7 ms·
Hungry start-ups (Anyvite & TicketStumbler) on a drastic diet
- fallentimes 18y agoIt's making some people register; here's a link to text only: http://tinypaste.com/pre.php?id=ddb2e http://tinypaste.com/pre.php?id=ddb2e
- paulgb 18y agoMight not work for everyone, but removing ?nclick_check=1 from the URL made it work for me: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/59d78f42-e713-11dd-8407-0000779fd2ac.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/59d78f42-e713-11dd-8407-0000779fd2...
- bigbang 18y agoThanks. I was going to skip this article.
- axod 18y agoThanks for that. I'll never register at one of these news sites just to read an article... Amazing they try to force people to.
- bradgessler 18y agou: muellernews p: 50505050
- tlrobinson 18y agohttp://www.bugmenot.com/view/ft.com http://www.bugmenot.com/view/ft.com "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
- brandnewlow 18y agoCongrats on the coverage. I haven't seen many YC startups in the FT.
- fallentimes 18y agoJeff's so dreamy, it's hard to say no.
- jmorin007 18y agoHe really is, isn't he?
- jmorin007 18y agoAnd just so for the record, so is that other founder of Ticketstumbler: http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/f9833f0a6c_tickets08262008.jpg http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/f9833f0a6c_ti...
- tdavis 18y agoYou can eat a bag of shit. A big bag of shit.
- fallentimes 18y agoI guess more people need to see Semi Pro.
- jobenjo 18y agoWhat, no love for me, just because I'm not a YC company? I was still in the FT article. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/23/business/smallbusiness/share600.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/23/business/smal... or http://www.fluther.com/404 http://www.fluther.com/404 Okay, now I'm embarrassed.
- fallentimes 18y agoThe Tom thing is a running gag. We <3 you too.
- jmorin007 18y agoHey Ben, totally didn't mean to leave you out! Like Dan said, the pic of Tom (wearing lipstick) is a running joke. You get just as much love as the other YC companies involved!
- pmjordan 18y ago"Every day TicketStumbler.com scours the web for the best deals on roughly $1bn (€750,000, £670,000) worth of concert and sports tickets from secondary sellers." Okay, so the dollar exchange rate is low, but not that low. I'm guessing they mean $1 million?
- fallentimes 18y agoTheir calculation was wrong. The interview was during the NFL season where we had roughly $1 billion (with a B) worth of tickets. It's a little less than that now since the NFL regular season is over. It'll be over $1 billion again as the MLB season draws near.
- pmjordan 18y agoWow, good going! $1m seemed a bit on the low side but I wasn't expecting that much!
- fallentimes 18y agoHonestly, me either.
- rms 18y agoAre you guys going to release any of your historical data? What I am most curious about is the tendency for prices to go up or down as it gets closer to showtime -- I'm sure ticket scalpers united would love a widget to play around with those numbers.
- fallentimes 18y agoThis is tricky; since we're a third party it's difficult to know if the tickets were sold or delisted. However, it's certainly something we'll look into.
- timcederman 18y agoChange the "false.html" to "true.html" in the URL. eg - ft.com/cms/s/59d78f42-e713-11dd-8407-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=true.html (doesn't work if you click on it, you need to manually change it) edit: this used to work on ft.com for me, but doesn't seem to be working at the moment (at least on FF3/OS X).
- curiousgeorge 18y agoGood job guys.
- andrewljohnson 18y agoLiving outside of the Bay area fit into our calculations when my co-founder and I started TrailBehind.com too. We moved to a 3-bedroom cabin in Truckee, which costs us about as much as sharing a single room in a 3-bedroom apartment in SF.
- jmorin007 18y agoThat actually sounds really sweet. Working in the mountains on your startup with decently close proximity to the Bay Area if you want to come into the city for events. Great plan!
- andrewljohnson 18y agoYeah, we really like it. Here are the offices at TrailBehind HQ: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33766454@N02/3146045372/in/set-72157611757081379/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/33766454@N02/3146045372/in/set-... We're going to be putting a third workspace in there this month.
- smokey_the_bear 18y agoyeah, it's only 30 minutes from Reno, which has most big city creature comforts. Amtrak goes straight through town too. Might be hard to find new hires here, but perfect for buckling down to get it off the ground.
- fizx 18y agoEspecially if the ski season continues to suck!
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- lacker 18y agoIt especially makes sense since trailbehind is focused on hiking/camping/etc and there's a lot more outdoors near Tahoe than there is near SF.
- vlad 18y agoCongrats!
- daveambrose 18y agoThis is a great piece. Congrats! I couldn't help but laugh at the phone bill comment - I do the same. :) Dan, would you mind sharing any tips/feedback how the piece came about? Did you pitch the FT?
- fallentimes 18y agoWe did not pitch him. A free lancer we were intro'd to was looking to talk to startups regarding the recession, and how we were coping. He did an excellent job and was very thorough, but I had no idea it was going to land in the Financial Times until recently. I would have been happy with a mention on the back of a Count Chocula cereal box. We'll talk to anyone.
- brandnewlow 18y agoAnd that, my friends, is a winning attitude with the press. You never know when that random writer's going to catch a break and land their piece in the FT.
- ojbyrne 18y agoI find it interesting that ticketstumbler is theoretically a utility that allows the savings of time at the cost of money and the article focuses on the savings of money at the expense of time.
- fallentimes 18y agoActually, since over 50% of events don't sell out, you can often find below face value tickets on TicketStumbler. The ticketmaster fees are comparable to the ones charged by our ticket providers. This is even more true now that we're in a recession. NBA tickets are at all time lows. Expect similar deals for baseball season.
- ojbyrne 18y agoI said "theoretically." Boiled down, you're collecting commissions to aggregate ticket inventory and find the lowest prices for buyers. If every buyer spent the time to find the lowest price (including spending the time to develop the knowledge you guys have of pricing, etc), those commissions would disappear.
- fallentimes 18y agoHmm I"m not sure if that would be true since we're paid directly from Stubhub, Razorgator etc. The prices shown on TicketStumbler are the same as those shown on Stubhub (there's no extra fees on our end). Essentially, we try to save people time without costing anything extra. If the user went to all those sites separately they'd still pay the same amount. What you're saying definitely applies to a place like Expedia that tags on extra fees.
- tdavis 18y agoWell of course if everybody spent all that time to find the lowest prices and developed knowledge of pricing we'd stop making money. But they're not going to do that, just like everybody isn't going to randomly decide to learn the way air travel works and put Orbitz et. al. out of business. Even if it cost 10% more to buy a ticket through TicketStumbler, which it doesn't (it costs 0%), it would still be worth it. You have to consider the opportunity cost.
- anuraggoel 18y agoCongratulations on the FT mention! Can you shed some light on the 'calculations' that go into the decision to live outside the valley? While living outside the bay area does reduce expenses, what kinds of things do you give up on (e.g. easy access to X, Y, Z) and why are they less valuable than the immediate monetary benefits?
- fallentimes 18y agoSure. It really wasn't as tough a decision for us as it could be for other startups. We aren't hiring and aren't actively raising money (though we keep in touch with many potential investors just in case). Also, our families are in the midwest. The only thing we "gave up" was that our startup friends almost all moved to San Francisco. But since we're working most of the time, it's not that big of deal. If and when we have a war chest of cash, we'll likely move to San Francisco; it's a kick ass place but is as expensive as NYC.
- physcab 18y agoWhen everyone gets their startup going, you should all just move to North Florida. Admittedly we don't have the resources like the Bay Area, but if this post is about cost savings, then North Florida is your best bet. My rent here is $500 a month and I pay $40 a week for food. No car. When I lived in Santa Clara, my rent was $750 (lived with 7 people) and food was over $120 a week.
- fallentimes 18y agoHow do you get around? One of the things I love about Boston is the public transportation.
- physcab 18y agoThe glorious public transit system and my t(rusty) bike. We're nowhere near Boston in transit...or California for that matter. I practically lived on Cal Train when I lived in Santa Clara. In Florida, you just need to be creative. Zipcar also helps.