Just checked out an upcoming game that I'm planning on attending and wow the interface rocks! At all the other ticket places I have to look at the list of tickets, see what the section is, and then find it on the map to see if the price and location are what I'm looking for. SeatGeek completely eliminates this pain.
TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
11–17 of 17 posts
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely investing!=demoing at.
Of course it's not the same, but in both cases the writer is using a short phrase to give context about the company. Participating in TC50 is not as prestigious as participating in YC, but it is not trivial either. As a reader, I care about whether a company launched at TC50.
Demoing at TC50 isn't really that prestigious. It's kind of gross actually. Last year's was bizarre, starting off with the star spangled banner being sung by attractive female founders made me feel somewhat dirty just being there. Then the companies.. Totally squicky. Hangout.net was one of the companies who couldn't stop saying "increase branding opportunities to children with product placement" over and over again. I imagined their CEO with a barbell mustache and a maniacal laugh every time he talked about putting Nike and PepsiCo logos in the game, and letting children buy those with their milk money and allowances. It actually made me want to never allow my daughter to use a computer.
To quote the Clash,
"If Adolph Hitler, flew in today.. They'd send a limousine anyways"
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#13These guys got rocked at TC50, deer-in-headlights style. Paul and Marc Andreessen's questions were pretty devastating, given the team should have had answers at the drop of a hat. Paul asked why they were helping other people buy tickets rather than using their secret price prediction algorithm to arbitrage them and make all the money themselves (assuming the variance is high enough). They didn't have a good answer t…
With regards to why we don't arbitrage, I answered this in another HN comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823327. There are a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is transaction costs.
With regards to the TAM, I totally agree that we dropped the ball when we were on stage. I guess the pressure of being under the bright lights got to us. But we do indeed know our TAM; if you happen to be interested I can send you an Excel model that calculates it.
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#14Just checked out an upcoming game that I'm planning on attending and wow the interface rocks! At all the other ticket places I have to look at the list of tickets, see what the section is, and then find it on the map to see if the price and location are what I'm looking for. SeatGeek completely eliminates this pain.
Thanks, appreciate it! Would love any other feedback you have.
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#15These guys got rocked at TC50, deer-in-headlights style. Paul and Marc Andreessen's questions were pretty devastating, given the team should have had answers at the drop of a hat. Paul asked why they were helping other people buy tickets rather than using their secret price prediction algorithm to arbitrage them and make all the money themselves (assuming the variance is high enough). They didn't have a good answer t…
I can give an obvious answer to that first question. It is because there is no centralised clearing house for tickets, and in order to arbitrage them one would have to buy them from individuals which ends up being very costly. People will not send the correct tickets, they will send fake tickets, they will claim they sent the tickets when you have not received them, etc. It is not a coincidence that almost every auct…
Yes, sure, a good answer which amounts to: transaction costs are higher than the variance. That's the answer they should have given Paul.
TAM answers the question, "In the best of all possible worlds, how much money would you make?"
As an entrepreneur you'd better have a good, if not totally accurate, answer to that question. At the very least it shows investors how well you've segmented and sized your target market.
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#16These guys got rocked at TC50, deer-in-headlights style. Paul and Marc Andreessen's questions were pretty devastating, given the team should have had answers at the drop of a hat. Paul asked why they were helping other people buy tickets rather than using their secret price prediction algorithm to arbitrage them and make all the money themselves (assuming the variance is high enough). They didn't have a good answer t…
With regards to why we don't arbitrage, I answered this in another HN comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823327 . There are a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is transaction costs. With regards to the TAM, I totally agree that we dropped the ball when we were on stage. I guess the pressure of being under the bright lights got to us. But we do indeed know our TAM; if you happen to be interested I ca…
S'all good. I assumed you had answers, because your product was clearly thought out, functional, and polished.
It was just rough to watch the video -- I actually cringed.
Re: TC50 startup SeatGeek raises money
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
With regards to why we don't arbitrage, I answered this in another HN comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823327 . There are a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is transaction costs. With regards to the TAM, I totally agree that we dropped the ball when we were on stage. I guess the pressure of being under the bright lights got to us. But we do indeed know our TAM; if you happen to be interested I ca…
S'all good. I assumed you had answers, because your product was clearly thought out, functional, and polished. It was just rough to watch the video -- I actually cringed.
Heh, I still cringe too.