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3 episodes with Julia Hartz
4 episodes with Julia Hartz
2 episodes with Julia Hartz
2 episodes with Julia Hartz
2 episodes with Julia Hartz
2 episodes with Julia Hartz
2 episodes with Julia Hartz
From noticing a gap in the market, to launching a start-up with her husband, CEO Julia Hartz tells us how she's built Eventbrite to become one of the biggest event ticketing platforms in the world, distributing 272 million tickets to more than 1.7 million global events in 2024. The online site enables users to buy tickets to all kinds of community gatherings; with almost one-million creators publishing get-togethers like, cooking classes, yoga sessions and cold-water plunging. Julia shares how the company has dealt with challenging economic climates, the scourge of surge pricing, and how it's adapting to new ways of bringing the world together offline. If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: businessdaily@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Ed Butler Producer: Amber Mehmood(Picture: Julia Hartz. Credit: Getty Images)
Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz said “I do” to Kevin Hartz twice: once when they got married, and again when she decided to become a co-founder with him. Julia says she doesn't even remember the latter moment. All she knows is she trusted Kevin's entrepreneurial instincts and it paid off. But when Kevin needed to step down as CEO and have Julia step in, she describes the transition as going from “Candyland” to “Tron”. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Julia shares: What her internships on “Friends” and “Jackass” taught her The unofficial exit strategy she and Kevin agreed on in case they didn't work out romantically Why it was bittersweet stepping up as CEO while Kevin navigated health struggles health struggled How Eventbrite's IPO was the most diverse in NYSE history Why she takes it personally when female executive leadership exit the business after going public
In this episode of Hustle Inspires Hustle, host Alex Quin shines a spotlight on Julia Hartz, the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. We explore how Julia helped transform the event management and ticketing industry with a focus on simplicity and inclusivity. This episode covers Eventbrite's growth from startup to publicly traded company, the strategic partnerships that fueled its success, and the innovative marketing techniques that built its brand. Julia's leadership through challenges like the pandemic and her company's international expansion provide invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs.Episode Outline[00:01:20] Introduction of Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite.[00:03:45] Eventbrite's early vision: Creating an inclusive, easy-to-use event platform for all.[00:06:12] Branding strategies: How simplicity and broad appeal became key to Eventbrite's success.[00:09:30] Marketing on a budget: Using content marketing and partnerships to drive growth.[00:12:50] Leveraging social media: Eventbrite's game-changing partnership with Facebook.[00:16:15] Strategic acquisitions: Expanding into the live music space through Ticketfly.[00:19:42] Eventbrite's IPO: Julia's leadership in taking the company public in 2018.[00:23:05] Navigating challenges: Pivoting to support virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic.[00:26:30] 2024 updates: Financial growth and Eventbrite's global expansion.[00:29:50] Key lessons from Julia Hartz: Building a brand, fostering partnerships, and adapting to challenges.Wisdom NuggetsInclusivity Drives Growth: Julia and her team designed Eventbrite to serve both large and small event organizers, ensuring that the platform was accessible to all, which broadened its appeal and market reach.Strategic Partnerships Are Game Changers: Partnering with social media platforms like Facebook allowed Eventbrite to leverage existing networks for organic promotion, which greatly expanded its visibility.Acquisitions Can Strengthen Market Position: By acquiring Ticketfly, Eventbrite gained a foothold in the live music industry, demonstrating the power of acquisitions in expanding market reach.Adaptability in Crisis: During the pandemic, Julia led Eventbrite's pivot to virtual events, showing that flexibility in the face of disruption is crucial to business survival.Build Advocacy Through Value: By creating a platform that users love, Eventbrite turned customers into advocates, who spread the word and helped the company grow organically.Power Quotes:“Users became advocates because they genuinely found value in the product.” - Alex Quin“Partnerships can extend your reach far beyond what you could achieve alone.” - Alex Quin Meet Julia:Instagram: [https://instagram.com/juliahartz/]X: [https://x.com/juliahartz]Linkedin: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliahartz]Connect With the Podcast Host Alex Quin:Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/alexquin]Twitter: [https://twitter.com/mralexquin]LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mralexquin]Website: [https://alexquin.com]TikTok: [https://www.tiktok.com/@mralexquin]Our CommunityInstagram: [https://www.instagram.com/hustleinspireshustle]Twitter: [https://twitter.com/HustleInspires]LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/company/hustle-inspires-hustle]Website: [https://hustleinspireshustle.com]*This page may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. When you click on these links or engage with the sponsored content and make a purchase or take some other action, we may receive a commission or compensation at no additional cost to you. We only promote products or services that we genuinely believe will add value to our readers & listeners.*See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In 2006 Julia Hartz started a company with two co-founders in Silicon Valley. They wanted to shake-up how people bought tickets for events through using mobile phones and QR codes. Eventbrite started by facilitating meet-ups in the tech community. But last year it issued more than 300 million tickets for 5 million events around the world and the company was valued at more than $1.8bn when it floated on the stock market in 2018. In this episode of Business Leader, Julia Hartz, the chief executive of Eventbrite, explains how her background in television gave her a vital skill for scaling-up a business - how to tell a story - and the story behind this business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
En 2006, Renaud Visage crée Eventbrite, la première plateforme mondiale d'événementiel en ligne. 1990, San Francisco. La vague du digital déferle sur la côte Ouest et Renaud Visage est alors jeune diplômé d'ingénierie environnementale. Il se prend de passion pour le développement web : API, architecture des données, les premiers langages de programmation… Très vite, il rédige ses premières lignes de code, seul, pour lancer Eventbrite. En 3 ans, la plateforme est présente dans 155 pays. Pour son entrée en bourse en 2018, elle atteint une valorisation de 2 milliards avant de redescendre à 500 millions après le Covid. Aujourd'hui, Eventbrite excède les 300 millions de CA pour 5 millions d'événements par an. Au fil de cette aventure, Renaud raconte la créativité des ingénieurs, le phénomène des “10x developers”, comment en devenir un, le management d'équipes tech… En 2023, il fonde Slate Venture Capital, un fonds d'investissement dans la Climate Tech après avoir investi en tant que Business Angel auprès de plus de 60 startups. TIMELINE: 00:00:00 : Pourquoi Soundcloud est has been 00:13:31 : Comprendre le fonctionnement d'une entreprise tech 00:22:34 : Les débuts d'Eventbrite 00:30:15 : La créativité dans l'ingénierie, comprendre les serveurs et l'IA 00:41:19 : Comment choisir les bons outils au lancement d'un projet 00:46:40 : Mettre fin à l'enfer des tableau Excel 01:10:41 : Les ingénieurs 10x 01:23:45 : Dinosaures, loi de Moore et IA 01:32:17 : La tech au service du climat 01:45:27 : L'investissement dans la climate tech : l'exemple Slate 01:59:37 : Découverte de Manille et les actus de Slate.vc Quelques anciens épisodes de GDIY qui vous plairont : #388 - Benoit Lemaignan #369 - Nicolas Schweitzer #148 - Jean-David Chamboredon #378 - Nicolas Bouzou #57 - Marc Fiorentino Avec Renaud , nous avons parlé de : Eventbrite AWS summit Paris, événement dédié au Cloud, à la Data et à l'IA Salesforce Alvo OVNI Pipedrive Kevin et Julia Hartz, cofondateurs de Evenbrite Sequoia Live Nation Google DeepMind Loi de Moore (sur l'évolution de la puissance de calcul des ordinateurs et de la complexité du matériel informatique) L'imagerie des dinosaures et de la préhistoire de Emilie Beaumont Point Nine State of European Tech 2023 Romain Trebuil de Circle Slate.vc Sena Magma Renaud vous recommande de lire : Here We Are de Oliver Jeffers Vous pouvez contacter Renaud Visage sur Linkedin et Instagram. La musique du générique vous plaît ? C'est à Morgan Prudhomme que je la dois ! Contactez-le sur : https://studio-module.com. Vous souhaitez sponsoriser Génération Do It Yourself ou nous proposer un partenariat ? Contactez mon label Orso Media via ce formulaire.
From the “PAFACAA” bill to the next front of the youth loneliness epidemic, the gang and a special guest digest the tech news of the moment. Takeaways Eventbrite has the potential to offer features that help users find events to meet like-minded people. Innovative event ideas, such as marking attendees' availability, can enhance the event experience. Digital communities have faced challenges in the events space, with limited success on platforms like Facebook and Reddit. The quality and curation of events play a crucial role in attracting attendees. The impact of VR and AR on events is an area of interest and exploration. Virtual events saw a significant rise during the pandemic but have declined since then. The creator economy is a growing field with exciting opportunities for events and experiences. Chapters 00:00:00 Doing It Live vs. Prep00:00:30 Introducing Julia Hartz of Eventbrite00:00:53 The Quirks of Zoom Interactions00:01:12 The Heart Emoji Conundrum00:01:27 Filling in for Brit00:02:09 Discussing Brit's Iconic Glasses00:02:42 Tech Headlines Preview00:03:04 Julia Hartz in the Hot Seat00:03:28 TikTok Ban Discussion Begins00:04:31 Potential Global Impact of TikTok Ban00:05:43 Process of Banning TikTok in the U.S.00:06:39 The PUFACA Bill and TikTok00:07:30 Jokes About the TikTok Bill Acronym00:08:04 Custom Merchandise Ideas for PUFACA00:08:34 Political Branding and TikTok00:09:09 AOC's Vote Against TikTok Ban00:09:33 Challenge of Explaining TikTok Ban to Public00:10:13 Mental Health Impact of Smartphones on Youth00:10:56 Shift in Chinese Government's Tech Strategy00:11:19 Political Risks of TikTok Ban Before Elections00:12:48 Possibility of TikTok Divestiture00:13:04 Dating Scene and Event Trends00:13:25 Resurgence of Live Experiences00:14:21 Role of Eventbrite in the Event Ecosystem00:15:40 Impact of COVID on Event Trends00:16:24 Rise of Niche Events00:17:56 Loneliness Epidemic and Finding Meaning00:19:21 Future of Event Discovery and Participation00:20:02 Role of Smartphones in Social Regression00:21:13 Importance of Reparenting Ourselves on Smartphone Use00:22:40 Resurgence of Live Events Post-COVID00:23:44 Trend of Silent Book Clubs00:24:39 Shift from Dating Apps to Real-Life Connections00:25:22 Business of Event Ticketing and Discovery00:26:18 Role of Facebook in Event Distribution00:27:21 Challenge of Event Discovery Online00:28:04 Importance of Highly Curated Events00:29:10 Niche as the New Mass in Event Trends00:30:21 Future of Eventbrite and Event Curation --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moreorlesspod/message
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This encore episode is a recording of a special event where Bill Gates was interviewed in San Francisco by Julia Hartz, co-founder of Eventbrite. It originally took place in 2018 in front of a live audience of Village Global founders and friends of the firm. We are honored to count Bill Gates among our luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders. They covered: - Gates's entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company. - His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again. - What he's learned from the next generation of founders. - His perspective on the current tech landscape. - His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Back as the show's first-ever ‘three-peat' guest is Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. The events industry has been transformed by the past three years, giving Julia the opportunity to evolve Eventbrite to better serve its key customers — event creators. This week on How I Built This Lab, Julia goes back in time to review how she kept a ticketing service afloat when no one was buying tickets. Plus, thoughts on effective leadership from a public company CEO, and Julia's tips for designing meetings that your colleagues actually want to go to. Be sure to listen to Eventbrite's origin story told in February 2020, and Julia's Resilience series dispatch from July 2020.This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music by Sam Paulson and Ramtin Arablouei.It was edited by John Isabella with research by Kerry Thompson. Our audio engineer was Patrick Murray.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com.This episode is brought to you in part by Canva, the easy-to-use online design platform for presentations, social posts, videos, websites, and more. Start designing today at Canva – the home for every brand.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What happens to an events company when every event is canceled? “Even if you have spent 14 years building something, it could truly be gone in 14 days.” After working tirelessly to revolutionize how live events are organized, this was the reality Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz faced in March of 2020 as pandemic lockdowns went into effect, extinguishing the lifeblood of her business. She brought the same strategic thinking and grit that had led the company through its previous inflection points to rally her team and reinvent Eventbrite in the middle of a global shutdown. Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz Transcript: https://www.sequoiacap.com/podcast/crucible-moments-eventbrite/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Julia Hartz started the event management and ticketing platform Eventbrite in 2006 alongside her then fiancée. The goal: bring the world together through live events. Hartz took over as CEO in 2016 and led Eventbrite through its $230 million IPO in 2018. The years following this promising IPO were rocky for Eventbrite. When the Covid-19 pandemic decimated the live events industry, Eventbrite lost 90% of its revenue and laid off 45% of its workforce. Yet as the world reopened and the live events industry bounced back, so did Eventbrite. In 2022, it pulled in $3.3 billion in gross ticket sales and made $261 million in revenue, an almost 40% year-over-year increase - all while maintaining an average ticket price of $40. In this episode of Leadership Next, Hartz joins hosts Alan Murray and Michal Lev-Ram to discuss how the company navigated the challenging early days of the pandemic and how it bounced back alongside the return of live events. Hartz also talks about why Eventbrite is different than other ticketing platforms and how Eventbrite is democratizing live events for both organizers and attendees. Additionally, Hartz shares her perspective on the the post-pandemic state of live events, including why events are currently so expensive (even if you're not going to see Taylor Swift of Beyoncé). Finally, Hartz talks about the challenges and advantages of starting a company with her now husband, the reality of being one of the few women who have taken a tech company public and why women are uniquely suited to lead a company through a crisis. Leadership Next is Powered by Deloitte.
In 2006, Julia Hartz and her cofounders launched Eventbrite, the global self-service ticketing platform for live experiences. Since its start, the company has empowered event creators with seamless technology to bring more events to life. Last year alone, Eventbrite was home to 1.7 million paid events generating $3.3 billion in gross ticket sales. Julia shares how an early focus on self-service helped the company succeed, why she drew on her maternal instinct to guide Eventbrite though the pandemic, and how an early job on the set of TV hit Friends gave her a fear of phone calls.
At the start of the pandemic, Julia Hartz realized she might lose everything she had spent 14 years building. So the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite activated her mamma bear. She got fierce. She moved fast. And she kept the live events platform alive. In this episode, Julia Hartz talks about how she got the publicly traded company back from the brink of shutting down, shares why working at a local cafe as a teenager was transformative, and explains why her North Star as a business leader is the often overlooked quality of consistency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Julia Hartz is the Co-Founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global online self-service ticketing platform. Founding the company in 2006, Julia currently leads the vision, strategy, and growth of Eventbrite. She drove Eventbrite to become the world's largest event technology company, known for its great workplace culture. Julia has been named one of Fortune's 40 Under 40 business leaders, Inc's 35 under 35, and Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.
Julia Hartz is the Co-Founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global online self-service ticketing platform. Founding the company in 2006, Julia currently leads the vision, strategy, and growth of Eventbrite. She drove Eventbrite to become the world's largest event technology company, known for its great workplace culture. Julia has been named one of Fortune's 40 Under 40 business leaders, Inc's 35 under 35, and Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.
Peu de start-ups aboutissent à une IPO. C'est pourtant l'expérience qui est arrivée à Renaud Visage, co-fondateur d'eventbrite avec le couple Kevin et Julia Hartz. Le projet démarre en 2006 à San Francisco, où Renaud se découvre une passion pour l'informatique. Un démarrage en douceur pour ce projet qui accélère très vite. L'IPO et le Covid s'ensuivent et compliquent l'activité de l'entreprise qui vend des billets et des événements... Après cette grosse crise, le besoin de restructurer la boite et les effectifs se fait sentir. Renaud a quitté le navire il y a quelque mois pour souffler et se concentrer sur ses passions : la photographie et l'investissement en start-up. Venture partner, Business Angel et au board d'un grand nombre de sociétés, il investit dans plus de 60 sociétés différentes et participe à la sélection des startups de Station F. Renaud est donc un homme aux multiples visages, et tous sont passionnants ! Les points que nous abordons lors de cet échange :
The co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, Julia Hartz built and leads a business that disrupted the world of events. Julia joins Adam to share her journey and best lessons learned along the way. Julia and Adam discuss a wide range of topics: entrepreneurship, leadership, growth and scale, hiring, self-care, gender equity in technology and male-dominated industries, the future of events, and much more.
Who Dares Wins: Life, Leadership, and Finance with Anthony Noto
Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, has embodied the approach of going “outside your element” since day one. She sits down with Anthony to discuss how – following her career debut at The Ugly Mug in high school – she worked her way to a high-powered job in the entertainment industry before co-founding a startup with her husband. She also shares a behind-the-scenes look at being in the Eventbrite "war room" when the pandemic first hit. Josh Fagen, a longtime trusted advisor, also talks with Anthony about how to prioritize connections and listen to customers' feedback effectively to build an organization.For more from Anthony, follow him on Twitter @AnthonyNoto.
Welcome to a very special episode of Redefining HR. I've wanted to record a podcast episode with a CEO and chief people officer for a few seasons now to talk about the dynamics of that working relationship, how they collaborate, partner, overcome disagreements and much more. And in this episode, I get to do exactly that! Join me as I sit down with Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz and Chief Human Resources Officer David Hanrahan to discuss their relationship at work and more.
The co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite is a visual thinker. She tells Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how she uses her abilities to visualize data points to solve problems or find places to innovate within her online event-ticketing company.
She co-founded the event-ticket site Eventbrite in 2006, took the role of CEO 10 years later, and then did what few women leaders have done: took her company public. Then, the pandemic hit–and with live events canceled globally, she stared into a terrifying future. Julia Hartz explains to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how she led her team through a harrowing crisis, as well as her unique view of company culture as “more of a living, breathing organism than a bug stuck in amber.” She explains that workplace culture can't be stuck in time–nor can it always be happy or pleasant. But it can be strong, and self-healing and help workplaces get through even the toughest times.
We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed in 2018 at San Francisco's Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders. They covered:- Gates's entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.- His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.- What he's learned from the next generation of founders.- His perspective on the current tech landscape.- His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz didn't start out life thinking she would be a tech founder, but she has achieved a feat that's very rare: Starting a great startup and going the distance, even past IPO. She also navigated one of the toughest setbacks in recent tech history when the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized Eventbrite's entire business. In this episode, Mike Maples Jr interviews Julia Hartz to discuss what founders seeking greatness can learn from her varied experiences and choices along the way.
This is not the story of someone who was mystically born to be a successful founder. Julia Hartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Eventbrite, has never been a work-backwards kind of woman. We discuss how she has taken life head-on from her early days as a competitive dancer all the way through her current position as the CEO of Eventbrite, one of the world's largest event platforms with 230 million total tickets in 2020. Julia's journey truly embodies the “Mom, I Got This!” ethos as she takes successively larger and more jaw-drawing risks and pursues a constant curiosity throughout her career. Despite being the CEO of a multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley company, every anecdote and piece of wisdom that Julia shares feels relatable and attainable… especially when she talks about her childhood Barbies. This is a season finale for a reason, and you don't want to miss it!
Julia and Kevin Hartz co-founded Eventbrite, a website that allows users to create, share, and join events worldwide. In this episode of the NFX Podcast, the two join NFX Partner Pete Flint to discuss their founder journey, financing, fundraising, scaling, unicorn status, and a deep dive on the little-known details of taking a tech company public via SPAC. Launched in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, Eventbrite has navigated through the pandemic with a refocused strategy and a leaner cost base. In September of 2018, Julia took Eventbrite public, making her among the few women to lead the successful initial public offering of a technology start-up.
Frustration is an important signal: it indicates an opportunity, a problem to be solved. And if your solution also builds a community, you've unlocked a path to scale. Adi Tatarko founded the online home-design site Houzz with her husband as a hacked-together tool to find and share home design ideas, after their own home renovation turned into a frustrating time-waster. But by flipping frustration on its head, Houzz has grown into a bustling platform and marketplace with more than 40 million users, an essential (and delightful!) resource for homeowners, designers, architects, craftspeople. Learn how to identify frustration – and flip it. Special guests: Puzzle master Karen Kavett, Eventbrite cofounder Julia Hartz.
Like many counties, Florida's Brevard County originally planned to use one system for COVID-19 vaccine appointments, but it didn't work. Eventbrite is now being used to help schedule vaccinations in 40 states and numerous counties, including Brevard. Dan goes deeper with Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz to learn how her company has responded to this unexpected use of Eventbrite's platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Julia Hartz never had an intention to start a business nor had any knowledge of the tech world. But she was pulled into it by accident, and she and her husband Kevin started EventBrite and took it to a billion-dollar company.
This episode is sponsored by Cronofy, the scheduling platform for business and HR professionals. Don’t let impersonal and lengthy interview scheduling stop you from acquiring top talent! Transform your interview scheduling by offering slots based on real-time availability while staying in control of who can book times in your calendar. https://www.cronofy.com/rectech Recruiting Technology headlines Reminder the Virtual Job fair technology expo happens on Wednesday nov 18th at 2pm ---compare and contract 6 different job fair platforms including Brazen, ecareerfairs, Xor, Recruitology, Premier Virtual and RecruitVirtual. Register for free at rectechlive.com https://www.crowdcast.io/e/virtual-job-fair SmartRecruiters announced the acquisition of Berlin based jobpal, an enterprise-grade chatbot technology, to take recruitment efficiency to the next level. The move enters SmartRecruiters into the rapidly growing recruitment process automation (RPA) market, where the future of recruiting prioritizes human interactions and automates repetitive, time consuming tasks. In a world where TA leaders receive 4X the candidate volume but have half the resources on their team, automation is the only way to keep up and continue to offer great experiences to everyone. As the leading talent acquisition suite, automation will be deeply embedded into every step of SmartRecruiters’ recruiting workflow engine to unlock massive efficiencies for hiring teams. The feature will be rebranded as “SmartPal” “jobpal is where automation meets individualization,” shares Florian Schrodt, Head of Employer Branding at Zurich Public Transport. “The technology helps us improve thousands of candidate communications every month. With nearly 80% automated answers, our hiring teams are saving hundreds of hours that we can now dedicate to the most important task: relationship building and adding value to our candidates.” The companies’ existing partnership and integrated technologies means new products are available now. SmartRecruiters is excited to introduce SmartPal, a family of recruiting chatbots that put repetitive interactions on autopilot and drive meaningful candidate conversations throughout the entire recruitment lifecycle to accelerate Hiring Success. By embedding a conversational layer on top of SmartRecruiters’ core workflow engine, SmartPal converts candidates 3x better, saves time, and enables recruiters to focus on more strategic tasks. https://hrtechfeed.com/smartrecruiters-acquires-jobpal-chatbot/ Metaview, the Interview Intelligence Platform, today announced the launch of Interview Metrics, a new product that focuses on accessing data on job interviews to make them fairer and more effective. By recording and automatically analysing interviews, Metaview’s Interview Metrics enables organizations to access empirical data on how consistent and rigorous their hiring processes are for the first time. This launch is a major step for Metaview on their mission to reimagine how exceptional organizations build teams. Metaview was founded by team-builders from Palantir and Uber after they observed first-hand that interviews are the most outcome-defining step in any recruitment process. Despite commonly being cited as subjective and bias-prone, they determine who joins a team, and who doesn’t. Additionally, growing organizations spend thousands of people hours per year on conducting interviews. Metaview has recorded, transcribed, and analyzed over ten thousand hours of interviews in the last 18 months since raising a round of funding from Fly Ventures in Berlin, Seedcamp in London, and Village Global and Garuda Ventures in San Francisco. They count high-growth companies such as Bulb, AngelList, Careem, Wave, and Stedi among their customers. “Metaview was already the most effective tool for improving individual interviewers at Bulb. Now, Interview Metrics tells me more about the health of the interview process at large than it was ever possible to know previously. With this, I can ensure hiring managers and interviewers are getting the support they need to conduct great interviews, and candidates get the high-quality, fair interview process they deserve,” says Michael Laws, Head of Recruitment at Bulb. https://hrtechfeed.com/introducing-interview-metrics-measuring-what-matters-for-growing-organizations/ Remote, an HR technology platform for international payroll, benefits and compliance, today announced that it has secured $35 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures and joined by Sequoia Capital, with additional participation from angel investors including Aaron Levie, Zach Weinberg, and Kevin and Julia Hartz. Previous investors General Catalyst and Two Sigma Ventures are also participating.This funding empowers Remote to further its position as the industry’s most compliant and competitive solution helping companies of all sizes employ global teams. Remote has raised $46 million to date. Since its public launch earlier this year and its $11 million seed funding round in April, Remote has been approached by thousands of companies seeking to take advantage of its unique employment model and global network of legal entities, including customers GitLab, Loom, Cargo One, Whereby and Phaidra. Remote has doubled its customer base every month since the start of the year. Remote is the only global employment provider with its own legal infrastructure in every country where it operates. This provides customers with absolute security for IP and invention rights, guarantees international compliance, and enables Remote to offer the industry’s most competitive and flexible pricing. With millions of companies worldwide shifting to remote work and adapting to evolving visa requirements, Remote has become the new standard solution for organizations looking to hire and retain the best global talent. Remote’s platform includes its global employer of record services, covering international payroll, benefits, taxes, and visa and immigration services, as well as a free platform for global contractor management and payments. https://hrtechfeed.com/remote-com-secures-35-million-in-series-a-funding/ Top Echelon Software, the leading provider of recruiting software for people who build teams, is pleased to announce its acquisition of CATS Software, a leading applicant tracking system (ATS) designed specifically for professional recruiters who help companies from all over the world fill their hiring needs. This acquisition combines two best-of-breed ATS companies to address the complex and evolving challenges in the war for talent. CATS serves more than 1,800, predominantly mid-sized professional recruiting and operating companies, including tools for resume import and parse, job application collection, resume search, comprehensive reports, job board publication, and analytics. The acquisition expands Top Echelon’s customer and revenue base and strengthens its software offering. Top Echelon will continue to support new and existing CATS customers, as well as expand its market reach to mid-sized businesses both domestically and globally. According to Top Echelon Software CEO Mark Demaree, this merger represents the opportunity to combine the resources and experience of both companies to become the leading provider of applicant tracking and CRM software to serve and support their customers at an unparalleled level. “We are constantly seeking ways to improve,” said Demaree. “We look forward to the opportunity that this merger offers to provide even more value to our customers in the form of additional features and enhanced functionality.” https://hrtechfeed.com/top-echelon-acquires-cats-software/ Drafted, the network recruiting startup out of Boston, announced a new app called Scouted to add a layer of network intelligence to applicant screening. Scouted automatically parses applicant resumes and uses artificial intelligence to find current employees who can add context about the applicant’s work experience. Here’s how it works..., if an applicant worked in marketing at Pinterest and applied to work at Etsy, Scouted finds current relevant employees at Etsy who previously worked in marketing at Pinterest and collects their input. Engaging employees early in the hiring process is known to be beneficial for hiring quality, speed, and diversity. More data leads to better outcomes and faster hires. “Scouted can help you speed up your candidate screening process while improving the quality of your applicants,” says Vinayak Ranade, CEO at Drafted. “There’s a current employee somewhere in your org, who has overlapping experience with the applicant, who can give you incredibly valuable data to inform screening decisions. It’s almost like a post-application referral.” Scouted integrates with Greenhouse ATS and Slack. The company is offering free access to any Greenhouse ATS customers until Dec 31, 2020. Those interested can sign up at scouted.to. https://hrtechfeed.com/scouted-launches-to-find-missed-connections-between-employees-and-applicants/ ##########
Founder Julia Hartz is reckoning with COVID-19's impact on the live events industry, which uses her company, Eventbrite, to sell tickets and market events. While her users are quickly pivoting to virtual events, Julia has been making tough decisions, which include laying off 45 percent of her staff. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.
Julia Hartz, the co-founder of Eventbrite, tells Jefferson Graham about the surge in events since Covid, on Talking Tech.
In the early 2000s, Julia Hartz was helping develop TV shows for MTV and FX Networks, and seemed headed for a promising career in television. All of that changed in 2003 when she went to a wedding and found herself sitting next to a serial entrepreneur named Kevin. They started dating, and Julia eventually quit her job and joined Kevin in the Bay Area. In 2006 they married, and co-founded the online ticketing service Eventbrite out of a warehouse closet. 14 years after launch, Eventbrite is a publicly-traded company with 1,100 employees and offices around the world. PLUS in our post-script "How You Built That," Tomo Delaney describes how raising two picky eaters led him to create Noshi For Kids; brightly colored fruit puree that kids can paint with.
On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our small group of luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders. They covered:* Gates’s entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.* His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.* His “greatest mistake of all time.”* What he’s learned from the next generation of founders.* His perspective on the current tech landscape.* His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our small group of luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders. They covered:* Gates’s entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.* His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.* His “greatest mistake of all time.”* What he’s learned from the next generation of founders.* His perspective on the current tech landscape.* His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) is a cofounder of LinkedIn, investor at Greylock Partners, host of the podcast Masters of Scale, and coauthor of Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies and The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. This is part two of a two-part episode. Check out part one here! What We Discuss with Reid Hoffman: Why surviving a horrible childhood isn't a prerequisite for developing grit -- and what you can do to learn resilience. What it takes to gather the data points necessary for unpacking the secret subtext of indirect feedback. How we can steer into good crises to strengthen relationships and better our circumstances. What running Dungeons & Dragons and RuneQuest campaigns taught Reid about complex human motivations and the power of heroic collaboration. Aligning goals between employers and employees of any generation with Star Wars-inspired rotational, transformational, and foundational tours of duty. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/208 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Does your business have an Internet presence? Save up to a whopping 62% on new webhosting packages with HostGator at hostgator.com/jordan! Take breakfast back with Just Crack An Egg breakfast bowls. Simpy crack a fresh egg over tasty ingredients for a hot, fluffy scrambled egg breakfast. Find out more here! The Hartford Insurance Group knows there's nothing small in small business, and it's been protecting customers for over 200 years. Learn what it can do for you and your business at thehartford.com/smallbusiness! Have you ever thought about the fact that where you choose to live directly affects the "you" you become? Apartments.com has the most listings, which means you have the most apartments, townhomes, condos, and houses to choose from. Change your apartment, change the world at Apartments.com here! In the Big Questions podcast, Cal Fussman uncovers the heart, head, and soul of his...
This is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for. How nervous is everyone? Why IPO? Why now? In this episode, we talk with successful entrepreneurs about the highs and lows of taking their companies public—and everything it took to get there. You'll hear from Josh James, Fred Luddy, Julia Hartz, Ben Horowitz, Aneel Bhusri, and our very own Frederic Kerrest about the day itself and how it propels your company into an entirely new chapter.
Kevin Hartz is one of the few leaders in Silicon Valley who has had an incredible career as a repeat founder, business builder and investor. He co-founded Eventbrite, the born digital ticketing leader, in October 2005 with his wife Julia Hartz and Renaud Visage. Kevin served as Chairman and CEO through late 2016 before turning the CEO reins over to Julia while remaining Chairman. Eventbrite had a very successful IPO in September 2018 valuing the company at well north of $2 billion. Prior to building Eventbrite, Kevin co-founded Xoom, the money remittance business, in 2001, and he served as CEO until 2005. Zoom also had a successful IPO before being acquired in 2015 by PayPal for about a billion dollars. Kevin's been a very successful investor as well. Some of his most successful early stage investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Trulia, Skybox Imaging and NewFront Insurance which we talk a bit about in this episode. Kevin was also a partner at Founders Fund. In this episode, we mainly talk about Kevin’s journey in creating and building Eventbrite, including the spark behind Eventbrite in creating user experiences, the secret to making successful acquisitions and how to navigate being married to your co-founder. Episode Highlights: 2:36: What was the spark for Eventbrite? 5:11: How is Eventbrite used to create live experiences? 6:12: What are the benefits of a platform? 7:49: Are there things you did early on so that the platform could thrive? 8:34: Looking back, is there anything that you would have done differently or re-prioritized that would have allowed you to move quicker? 10:11 What do you look for in a great hire? Anything to avoid? 12:46. Eventbrite is well known for its organic user adoption. Is that something that you planned? How can other companies learn from your success? 14:35: How do you get the right fit? 16:19: How do you keep a leg up on the competition? 17:43: Has starting a company with your spouse given you added perspective about how to evaluate teams and how they interact with each other? 20:27 How much time do you spend on what competition is doing? Should founders get hyper focused on entrenched competition? 32:49 What are some of the rules of the road for making acquisitions? 24.52: What other benefits have you had as a business builder from being an investor? 26:13: Tell us about New Front Insurance, a new company that you’ve just invested in 28:03: What is your favorite book to recommend to entrepreneurs 29:13: What's something that you believe that isn't conventional at most others don't believe 30:15: What's one thing you wish you could go back and tell yourself when you were just getting started as a founder.
Kevin Hartz is one of the few leaders in Silicon Valley who has had an incredible career as a repeat founder, business builder and investor. He co-founded Eventbrite, the born digital ticketing leader, in October 2005 with his wife Julia Hartz and Renaud Visage. Kevin served as Chairman and CEO through late 2016 before turning the CEO reins over to Julia while remaining Chairman. Eventbrite had a very successful IPO in September 2018 valuing the company at well north of $2 billion. Prior to building Eventbrite, Kevin co-founded Xoom, the money remittance business, in 2001, and he served as CEO until 2005. Zoom also had a successful IPO before being acquired in 2015 by PayPal for about a billion dollars. Kevin's been a very successful investor as well. Some of his most successful early stage investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Trulia, Skybox Imaging and NewFront Insurance which we talk a bit about in this episode. Kevin was also a partner at Founders Fund. In this episode, we mainly talk about Kevin’s journey in creating and building Eventbrite, including the spark behind Eventbrite in creating user experiences, the secret to making successful acquisitions and how to navigate being married to your co-founder. Episode Highlights: 2:36: What was the spark for Eventbrite? 5:11: How is Eventbrite used to create live experiences? 6:12: What are the benefits of a platform? 7:49: Are there things you did early on so that the platform could thrive? 8:34: Looking back, is there anything that you would have done differently or re-prioritized that would have allowed you to move quicker? 10:11 What do you look for in a great hire? Anything to avoid? 12:46. Eventbrite is well known for its organic user adoption. Is that something that you planned? How can other companies learn from your success? 14:35: How do you get the right fit? 16:19: How do you keep a leg up on the competition? 17:43: Has starting a company with your spouse given you added perspective about how to evaluate teams and how they interact with each other? 20:27 How much time do you spend on what competition is doing? Should founders get hyper focused on entrenched competition? 32:49 What are some of the rules of the road for making acquisitions? 24.52: What other benefits have you had as a business builder from being an investor? 26:13: Tell us about New Front Insurance, a new company that you’ve just invested in 28:03: What is your favorite book to recommend to entrepreneurs 29:13: What's something that you believe that isn't conventional at most others don't believe 30:15: What's one thing you wish you could go back and tell yourself when you were just getting started as a founder.
You always need another (cash) hit. In this episode of Zero to IPO, we discuss the rush that comes from getting an infusion of $30 million in capital, and the despair that follows when you realize it isn’t enough. Fundraising is essential to every entrepreneur’s success, and it can be addictive — the further you get from the last round, the more you need the next one. Join us as Aneel Bhusri, Josh James, Julia Hartz, and Fred Luddy tell us how to navigate capital raises and what it’s like to be “hooked.”
That constant roar of customer feedback? Be thankful for it. It holds all the secrets to your success, if you learn how to read the signs. Listen to what users say, sure. But also watch what they do and interpret what they need. Eventbrite's Julia Hartz embodies this principle. She believes passionately in learning from her customers, and has made rapid response to user feedback the driving force behind Eventbrite’s strategy — as it grew from a simple ticketing app to a full-service platform for event creators, offering everything from ticket sales to custom-made RFID readers.
In the film Landline, two sisters navigate life in the 1990s. Back before we all carried a smartphone everywhere, we were bound to landline phones for communication. In the movie, Jenny Slate’s character gets into situations that’ll make you wish landlines still existed, if you’re hoping for a little avoidance from constant connection. But without continual internet access via a smartphone, there was plenty of stuff in the ’90s you may have missed out on, like invites to parties and gossip about who’s dating whom. Today, pull up your browser and search for a fun event you and your friends can check out this month. Put it on your digital calendar and give a thankful nod to our modern ability to stay connected without having to be tethered to a landline. The post Julia Hartz: A Focus on Company Culture Can Grow Your Biz appeared first on On The Dot Woman.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Julia Hartz is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Eventbrite, the unicorn startup that is the world's largest event technology platform, powering over 2 million events around the world each year. They have raised over $330m from some of the greats of industry including Roelof Botha @ Sequoia Capital, Jeff Clavier @ SoftTech, David Saks, Bebo's Michael Birch, Tiger Global and many more. Under Julia's leadership, she has taken Eventbrite to become the world's largest event technology platform and has received multiple accolades for workplace culture, being named the best place to work in SF for 7 years running. Personally, Julia has won numerous awards including Fortune's 40 Under 40, Inc's 35 Under 35 and Most Powerful Female Entrepreneurs. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Julia came to found Eventbrite with her husband Kevin from a small apartment in Potrero Hill and turned it into the unicorn it is today? 2.) How did Julia and Kevin meet? What was the meet-cute? How did that translate into the founding of Eventbrite? How did Julia think about partnering with her fiancee at the time, as a business partner? What made it also a great business partnership? 3.) Why does Julia believe that creating a company is like creating a family? How has Julia seen herself scale as CEO of the company, with the immense scaling and growth of the firm? What have been the challenges and how did she overcome them? 4.) What does Julia believe are the requirements for successful CEO transition? How can this be managed correctly both internally and externally? What other elements made last year a particularly momentus year for change at Eventbrite? 5.) How does Julia think about balancing the immediate elements of the present day with the long-term vision for the roadmap? What is the right mindset to adopt? How does one look to prevent "Innovators Dilemma"? How does Julia split her time? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Julia’s Fave Book: Overwhelmed Julia's Fave Blog: The Skimm As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Julia on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Lattice is the #1 performance management solution for growing companies. With Lattice, it’s easy to launch 360 performance review cycles as often as you want. And you also get a continuous feedback system with OKR goal tracking, real-time feedback, and 1-on-1 meetings to make sure employees get feedback between reviews. Find out why the likes of CoinBase, PlanGrid, Birchbox and WePay trust Lattice as their performance management solution by heading over to lattice.com to start investing in your people. That’s Lattice.com. Recurly, the company powering subscription success, with Recurly’s enterprise-class subscription management platform providing rapid time-to-value without requiring massive integration effort and expense and they have the ability to not only increase revenue by 7% but also reduce the all-important churn rate. That is why thousands of customers from Twitch to HubSpot to CBS Interactive trust Recurly as their subscription management platform. Check them out on recurly.com that really is a must.
In This Episode: Working together in your relationship is hard enough. Can your relationship withstand working together in your business? Are these Pros or Cons when working with your significant other? * Provides an opportunity to spend a lot of time together * Provides an easier commute * Ability to plan days off together * Share similar Interests * Creates greater dedication towards work * Mutual respect exists * Better understanding of the job and each other Trust that when one of you says you will do something, it will get done. Power Couples: Bill and Melinda Gates travel separately Eventbrite cofounders and entrepreneurs Kevin and Julia Hartz did quarterly reviews of their relationship when launching their business Relationship Contracts are a new trend. They are being used to define the relationship. This all started out of cohabitation agreements before same sex marriage was legal. Priscilla Chan famously detailed her requirements of Mark Zuckerberg in a relationship contract before moving to California to be with him. Notably, she requested 100 minutes of shared time (neither to be spent in his apartment or in the Facebook headquarters) per week. Additionally, she required one date night per week. Re-defining power couples. Dual careers with high stress. Marriage between two doctors, or lawyers or similarly stressful jobs. Traci DeForge Takeaways: Manage EXPECTATIONS. It is important to define roles up front and to clearly communicate each other’s expectations upfront so silent resentments do not build up. Make it a priority to keep your work time and family time separate.
There’s been a lot of debate and controversy around the lack of women and minorities being represented in tech companies from entry-level to the C-suite and board room. However, what isn’t showcased is how there is sisterhood within tech, where women are helping each other out, and enacting change at every level from schools to the board room. To talk about how women are investing and encouraging each other, I’ve invited Samantha Walravens who is the co-author of the new book Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech. If you’re a woman, minority, or male ally you’ll learn from Samantha how: Women like Maria Klawe at Harvey Mudd have tripled the number of women graduating with Computer Science degrees Women are connecting female founders to female angel investors and influencers to grow their startups Corporations are changing and disrupting the dynamics of the boardroom This is the last episode of FemgineerTV but don’t worry it’s not the end... After hosting FemgineerTV and listening to audience members like you for the past 2 ½ years, myself and my sponsor Pivotal Tracker decided it was time for a fun format! Starting next month, I’m going to be launching a new show called Build. I think you’ll enjoy the new format for Build. Each week you’ll receive a short video on a topic to help you build a product, company, and career in tech. So stay tuned for the launch of Build :) Want to help us get the word out about Build? Please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes here. If you’ve never left a review, here is a quick tutorial on how to do. -- Poornima: Welcome to another episode of *Femgineer TV*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker, I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker, the founder of Femgineer. In this show, I invite innovators in tech, and together we debunk myths and misconceptions related to building tech products and companies. One of the most heated topics today is the lack of women and minorities represented in tech; from entry level, to the C suite, to the board room. While we all know this is already a problem, in today's episode, we're going to be talking about some of the solutions, and showing how there are companies and organizations enacting these solutions. And to help us out, I've invited Samantha Walravens, who is the coauthor of the latest book, *Geek Girl Rising: Inside The Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech*. Thanks so much for joining us today, Samantha. Samantha: Thanks for having me! Poornima: Yeah, it's wonderful. Let's start by talking about why you and your coauthor, Heather Cabot, decided to write this book. Sharing The Unspoken Narrative of Women In Technology Samantha: The inspiration for this book was a conversation I had about three years ago with a friend of mine, who's been in Silicon Valley for 20 years. She's a woman, she's the VP of sales in business development, and she's worked in a number of tech startups, and we were having coffee, and she said, "Sam, I cannot tell you what just happened in my performance group review, it was last week, and my manager commented on what I was wearing, the color of my dresses, the jewelry I wore, and he told me that I was too aggressive, and too bossy, and I needed to tone it down a bit." Meanwhile, she is the head of sales, and she was rocking her number out of the park. So she said, "Sam, you've got to write something." She knew I was a journalist. She said, "You've got to write something and you have to talk about this kind of discrimination and this kind of sexism in Silicon Valley." Mind you this is before the *Newsweek* article came out, "What does Silicon Valley really think of women," people were discussing women in technology, but it really was not a top of mind—and so I started to do a little digging, and researching and interviewing women. And what I found was, yes, there's sexism, there is harassment, there's discrimination, there's unconscious bias, it's there, it's a problem we need to talk about it and deal with it. But there was another narrative, another discussion that wasn't being told, which was: these women want to talk about the companies they were building, the technologies they were creating, the women who are supporting them and helping them along the way in their careers. There was this whole other narrative that was missing from the conversation that was happening in the national news media about sexism in Silicon Valley. And I thought, "we have to discuss this." So, Heather Cabot, who's my coauthor, was in New York, I'm in San Francisco, we talked, and she said, "Sam, I've been researching this topic," it was kind of a coincidence, it was like one of those weird moments of weird fate. And she said, "I've been researching this topic, let's work together." So we put our heads together and we just started digging into the topic, and it's been three years now, and finally the book is coming out! The Sisterhood That Is Supporting Women In Tech in Silicon Valley And Beyond Poornima: So one thing I experienced early on in my career, and it keeps me motivated, is the women who inspired me. So, early on, when I was a college student in engineering school, I had a professor, and she had twins, and she was doing her research, and she was teaching, and she was leading the department, and I thought, "If she could do it, I could do it." And as I was reading the book, I noticed the theme of the sisterhood kind of coming up again and again. Tell us how you discovered this theme as you started writing or as you were doing your research. Samantha: Of course. Well, I too had a mentor back in my Silicon Valley days when I worked for a software startup during the dotcom boom in 1998 to about 2003, so I saw the dotcom boom and the bust happen, I was living through it, our company went public, stock went to 130, then went down to two, so I lived and breathed the dotcom boom and bust. My manager/boss at that point was Carol Carpenter, who has since gone on to become—she was the CEO, actually CMO of ClearSlide and then CEO of ElasticBox, so she's a prominent woman in Silicon Valley, and she really pulled me up. She really, when I was lacking confidence, and I thought, "I can't do this," I'd just had my baby, my first baby, we were going public, and I thought, "I can't do this, this is crazy." We're working 24/7 and I have a newborn at home. She was the one who said, "Sam, you can do it, you can do it." And having that kind of mentorship and that kind of woman who was going through it herself pulling me up, really encouraged me. So as we were researching the book, we started noticing these pockets around the startup universe, women who were supporting each other, investing in each other, encouraging each other in their careers and inspiring the next generation of girls and young women to pursue technology and continue their careers in technology. Encouraging The Next Generation of Women To Consider Careers In Tech Poornima: Yeah, that's great. I think you're absolutely right, that is a narrative that's missing from the media and more women need to know that that's out there as well, so that they don't feel like all there is is just what the media portrays. Now, the first place that you write about change happening is at the primary school up to the high school level, so walk us through what that looks like. Samantha: Well, fortunately, before Obama left office, he did create an initiative, a $4 billion initiative called "Computer Science for All" that is encouraging and putting funds towards creating computer science curriculum in schools throughout the country. I was so excited to read about Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, in the Chicago public schools now, computer science is a requirement for all high schools in Chicago. So I think we're going to see more of that. When you look at the numbers, though, we still have a long way to go, cause 25% of high schools in the U.S. offer computer science, I think it's like 22% of girls, of students taking the computer science AP exam are girls, so we still have a long way to go. What we noticed, though, it's sort of this grassroots movement of women who are encouraging the younger generations to start building, to start creating, to start coding. For example, we start our book talking about Debbie Sterling, who's the founder and the CEO of Goldie Blocks, and she's got this great—I have two little girls, we have it at home, it's a great toy that encourages girls to build, and there's a really fun, positive role model, Goldie, who builds a spinning machine and she has all these sorts of engineering—you wouldn't even know it's engineering, it's really just building Ferris wheels and building merry-go-rounds and all these fun things, along with the story, talking about Goldie and her friends, and how she's building these different fun games and amusement park rides. We have that in our household. These are the kinds of things that women are doing to try to inspire the next generation. There is a woman in our book who started a company called Bitcode, she's actually working with the public schools to get them to use video to teach girls how to code. So if you have kids you know that they're on video, they're on YouTube, and they're really tech savvy. I have four kids, they can get around YouTube, and iMovie, and they're all over it. So, this tool is used in the public schools, to teach coding, using videos, to make it fun. How Colleges Are Changing The Ratio Of Women Graduating With Computer Science Degrees Poornima: It's great, yeah, it's good to see these grassroots efforts, so that even if there is kind of a gap in terms of change for public schools or the school system in general, there's ways in which parents and teachers can supplement that. So, the next place in which a lot of women and minorities drop off is at the college level, tell us who's working on changing that. Samantha: Well, we had the most amazing experience at Grace Hopper in 2015. I believe you were there, and Heather and I, my coauthor and I went, and just to see, I think it was 12,000 women there in computing, and it is a true celebration. And to see the enthusiasm and the excitement and the bonding between these young women, it was so encouraging. When you look at specific colleges, there's a lot being done to encourage more women in to pursue technology and computer science. I met with Maria Klawe, who's the president of Harvey Mudd, and wow! What a firecracker she is, she skateboards around campus, she's just a really fun, wonderful woman, and she implemented a program along with her colleagues a few years ago, where there are two tracks for computer science, so as a freshman you can take the gold track or the black track. The gold track is for students who have not had any computer science experience in high school; the black track is for students who've had some experience. So, by doing this, the students who have not had experience don't feel so impostered, they don't have the confidence cause no one's had this experience, so they get through this year and I spoke to a couple of students who have taken these classes, and they say that by the end of the year, everyone's pretty much at the same level. So, she, Maria Klawe, and her team has tripled the number of women graduating with computer science degrees at Harvey Mudd in the past ten years, and the number is, I hate to throw in all these numbers, cause they get little mind boggling at times, but 55% of the computer science graduates at Harvey Mudd are now women. Poornima: That's great, it's a nice change to—the numbers go up. Samantha: There's also Stanford. Another example of what's going on to encourage women to pursue computer science is Stanford University, of course a top institution, but they have a Women in Tech group called She++, which was started by Ayna Agarwal, and who was not even a computer science major by the way, but she started this group to encourage women and they had a Gala, every year, which gathers all the women in technology, not just Stanford. What they do is they go out into the communities and they take on high school students in different communities around the country and they support these young high school girls to start programs in their communities. For example, I live out in Marin County, and there is a girl who started a robotics happy schooler box program in Marin City, which is an underserved community in Marin County, and she runs this afterschool program in Marin City. So all of these girls around the country who are starting these programs through She++ gather together for this gala, and I am telling you, if you could be there to see these college women, these high school girls who came, they were dressed to the nines, they were glamorous, I mean, talk about debunking the myths and breaking stereotypes about what a woman in tech looks like, I mean, we could have been in an LA nightclub, not to sound like—but they were so beautiful and wonderful and smart and excited to talk about their programs, and they were so excited to be in technology. And again, this is why Heather and I said, "This is a story that no one sees," you don't see this kind of enthusiasm around technology, you see, "Oh, it's so hard, numbers are dropping, it's all doom and gloom." And so we really wanted to tell that other story. The Angel Investors And Others Who Are Supporting Female Founders Poornima: OK. That brings us back to industry, and I know there's a lot going on at the corporate level, as well as startups. I'm of course partial to startups, so let's start there and talk about how the ecosystem is changing for women and minorities. Samantha: There's a lot of momentum behind supporting female founders. For example, there are accelerator programs like the Women Startup Lab, which is down here at Menlo Park; there's MergeLane, which is in Colorado; there's The Refinery in Connecticut. These programs focus on female founders, and really giving them the tools, the skills they need to grow their company into a venture, fundable company. And they give the tools to learn how to pitch venture capitalists, and we all know the venture capital world is very male dominated. Poornima: Yeah, it is a challenge. I know I've had my fair share of doing the fundraising. So, there's a very common problem around women and minorities getting up and pitching their business to VCs, either male VCs not getting their idea, or they don't think it's a big enough market, or there's a lot of unconscious bias around it, so how are women getting their training to get over all of that? Samantha: Well, you've started a company, so you know what it's like. The founders that we've met, that I've met in my journey with this book, are so passionate about their idea. But you can have an idea, and it's not going to go anywhere—you have to have the product market fit, you have to test the idea, you have to build your team out—and so these programs are really teaching women what they need to do to get to that level, to actually pitch to investors. But when you look at the numbers, I think it's 10% of the venture funding, globally, goes to female founders—it's still a really small percentage. We've also noticed that there's women who are angels. So angel investors who fund companies at the early stages—for example, Joanne Wilson, aka Gotham Gal, who has a tremendous momentum in New York City, who has invested in a number of really great companies; Caren Maio, Nestio, Shanna Tellerman, Modsy—she finds these women, who have ideas that are big, that are scalable, and she nurtures them, and she's like the fairy godmother to these women. And there are other women that we talk about, we'd had to read the book to learn about all of them, but there are women who really take these female founders under their wing and support them on their journey. Poornima: I think it's great that there are women like Joanne Wilson out there. Do you have a sense of how many companies she's invested in? Samantha: Joanne Wilson has invested in around a hundred companies, and they're doing fantastic. One of them, Shanna Tellerman, started the company Modsy, which is an immersive, 3D environment for home décor, home design, and she told us that she created this project called “The Pinnacle Project,” at Park City, Utah, and it was Wednesday through Sunday, I think. And she invited Joanne, and Susan Lyne, and a bunch of angel investors, as well as a number of female founders, to come gather, network, ski, and have fun, and she said it was funny, because all the women were thinking, "We should be home, we should be working, we should be with the kids, we have so much to do," and she said she had to tell and remind people that, "This is what the guys do. They have a boys call and they pick off and it's all about business, whereas women don't have that sense of, “Let's go out to ski, or golf,” and that kind of networking, so it was an example of this pinnacle project, which is going to happen recurring every year, of, "OK, women, we can get together, have fun together, network, introduce each other to investors and influencers, and have fun while we're doing it. It's OK." Poornima: Yeah. That's fantastic. And I think another thing you had mentioned pipeline ventures, or pipeline angels? Samantha: Pipeline angels, yes, yes. Natalia Oberti Noguera is a force of nature and she started this angel investing group for women and I went through it and Heather went through it. I did it in San Francisco, Heather did it in New York, and basically it's a training, it's a bootcamp or a training program for women who are credited investors, to learn how to invest in female and minority-led companies. So it walked us through the process of how do you set evaluation on a company, what do you look for in a startup that you're investing in, what kind of traits you want to look for in the team, what's going to make this a good investment. So it trains women to invest as angels, and then you actually make an investment at the end. We made an investment in a great startup—which I believe is still hush hush, underground at this point—but I believe we made a great investment and we're following the course of these early stage female founders, and it's really her goal to change the face of angel investing, to increase the amount of money going towards these early stage female founders. Poornima: As we were doing research for your book and when I was reading it, I noticed that there was some astonishing findings, like only 11 companies that were founded by African-American women have received funding over a million dollars. So walk us through who is working to change this. Samantha: Well, that number has actually increased, it's now 13 companies that have received more than a million dollars, but the numbers are still really low. One woman who is really on top of this problem is Kathryn Finney, who is the founder of DigitalUndivided, which is an organization whose main purpose is to increase the number of women, minorities in the tech world, latino women, and black women founders, and she just recently launched an accelerator, in Atlanta, Georgia, called the Big Innovation Center, and I think their first cohort is gathering this year to help skill up and prepare these minority founders to raise money. How Tech Companies Are Growing Up And Changing How The Nature of Work Poornima: So let's switch gears, and talk about corporations. We previously had Lisen Stromberg on the show, talking about the changes that were happening for parents—what have you seen? Samantha: Well, what we've noticed is that Silicon Valley is growing up. They are trading in their ping-pong tables and foosball tables for nursing rooms, which is inspiring to see. When I started out, I had my Medela Pump in Style in a cold bathroom out of the courtyard of our startup, so it wasn't pretty, but we spent a day at Eventbrite not too long ago, and Julia Hartz, who's now the CEO of Eventbrite, it's very focused on woman, developing women in leadership positions and allowing for work-life balance. And I say that word, “work-life balance,” a term that is loaded, what she's trying to do with that company is focus on the whole person, not just the employee self. For example, they have a program called “Take the time you need.” So if you need time to care for a child or to care for an adult, you can work from home, you can take time off, so she's really interested in her employees, and telling her employees, "You can do what you need to do, so you can live a life and you can be an employee." And she also tells the women who are having babies at her company, she says, "You know what? You can get through the first six to nine months," it gets a lot easier, because a lot of women when they have their babies early on, they think, “I can't leave this poor creature alone with a daycare with a babysitter,” and she says, “If you can just get through that”—she's got two little girls herself—”If you can just get through that time, stick with it, come back, and we will support you while you're doing it,” which is fantastic. Poornima: You also showcase companies like Power to Fly. Walk us through what Power to Fly is. Samantha: Yeah, Power to Fly was started by Milena Berry and Katharine Zaleski. Katharine actually wrote an article apologizing to all the mothers out there. Before she had children, she was a little bit judgemental of mothers taking time off and having to leave work early, and then she had her first baby and she thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is really hard," so she and Milena got together and started this company, Power to Fly, which connects women with remote and flexible job positions, so they can actually care for their family and pursue careers in technology. The great thing about technology is that it can be done remotely. Especially if you're in coding, you don't have to be in an office 24/7, so Power to Fly works on that. Another great program is Tina Lee started a program called MotherCoders, and she's based in San Francisco, a fabulous woman, her program retrains mothers in tech skills, so they can go off and they can—either they've taken time off or they have background in some other field, they can skill up in technology, and go out and get the tremendous amount of jobs that are available in technology as they get back to work. Disrupting The Boardroom Poornima: Well, that brings us to the boardroom, so walk us through what changes are happening there. Samantha: The number of women holding board seats in our country is still very, very low, I think the number is 18% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies are held by women. So we still have a long way to go. One real pioneer in this area is a woman, her name is Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, she's fabulous, she is the CEO and founder of a company called Joyus, a tech company, and she, a few years ago penned an article called "Tech Women Choose Possibility." And she really wanted to profile the women in Silicon Valley, in the startup world, who are doing great things, just founding great companies. There was a lot of positive response to that article, and so she created an organization called #choosepossibility. Part of that organization is a group called, or an initiative called "The Boardlist." And basically it's a matchmaking tool that matches qualified, board-ready women with startup, tech companies, looking to fill board seats with women, so she made that happen, and they placed three women on the board, which it seems like it's very low, but what they're doing is they're connecting the VCs and the startup companies with these women, and a lot more placements have been made not directly through the platform, but just through the connections that have been made on this platform. Poornima: OK, great, so it's good to know that there is some change happening at the board level as well. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Samantha, I know our viewers out there are going to enjoy reading your book, *Geek Girl Rising*. And for our viewers who are women, minority, and allies, is there anything else you would like to share with them in terms of resources? Samantha: Yeah. I would love to see everybody come to our website. We have a gazillion resources on how you can join the digital revolution, just take a peek. Poornima: Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker, for their help in producing this episode of *Femgineer TV*. If you've enjoyed this episode, then please be sure to share it with your friends, your teammates, your boss, and everyone so that they get to benefit from all the great resources, and subscribe to our channel to receive the next episode. Ciao for now! -- FemgineerTV is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
Date: Tuesday, September 25 Speaker: Julia Hartz Details: Join the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus and the Women’s High Tech Coalition for a fireside chat about re-imagining the workplace with Julia Hartz, Co-Founder & President of Eventbrite. As co-founder and President of Eventbrite, Julia Hartz has evolved the company from an innovative ticketing […]
Julia Hartz by Alun Hill--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/talking-about-business/message
Meet Kevin and Julia Hartz. In 2003, Kevin and Julia were sat next to each other at the Santa Barbara wedding of mutual friends. They hit it off, and the rest, as they say, is history. In 2006, they celebrated their own wedding, and in 2008, they welcomed the first children. You would be forgiven if you think this story sounds familiar, like the stuff Hollywood movies are made of. But rest assured: this story is anything but familiar. Along the way, the duo also founded Eventbrite, a self service ticketing platform for event organizers valued at $1 billion as reported by The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones VentureSource. But let's start at the beginning. When Kevin and Julia first met, Kevin was a serial entrepreneur working on his second startup, the Silicon Valley-based money transfer company XOOM, which he had cofounded in 2001. Julia, meanwhile, was working in television development for FX Networks in Los Angeles. Their chance encounter at the wedding of mutual friends brought them together, but for a few years at least, their respective careers kept them geographically apart, navigating the murky waters of a long-distance relationship. Eventually, that had to change, so Julia decided to "make the leap and move to the Bay Area." In this interview you will learn: -Growth secrets to eventbrites success -The birth of eventbrite -Sticking points and how they leveraged them -How to understand your DNA as a founder -How and why you need to seek great advisors -Building a great culture in your workplace I Need Your Help! If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below. It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people! Leave a review for the Foundr Podcast!
Kevin and Julia Hartz discuss what it really takes to be a thriving startup organism in challenging ecosystems. As well as sharing insights from the early founding days of Eventbrite, the husband and wife co-founders explain the importance of continual focus on cultivating talent, maintaining sustainable advantages, and driving relentless evolution inside a company.
Kevin and Julia Hartz discuss what it really takes to be a thriving startup organism in challenging ecosystems. As well as sharing insights from the early founding days of Eventbrite, the husband and wife co-founders explain the importance of continual focus on cultivating talent, maintaining sustainable advantages, and driving relentless evolution inside a company.
Kevin and Julia Hartz discuss what it really takes to be a thriving startup organism in challenging ecosystems. As well as sharing insights from the early founding days of Eventbrite, the husband and wife co-founders explain the importance of continual focus on cultivating talent, maintaining sustainable advantages, and driving relentless evolution inside a company.
Audio File: Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Julia Hartz Co-Founder & President, Eventbrite Date: July 12, 2010 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes [music] Lee Kennedy: Hi this is Lee Kennedy, board member for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. And we're here today as a part of a series of interviews that we're doing with extremely interesting entrepreneurs. These are women who have started IT companies in just a complete variety of sectors, and they all have just very cool stories to tell us. Today with me is Larry Nelson. And Larry is from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I really am happy to be on this show. And by the way there are so many parents and so many managers and leaders that listen to this show. So that's why we're tapping into all these great entrepreneurs and leaders. Lee: Great. And we also have Lucy Sanders who is the CEO for NCWIT. Thanks for joining us Lucy. Lucy Sanders: Hi Lee. Very happy to be here. And I wanted to mention that very often our entrepreneurs that we interview for this series are showing up more and more on the top 10. To watch the top 10 there, the most in this region, so the women we're interviewing are just top five entrepreneurs. Larry: You bet. Lee: Cool. Just to get right to it today we're interviewing Julia Hartz. And Julia is the co-founder and President of EventBrite. And EventBrite is the leading provider of online event management and ticketing services. Is just a really cool company, and Julia has brought the creative and energy of the entertainment business. She was at MTV formerly. Lucy: Oh wow. Lee: Welcome Julia. Thanks for coming here today. We're looking forward to talking with you about entrepreneurship. Julia Hartz: Thank you. I'm really honored to be here. Lee: Wonderful. So can you tell us a little bit about what's going on at EventBrite lately? Julia: Oh goodness, a whole lot. Well, we were originally founded in 2006 by my husband and I and our third co-founder Renaud Visage, our CTO. And since that we bootstrapped the company. We were just three people for two years, very product focused. But I'm happy to report that we are now nearing 60 employees. So it's quite a different company today than it was even back in 2008. On the topic side we're just really focused on making life simpler for the organizers, and delighting our customers through innovations of simple tools they can use to publish event pages, promote their events to a wider audience, and sell out their events. So sell more tickets to their events. And we're also now looking at our relationship with ticket buyers. Now that we've helped event holders host over 200, 000 events, obviously that there is a larger accumulation of attendees that are now coming back to EventBrite to find out about more events that they want to attend. So that's a current feature trend that we're seeing. Lee: Well you know NCWIT runs events, so we could well be one of your future customers. Julia: [laughs] I'll give you the sales pitch. Lee: All right. [laughs] Julia: On a different time maybe. [laughs] Lee: Yeah. I would love to hear more. We find that running events can be very time consuming. So it sounds like EventBrite is on to something. So Julia, the first question is about technology. And first of all, how you became interested in technology? And also really interesting technologies that might you see on the horizon that would interest our listeners. Julia: All right. So my career as you said it before began in television. I was a development executive at MTV, and I worked the first season and the first movie of a little project called Jackass. Sorry, I'm not sure if I can say that on radio. And then I went on to FX Networks, and I worked on shows like Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and Rescue Me. So my career there was really high in creativity, and it was definitely pushing me up a little as they were in cable television, and the projects they worked on. But it was very well in technological innovation. So we found it very hard to break the traditional distribution mold as well as the traditional advertising mold for that matter. So my last year at FX I spent a lot of time on product placement, which was sort of a thankless job, trying to make sure that the label of the beer can was pointed in the right direction at all times in a scene. I started to get the inkling that there was something out there that would make me feel fulfilled, and I was lucky enough to meet Kevin about two years before I left television. I was able to see him start a company from inception. I was sold. Two years later I was ready to leave my traditional career and take the leap. So that's how I first got into technology. I felt like it would be something I would feel, I wanted to be ahead of the curve instead of trying to chasing trends, which I felt like we were doing in television at the time that I was working at MTV and FX. Technologies that I think are cool? Kevin is an avid angel investor and adviser. By virtue of that we were really lucky to be involved in a lot of different companies and see a lot of great trends come out of those companies, and very bright people. I always say that what I feel like is cool right now for me personally is not exactly original. But it is in the way of communication and information dissemination and I'll give you an example of how that applies to me and why I think it's cool. We were recently on a trip and our trip itinerary was shared with our family and anybody else who needed no know where we were through TripIt. We were not in touch with our family during the trip so I posted mobile photos of our two-year-old on Facebook so that my mom would know how she was doing at all times. In our company we share information through Yammer and we also share expenses through Blippy. Then, on the social side oftentimes, I'm checking in through Yelp to let people know where I am in case they're in the same area. We live in the city so it's not so large. So that idea that I can instantly broadcast and disseminate information easily and with no friction is really huge for me today being an entrepreneur and a mom. Larry: Well, entrepreneur and a mom, and you got this "techie" background, why are you an entrepreneur? Also tying in with that, what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Julia: I'm an entrepreneur because I believe that I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want and that's extremely valuable. I feel day-to-day glee in making a difference, in working on projects that are both very large scale and very small scale. I also feel like being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement. So I think if I were to sum it up, being an entrepreneur and being a parent, I feel equally about both. [laughs] So EventBrite is very much our baby and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something that you feel such ownership and passion about. That's what entrepreneurship means to me. That's what excites me about it. Lucy: That's great. So Julia, who would you say influenced you or was a role model or mentor along the way to get into being an entrepreneur? Julia: The reason why I took the leap and didn't hesitate was because of Kevin. Entrepreneurship comes like second nature to Kevin, and he had founded two companies before that. So I really believed that everything would be OK [laughs] and that somehow, someway we would succeed. So for him there was just no question that he wanted to always be an entrepreneur and it was almost like, "Why not? Why not come work for free with me and see what we can do and how we can change the world?" So really he's the one that influenced me first and foremost. Our families really support us along the way. They're very unconditional about everything we do. As far as role models go, we have mentors in Michael and Xochi Birch who are a married couple who founded a few companies. But most notably and recently Bebo, they founded together. They gave us some great advice in the beginning, which was divide and conquer. As a married couple if you're working together never work on the same thing at the same time. Not only is that sort of a recipe for disaster if you're behind the same spreadsheet in trying to share them out, but also you get from point A to point B two times as faster, even maybe faster, because you have complementary skills. And that very much applies to Kevin and I. We divide and conquer in everything we do. At this point in the game we work on very different aspects of the business, and actually get to catch up at the end of the day. And ask each other how each others day went. And my parents are role models because just everything that they've done they've done with a lot of grace. And finally, two-year-old daughter Emma is a huge role model to both of us. Because I think, for me it's because she never backs down from wanting to know why. She doesn't settle for an answer that she can't completely believe. She can definitely be a role model for us in many different aspects. Lucy: Well, I certainly think parenting has taught me up. That's for sure. She probably got a double dose of entrepreneurship. We'll have to see what she ends up starting. Lee: Or determination. Lucy: Or determination for sure. So Julia along the way you've been encouraged, you started a company, you've worked in entertainment, you've had a great career so far. What's the toughest thing in your professional career you've ever had to do? Julia: The only thing that I dread and the toughest part of this gig is coming to the realization that a team member is not a right fit, and having to let them go. And for us it's been, we haven't had to let go many people, and that's great. But it's really hard when you're building a team, because you feel like this is your family. And for me, I feel like each person on our team is like an athlete. I have to keep them like well-feed and you know hydrated, and well, and out of the tabloids. [laughs] I want to take care of everyone who works at EventBrite. And to have to part ways with somebody is by far the toughest part of this gig. Secondly, I think making decisions that I feel like are going to maybe not sit well with our customers. And our interests have been extremely aligned with our customers since the inception of EventBrite. And we really built EventBrite through having a dialogue with our customers and understanding event organizers' pain-points, and how can we alleviate them through technology. But making decisions like pricing changes it's totally agonizing. And we have a story where we went from a freemium service to offering a free service and paid service, to just a completely paid service. And we fretted over it for months. And when we finally reached the decision and pulled that cord, not only did we not see the turn that we had expected, but we saw our conversion go up. Because people who were coming to the site going to have to make that decision over or whether not to sign for the free or paid service. So these kinds of decisions are really tough for us. And I feel like one thing we could have done better is not fret so much over it, and believe in our product, and our ability to delight our customers. Larry: That's great advice. So one of the things we wonder about and always ask and that is if you were sitting down right now with a person who's considering becoming an entrepreneur or just starting to be an entrepreneur what advice would you give them? Julia: I think that if you're going to do it you have to jump in. I mean I feel like when I visualized the leap that I took from a corporate secure job to running EventBrite and working on this project, I envisioned myself jumping in with my eyes closed, head first and all hands and feet in. I mean I don't think that it's possible to have success without completely committing yourself. So whether that is committing yourself completely mentally, or if it's mentally, logistically and financially you really have to put all your skin in the game to actually have a chance. Most start-ups don't' succeed and I think that it's for obviously a variety of reasons. But first and foremost, if you're going to choose entrepreneurship, you have to commit in every fiber of your body. Lee: The word devotion comes to mind. Lucy: Yeah. Julia: It takes a lot of devotion. You can't have one put in and one put out. It doesn't work very well. Lee: So, on the same note what it takes to be an entrepreneur, there's certain personal characteristic that everyone thinks of that makes us entrepreneur successful. What would you say are your personal characteristics that have given you the advantage as an entrepreneur? Julia: So, me personally, I feel like I have a very strong willingness to pitch in. Now, that we are 60 people and our roles as founder, I feel like at this point I do not get in the way of greatness. We hire very, very smart, capable, talented people and we need to let them have their freedom to really change this industry. But on the flip side, I am always willing to pitch in and help so whether that be any sort of mundane task. It is not mundane to me because it contributes towards the success of the EventBrite, of my baby. So, that willingness to pitch in is key. I also have an ability to be objective. So, because of my first start up, I'm not very dated and everything is very new. I try to just come about it and to have a fresh perspective and being very objective about everything that is happening and not ever feeling like we have to be status quo. We are actually trying to disrupt an industry, the ticketing industry, and so to look at it from a fresh perspective is an advantage in many different aspects of running a start up. And, finally I feel like I'm a 110 percent committed. I mean I feel extreme honors over EventBrite in a way of like I really care about it and I care about everybody who works on changing the world with us. And so, commitment and then accountability really being accountable for the bad things and the good things. I think that makes a big difference. Lucy: Julia, you've mentioned that you travel and you mentioned your family and you mentioned your devotion to EventBrite. So, we're curious. We always ask this question. How do successful entrepreneurs bring balance into both their personal and their professional lives? Julia: Right. So, first of all you have to prioritize and you have to perhaps write it down on a white board. What is most important to you and then write everything up. I mean we talk a lot about [inaudible 15:15] optimization here and I kind of feel the same way about balancing your life. For us, it is an interesting talent because EventBrite is very much our first baby and we have and I who is a part of this process. So, instead of dividing them into two things, we feel like we are in it together. Sort of cliché to say but it is very true. It takes a village and for me personally, I have to find my vortex of happiness so that for me is being a great mom and being a great entrepreneur. I have to be confident enough to ask for and receive help from our village of family and friends. And I have to prioritize. And so, I have to note that if push come to shove, what would I do in each scenario and how do that emergency sort of exit plan. That is also very applicable to working with your spouse. And so, I feel like for us, our family and our friends and our daughter, they are in it with us and so they feel invested and understand what's going on as well. Larry: Well, you have already achieved a great deal. You are doing a lot. You are young. You are building a family. What's next for you? Julia: My goal for EventBrite is to grow the service and to the only place you would ever go to buy a ticket for any event you would ever attend. And then secondly, I want to have more kids. Lucy: There you go. Julia: It gets a little bit harder to scale for some reason I don't know. I look at it and I'm like, I am pretty sure one plus one doesn't equal to so we'll see. [laughs] Larry: Well, I've got five kids and my wife and I are in business together so it works. Lucy: I have three. Julia: I need to sit down and pick your brain. Lee: Well, thank you so much Julia for talking to us. We really appreciate it. I want to remind our listeners where they can find this interview. w3w3.com and NCWIT.org and please do pass this along to other people who would be interested in listening to it. Thanks very much Julia. Julia: Thanks so much for having me. Larry: Thanks, Julia. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Julia HartzInterview Summary: Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of FX Networks and MTV. "I'm an entrepreneur because I think I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want. Being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something you feel such ownership and passion about." Release Date: July 12, 2010Interview Subject: Julia HartzInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:20
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