's a name I haven't seen in a while.
Thanks for that mobile work all those years ago! :D
Thanks for that mobile work all those years ago! :D
Funny story is my company at the time looked at acquiring EventBrite about 10? years ago, and as part of the integration eval, I happened to run the ab command against their endpoint. Few minutes later VP ran to my office and told me to stop as EventBrite called saying we were DDOSing them.
Congrats to EventBrite on going public. Am glad you stayed independent, as my company would have ruined them, like many other acquisitions..
Congrats to EventBrite on going public. Am glad you stayed independent, as my company would have ruined them, like many other acquisitions..
I was likely panicking not knowing anything at that time. Such a wild time of chaos and coffee overdoses.
It could have been you who saved them from ruin!
I imagine the conversation in the back "Do you believe it? Gedy's megacorp tried to ddos us!" "Accidentally! they were trying to run ab" "Well, even so, we don't want to sell to them anymore."
And now they are going public.
I imagine the conversation in the back "Do you believe it? Gedy's megacorp tried to ddos us!" "Accidentally! they were trying to run ab" "Well, even so, we don't want to sell to them anymore."
And now they are going public.
not a pro *nix guy here - what is the ab command and why does it make sense as part of an integration eval?
ab is ApacheBench[0], was measuring the response time of an API.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ApacheBench
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ApacheBench
I hope Eventbrite and Brown Paper Tickets are successful in stealing some business from their nasty competitors like Ticketmaster whose fees can be 50% of the ticket price.
Edit: their fees can be over 100% of the ticket price.
Edit: their fees can be over 100% of the ticket price.
Eventbrite are still expensive in my view and their business model perpetuates the 'booking fee' mentality of the industry.
To sell 250 tickets for $10 each would cost the event organiser (or ticket buyers) $560, excluding payment processing. That's a hefty chunk of cash for relatively little work.
I don't think it's a fair model so I set up Ticket Tailor for this reason - https://www.tickettailor.com. The same event would cost $25/mo, with no contracts or commitment. We have facilitated 8M ticket sales for savvy event organisers who are fed up with [Eventbrite | any other ticketing company].
To sell 250 tickets for $10 each would cost the event organiser (or ticket buyers) $560, excluding payment processing. That's a hefty chunk of cash for relatively little work.
I don't think it's a fair model so I set up Ticket Tailor for this reason - https://www.tickettailor.com. The same event would cost $25/mo, with no contracts or commitment. We have facilitated 8M ticket sales for savvy event organisers who are fed up with [Eventbrite | any other ticketing company].
Part of that goes to the venue and occasionally the bands too: https://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-ban...
Doesn't make a difference. Maybe it's an industry problem, because it doesn't make sense to advertise the ticket price but hide a bunch of fees to be found at checkout. (I'm looking at you, airlines). Might as well advertise everything as $1 and everything else is fees.
It reminds me of Centurylink's "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" for $3.99 a month. It's a bullshit sneaky way to advertise one price but the actual price is "below the fold". I think this kind of pricing should be illegal.
It reminds me of Centurylink's "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" for $3.99 a month. It's a bullshit sneaky way to advertise one price but the actual price is "below the fold". I think this kind of pricing should be illegal.
Doesn't make sense? Sure it does. Ticketmaster's sales team gets to go to venue and say "if you go with us, you can charge outrageous fees, pocket most of it, and we'll take all the blame".
Eventbrite does this too on their website, however on the mobile app the advertised price includes any fees.
If they need that money, just put it in the base price and don't charge extra fees.
I cannot be happier for Eventbrite! What a valuable product. My own startup wouldn't have taken off as fast without Eventbrite. Congratulations!
The best article I've seen so far is https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/ticketing-site-eventbrite-fi...
Go to eventbrite.com, search (blank) your local area "today" and events are not in chronological order. I appreciate that they show the 'best' events first, but when I just want something to do, it kills me that such a simple search is not available.
As someone launching a coding camp for kids, Eventbrite has been instrumental for us. We do free classes to generate leads and the free offering of EB has been more than enough to accomplish this. Good to see them succeed.
Network effect could solve gaps and make Eventbrite emerge as №1 player vs. LiveNation. But only in the ticketing for the entertainment segment. This is further challenged due to Top 5 wants a pie of every tech-driven business: Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and even Apple. They own the network.
here is my detailed thought post: https://medium.com/@santoshpanda/my-thoughts-on-eventbrites-...
here is my detailed thought post: https://medium.com/@santoshpanda/my-thoughts-on-eventbrites-...
As a non-American who's never invested in shares outside of his own country. How do I get a slice of this pie?
This is one of the few specific companies I'd actually be interested in investing in, rather than throwing all my money into indexes.
This is one of the few specific companies I'd actually be interested in investing in, rather than throwing all my money into indexes.
That’s interesting, why would you want to invest? EventBrite looks like a very vulnerable business to me.
I wonder if this has to do with building a war chest to compete with meetup + WeWork . . .
though meetup and eventbrite are definitely different.
though meetup and eventbrite are definitely different.
Not likely - Eventbrite ate Meetup's lunch a long time ago and the sale to WeWork was about surviving Facebook's stated plans to own 'groups'. I didn't read the S-1 but I believe Eventbrite is in a league of it's own.
They just also recently acquired Picatic, another vendor in this space. Hopefully that helps with the figures.
That highlights one thing to keep in mind when evaluating their 2017 growth: EB purchased both Ticketscript and Ticketfly that year.
Congrats Julia (and Kevin)! Amazing company you've built.
Congrats Eventbrite team. You guys earned it!
"We have a history of losses and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve and maintain profitability."
That's like boilerplate writing for filings. I haven't seen the first S-1 filing that didn' say that.
What's the point? This is a common risk for all companies.
> This is a common risk for all companies.
That simply isn't true.
There is validity to scaling while incurring losses, and requiring funding to do so. But that doesn't mean that all companies are in that boat. Certainly not all companies that are publicly traded. So the statement is a reasonable description of where the company is at, allowing potential investors to judge for themselves whether that meshes well with their own risk profile.
That simply isn't true.
There is validity to scaling while incurring losses, and requiring funding to do so. But that doesn't mean that all companies are in that boat. Certainly not all companies that are publicly traded. So the statement is a reasonable description of where the company is at, allowing potential investors to judge for themselves whether that meshes well with their own risk profile.
Any example of what kind of companies have absolutely no risk of "not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve and maintain profitability"?
Not a single profitable company in the world has to increase revenue to achieve profitability. By definition, they are already there. The risk faced by all companies is that poor strategic decisions will cause a decrease in revenue, eventually leading to a loss of profitability. But that is a totally different statement.
Traditionally companies achieved profitability before trying to bilk the average Joe's 401k.
Not companies going public (historically). It’s only recently these hot messes of unprofitably are getting dumped on the public markets.
VCs are for gambling, public markets are for profitable businesses.
VCs are for gambling, public markets are for profitable businesses.
Eventbrite has gotten close to profitable which I assume made them feel comfortable stepping back up the investment into growth (which achieved 61% 1H17 to 1H18). Probably will be awhile before it makes its way into indexes so I wouldn't worry about that now.
Hyman Minsky argues that "hot messes of unprofitability" tend to be a common phenomenon after long periods of economic success. Stability breeds instability. Tech didn't introduce this behavior.
> In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance. Furthermore, if an economy with a sizeable body of speculative financial units is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will quickly evaporate. Consequently, units with cash flow shortfalls will be forced to try to make position by selling out position. This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset values.
"The Financial Instability Hypothesis", p. 8 [1]
[1] http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp74.pdf
> In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance. Furthermore, if an economy with a sizeable body of speculative financial units is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will quickly evaporate. Consequently, units with cash flow shortfalls will be forced to try to make position by selling out position. This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset values.
"The Financial Instability Hypothesis", p. 8 [1]
[1] http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp74.pdf
What does a "Ponzi Unit" mean in this context?
> For Ponzi units, the cash flows from operations are not sufficient to fulfill either the repayment of principle or the interest due on outstanding debts by their cash flows from operations. Such units can sell assets or borrow. Borrowing to pay interest or selling assets to pay interest (and even dividends) on common stock lowers the equity of a unit, even as it increases liabilities and the prior commitment of future incomes. A unit that Ponzi finances lowers the margin of safety that it offers the holders of its debts.
Hedge units, in contrast:
> Hedge financing units are those which can fulfill all of their contractual payment obligations by their cash flows: the greater the weight of equity financing in the liability structure, the greater the likelihood that the unit is a hedge financing unit. Speculative finance units are units that can meet their payment commitments on "income account" on their liabilities, even as they cannot repay the principle out of income cash flows. Such units need to "roll over" their liabilities: (e.g. issue new debt to meet commitments on maturing debt). Governments with floating debts, corporations with floating issues of commercial paper, and banks are typically hedge units.
Hedge units, in contrast:
> Hedge financing units are those which can fulfill all of their contractual payment obligations by their cash flows: the greater the weight of equity financing in the liability structure, the greater the likelihood that the unit is a hedge financing unit. Speculative finance units are units that can meet their payment commitments on "income account" on their liabilities, even as they cannot repay the principle out of income cash flows. Such units need to "roll over" their liabilities: (e.g. issue new debt to meet commitments on maturing debt). Governments with floating debts, corporations with floating issues of commercial paper, and banks are typically hedge units.
Pretty common for tech companies, same like amazon IPO back in 1997, if that's what you meant "recently".
Sure, if you define "recently" as the past couple decades...
I think that really just means that the market has changed and you're no longer for this market, rather than that new companies are not for public market.
Market is literally made up of the companies and people that participate in it.
Market is literally made up of the companies and people that participate in it.
That's fair. Just keep this risk out of my index funds. I'm a long term investor, not gambling with unprofitable "high growth" equities.
You really should do both.
A small amount of your funds should go in to high growth.
One of my gambling portfolios is full of high growth semi-conductor stocks like AMD and MU, and SaaS stocks like CRM and HUBS. I have triple digit returns for the past couple years.
One of my gambling portfolios is full of high growth semi-conductor stocks like AMD and MU, and SaaS stocks like CRM and HUBS. I have triple digit returns for the past couple years.
Most individual investors, including younger, should have little or no money in individual stocks but instead in something like a Vanguard diversified portfolio of cheap index funds/ETFs. If you want to take 5% or 10% of your worth to the stock casino, sure (after paying off all your credit cards and maxing your 401k/IRA).
I do both. I have about 20% of my net worth in individual stocks, the rest in low cost index funds/ETFs.
The biggest gains and losses, of course, obviously come from individual stocks (and options, if you're feeling brave.) You're not going to see triple digit yearly returns with a mutual fund. You might find it on the next SaaS growth stock.
When you're young, you should absolutely take on some risk. (That includes working at startups!)
The biggest gains and losses, of course, obviously come from individual stocks (and options, if you're feeling brave.) You're not going to see triple digit yearly returns with a mutual fund. You might find it on the next SaaS growth stock.
When you're young, you should absolutely take on some risk. (That includes working at startups!)
> You really should do both. A small amount of your funds should go in to high growth.
Projecting your subjective investing preferences, risk vs return, onto someone else doesn't work. If someone is only comfortable investing in very low risk assets that will always produce a low return, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It strictly comes down to what you personally want out of the total equation.
Projecting your subjective investing preferences, risk vs return, onto someone else doesn't work. If someone is only comfortable investing in very low risk assets that will always produce a low return, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It strictly comes down to what you personally want out of the total equation.
Spot on. Everyone's investing goals and risk tolerance levels are different. It'd be criminal to put my 87 year old grandmother in high growth, unprofitable equities.
Agreed, but most of the people on this site are not 87 year old retirees. It would be criminal for them to miss out on those returns.
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That's not for you to decide. I put whatever I want in your index funds.
FWIW, that would have had your index fund missing AMZN and NFLX runs that have been pretty incredible. Zero interest rate policy has created a new, confusing market environment.
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Right, but don't most people use index funds exactly because of their assured stability? Assured in the "5 decades" sense of the word? i.e. the retirees in the above thread?
So I wouldn't want AMZN or NFLX in my index funds. NFLX just dropped dramatically in price, yea? So I bought it outright. I still have the bulk of my investment in index funds, though.
So I wouldn't want AMZN or NFLX in my index funds. NFLX just dropped dramatically in price, yea? So I bought it outright. I still have the bulk of my investment in index funds, though.
Any reason why this should remain the status quo? Why shouldn't the general public be allowed to invest in slightly-risky ventures?
Because the public are not accredited/sophisticated investors. It's to prevent them from being swindled.
How much did professional investors lose on Theranos alone (answer: Somewhere between $600-$800 million)?
How much did professional investors lose on Theranos alone (answer: Somewhere between $600-$800 million)?
That's a different definition of 'general public'.
Most of the public you're referring to are not pouring their savings into these IPOs.
Even so, the SEC shouldn't require companies to be profitable in order to be publicly traded - could you imagine if we took every non-profitable company private because the public needed to be protected?
Most of the public you're referring to are not pouring their savings into these IPOs.
Even so, the SEC shouldn't require companies to be profitable in order to be publicly traded - could you imagine if we took every non-profitable company private because the public needed to be protected?
Recently looked up "accredited investor". Joint income of > $300k and net worth (minus house) of > $ 1M.
I wonder if someone actually does the accrediting.
I wonder if someone actually does the accrediting.
It's actually > $300k income or > $1M net worth.
And, no, nobody does the accrediting. It's basically an honor system.
>300k income joint, >200k income single, or >1m excl. primary residence in any event.
Paraphrasing an attorney from years ago: The risk of lying to invest in something only open to accredited investors is colossal both to the entity raising funds as well as to the investor, and it can/does get caught during diligence, so it's not so much an honor system as it is something that inevitably gets audited/managed either down the road or especially when something goes wrong.
This may have changed and my recollection may not be accurate. Lastly, this isn't legal advice given that I'm not a lawyer.
Paraphrasing an attorney from years ago: The risk of lying to invest in something only open to accredited investors is colossal both to the entity raising funds as well as to the investor, and it can/does get caught during diligence, so it's not so much an honor system as it is something that inevitably gets audited/managed either down the road or especially when something goes wrong.
This may have changed and my recollection may not be accurate. Lastly, this isn't legal advice given that I'm not a lawyer.
Because that's not investing and it's also not "slightly-risky," it's straight-up risky.
1980 called
alfanick(8)
> More than 95% of creators who used our platform in 2017 signed themselves up for Eventbrite. In 2017, we derived 54% of our net revenue from these creators.
Selling to about 35,000 creators (700,000 total) for 46% of the profit is no small chore, and, in my mind, speaks to a highly effective sales strategy. It also partially explains why LiveNation is not taking a "create your own event online" approach: direct sales can be more profitable.