Venting about Ticketmaster’s stranglehold over concert tickets seems to be a global pastime. The founders of Vivenu are doing something besides griping. Cofounded by Simon Hennes in 2018 as a white-label ticket marketplace, German-based Vivenu lets customers like Stanford University and the Grammy’s Recording Academy sell tickets under their own name and branding, while the startup takes care of sending out the passes and managing the process behind the scenes. It also gathers and shares useful data—like what demographics are buying tickets—so brands can plan smarter marketing for future events. “This is one of the most passionate industries you can think of, it's about how people spend their leisure time,” said Hennes. “It was just odd to me, seeing outdated technology.” Initially bootstrapped out of a small village near Frankfurt, the startup has now raised over $65 million from investors including Balderton Capital and Activant Capital and serves over 700 ticket-selling clients across more than 40 countries.
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Our mission is to become the largest ticketing provider globally, right?
00:03It's not a short-term mission, it's not a mid-term mission, it's a long-term mission.
00:06And therefore, we also scale the company in a very capital-efficient and sustainable way.
00:13Hi everyone, we are here with Simon Hennes, the co-founder and CEO of Vivenue.
00:18Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:20Thank you so much for having me.
00:21So I'm super excited to talk about what you are building.
00:24You are in the ticketing space, in the tech space.
00:26Can you give me a 30-second rundown of who you are and what you are creating today?
00:31Sure, absolutely. I'm trying my best to keep it short.
00:34As you said, working in the event ticketing space,
00:36so essentially having a white-label product similar to Shopify in the e-commerce space,
00:42just in event ticketing, which means we ticket events across the globe
00:46from Stanford University over the Grammy Awards all the way to Schalke 04
00:50and 700 other customers globally.
00:52We believe that organizers should own data, control about the fan experience on a digital side,
00:58build the ecosystem themselves in the way they like.
01:02And yeah, that's our mission.
01:03I have been operating this company now for five years, roughly,
01:06raised venture capital beginning of 2020.
01:08And yeah, doing well.
01:10It's super exciting.
01:11How did you realize that this industry was something that was in need of disruption?
01:16I was traveling to Malaysia, actually.
01:18I met the CEO of a local company there.
01:19And they were doing ticketing for Formula One, MotoGP,
01:23and many, many other amazing institutions over there.
01:26And obviously, that's amazing to see those big brands.
01:29On the other hand, though, the technology was extremely old from the 80s, 90s,
01:34very rigid, no APIs, which means you cannot connect the tool essentially into your digital ecosystem.
01:39So long story short, they didn't have the flexibility that they deserve.
01:42And this is in one of the most passionate industries you can think about, right?
01:47It's about how people spend their leisure time, what they want to do, what club they're cheering for.
01:52And that was just odd to me seeing this outdated technology and those super passionate brands.
01:57So yeah, I grouped together with Simon and Jens, my two co-founders, CTO and head of sales.
02:02And yeah, built the company, bootstrapped at first, very naive in our approach,
02:07as every young founder probably is.
02:09But found our niche and yeah, just went for it.
02:13So over those last five years, what have the pivots looked like?
02:15And any company, I'm sure it's so much changes from year to year.
02:19So what were you guys offering in the first couple of months and year to what you're offering today?
02:25Great question.
02:25I think we never had this big pivotal moment where we changed our whole go-to-market motion or what we stand for.
02:30We always had this mission of independent ticketing, data ownership for event organizers, more flexibility.
02:36So that never changed.
02:37I think the market areas that we went into, that changed obviously at the beginning.
02:41Three co-founders, super small, bootstrapped, 2K on a bank account, very tiny office in a small village next to Frankfurt.
02:48Nobody knew us.
02:50We served very small customers.
02:51So third league basketball in Germany, selling a few hundreds of tickets a year.
02:57Our average customer back then was around 1,000, 2,000 revenues per year.
03:02So pretty, pretty small.
03:04That changed drastically.
03:05Now we offer an enterprise-grade product.
03:08It's API first.
03:09It offers lots of flexibility and customizable options.
03:14It provides full data access to the event organizers.
03:16But if you have full data access, obviously you want people that can do something with data marketers, digital people, data engineers, and so on and so forth.
03:24So our customers nowadays just tend to be way, way, way larger.
03:28Second of all, at the beginning, obviously, our, as you can tell by my accent, we're a German company.
03:34So our customer base was German-based.
03:36Now we're global.
03:38So we operate in more than 40 countries.
03:40We have offices in the States.
03:41We have offices in Europe.
03:43We have a small office in Australia as well.
03:47So I think everything became more global and more enterprise-grade as compared to local and more mid-market-focused.
03:54From a mission and from a product mission, I think there were no pivotal moments for us, at least.
03:59Yeah, that totally makes sense, though.
04:00What do you think, though, was the difference or, like, the jumping-off point that allowed you to go from these small venues, smaller companies, to these, like, grand events that you're now supporting?
04:10Yeah, so for sure, venture capital helped just to get the brand name out there, being able to assemble an amazing team that can execute rigorously on a daily basis in order to fulfill the mission and build up the trust required to pitch to those enterprise clients.
04:25I think, second of all, when we started the product, we had no clue what the industry exactly needs.
04:31I mean, we had a philosophy around how we want to build the product, but use cases we still had to learn.
04:36And as we went along and went so broad in the way that we tackled the market, vertical agnostics, so we do live entertainment, we do sports, we do theaters, we do animal parks, so everything you can imagine that sells tickets.
04:48We started wearing naive, which means we tackled different verticals simultaneously, live entertainment, sports, venues, so everything from a festival all the way to a theater.
04:58And due to that, we had to build the product as open, as flexible as possible, which means API first.
05:03And we didn't realize back then that organizers would actually use the API to build custom frontends or extract data, integrate into digital tools.
05:15We didn't know about that, but now this becomes our core strength, the openness and the flexibility and the API first approach.
05:21So organizers go ahead and build headless cases, so ticket buyer frontends themselves or integrate it into the CDP, CRM, ERP.
05:29So it wasn't a big change in product, but more so what we just thought is the best way to build it for flexibility, now becomes our greatest strength.
05:38Definitely.
05:40You guys have 65 million in funding, correct?
05:42What was that journey like?
05:43That's a pretty large number, especially like you said, it started with three of you guys in a small village to 65 million in backing.
05:51What was that like?
05:51Yeah, so we started back in 2018, as you said, it was the three of us, 2K on a bank account, but also it wasn't a full-time job for us back then.
05:59I was still my master's, my co-founder, did some freelance work as an engineer, and the third co-founder was actually working partly for an insurance company back then.
06:09So it wasn't a full-time project, but over 2018 and 2019, after busting our asses and working long hours, we figured that we have such a good product market fit that we do want to go full speed.
06:23And that was end of 2019.
06:24So going full speed as a tech company means raising venture capital.
06:30Now, back then, none of us had any clue about venture capital.
06:34None of us had any network into venture capitalists.
06:37So what we just did is using the contact forms on the websites of VCs and uploaded our pitch deck.
06:43Later on, we heard that this is not common practice.
06:45Usually, you know somebody or you have a kind of a warm intro or whatever.
06:50We didn't.
06:51So we just uploaded the pitch deck.
06:52I think we got three or four positive reply were allowed to pitch in front of the investment team.
06:59We got 30, 40, 50 no's, though, as well, and lots of them being quite generic.
07:05I still remember till today this one message that we received where VC told us that they don't believe in the pre-baked bread industry.
07:14I was like, yeah, I don't believe in that as well.
07:16How about event ticketing?
07:17They never came back, and I want to call their name out here, but they probably regret passing us back.
07:22Then two or three invited us to pitch in person, and then, yeah, it was a really speedy process.
07:29We had to sign a term sheet within 24 hours, and we got lucky.
07:32I mean, our seed investors, just an astonishing investor, super kind, humble people.
07:37They understand what it means to build a tech product, what it means to sell into enterprises, that this journey takes a while, and that there's lots of challenges ahead.
07:48Super, super supportive.
07:49And then series A and B, that was different.
07:51I mean, now we knew how to deal and speak to VCs.
07:55We knew what to look out for.
07:57We want investors that are a bit hands-off, that let us do our thing, that understand that building an enterprise product takes a while,
08:05and that we're fully committed on delivering best product experience today, but also in the future.
08:11And therefore, we were able to be quite selective in our series A and B, and all the investors that we have, the board dynamics, are just amazing.
08:18So in that first pitch deck that you sent out, I mean, even three or four responses from like a cold pitch in, you know, one of those little text box is a success, I would say.
08:29What did the pitch deck look like?
08:31What do you think allowed, you know, people to really take a second look at what you guys were just, you know, sending through that form?
08:37Yeah, to be honest, at this point of time on LinkedIn, the pitch deck of Airbnb went quite viral.
08:43The typical problem, solution, traction kind of pitch deck structure.
08:49So we just applied it to our case in our industry.
08:52Now, I think why we were able to get some positive replies and then also raised our series seed round quite quickly is we had traction already, right?
09:01So for two years working bootstrap, we were able to win some customers over already.
09:05So we had good, realized revenues, and I think that's why the whole fundraising process was a bit easier for us than typical seed companies.
09:17Yeah, I think it was down to the traction, which is why we got those positive.
09:21Definitely.
09:22In this industry, I really want to talk about like the incumbents that exist, Ticketmaster being one of them, which people do have like a lot of complaints about.
09:30But as a founder in this space, how do you come in and compete with those platforms that already exist?
09:36What makes you guys different?
09:37How do you kind of prove that you are what, you know, companies or organizations should use instead?
09:42Yeah, absolutely.
09:42I mean, there's Ticketmaster, but there's many, many more verticalized players just in the States alone in the college space.
09:48There's a big one doing 150 million net worth and you're just in college ticketing, right?
09:52And this exists in different verticals in the market as well.
09:56So it is a red ocean industry, it is highly competitive, and there are amazing companies with great service offerings out there already.
10:03I think none of those companies come from a pure tech angle, though.
10:07We are a tech company and we believe in modern products and we believe in modern architecture.
10:13We believe in API first approaches.
10:15We believe in data ownership for the event organizers.
10:18If you look at the big marketplaces out there, they are the ones that keep the data.
10:23They are the ones that keep the customer records.
10:25They are the ones that keep the customer communication.
10:28They don't hand over this control of power to the event organizers, whereas we come in with a fully white label, independent ticketing approach,
10:37which in such a passionate industry was just the right way for us to go.
10:41I mean, in the end, you're cheering for a sports club and not necessarily for a ticketing marketplace.
10:45So you know what you want and you just want to buy it directly at the sports club or the event brand, the festival, whatever.
10:53So fully white label and focused on technology, that was always our niche and then we just executed on it.
10:58And maybe a second component to that, yes, there's lots of goliaths out there, right?
11:05There's big, big companies with massive funding, with thousands of people in seed, with a big history of decades of providing those services.
11:14So it's not easy to compete with them, but at the same time, it doesn't change the fact that if your mission is important, it is important, right?
11:24And people buy into it.
11:27They buy into having data access.
11:28They buy into flexibility and serving the customers directly.
11:32And at the same time, the bigger a company is, the more arrogant it is, the slower it is.
11:39So if you're a small company, you can just move quicker.
11:42You can iterate quicker.
11:43You can co-ideate with your customers, be very close to them, work in an extremely customer-centric way, whereas the big ones cannot, right?
11:49So similar to the Bible story of David versus Goliath, there's a reason why the Davids are very often winning.
11:55And that's why we are growing so quickly as well.
11:57Yeah, that is awesome to hear. In terms of this data collection and the different industries that you are working with, what are some of those bits of data that they are really looking for?
12:06How does that then help them on their end as they're, you know, creating more events in the future?
12:10Yeah, I think it always depends what situation you're in as an organizer, right?
12:16Either you're sold out or you're not sold out.
12:19Either you have repeating events across the season or just one per year.
12:23That definitely changes your data strategy.
12:25Just in general, I mean, having data set of your audience is just easier to market into them and cheaper to market into them, right?
12:33Decreasing your cost of acquiring new customers through a better data access becomes easier.
12:39Upselling, retargeting.
12:41So if you have data and transaction history, if you can combine data from merchandise, ticket sales, on-premise sales, and all that good stuff into one data hub,
12:52obviously retargeting upselling becomes easier, selling in different niches of customers, right?
12:58Right now, ticketing is always this one ticket shop catering to the same audience, whereas your audience is fragmented and it's different, right?
13:07There's premium, there's hospitality, there's the kids section, there's a family section, there's singles going there, there's season ticket holders, right?
13:15And we believe they deserve a different experience, but therefore, obviously, you need to have the data in the first place.
13:21You need to be allowed to cater to them just by yourself and have no interference by another ticketing provider, essentially,
13:28that tries to compete around the same data set.
13:31So, yeah, it's the various reasons and different situations.
13:36Cheaper in marketing, easier to upsell, easier to retarget, and having a full 360-degree fan view, essentially, through connecting all the tools.
13:46What has been the biggest challenge so far, as especially you are pulling all these different, like you said, subsects of data in, subsects of industries,
13:54what are the challenges that you've come up against?
13:56Many.
13:58Like any business.
13:59Like any business, indeed, yeah.
14:04I think, first of all, we scaled globally relatively quickly as well, and there are reasons for that.
14:11Our ICP is not necessarily defined by the sport they're playing.
14:14It's defined by their data strategy, if they're fan-centric, how much they care about direct-to-consumer relationships,
14:23and therefore, we went globally quite quickly.
14:25Now, this means integrating into different tool stacks, right?
14:29For example, payment service providers.
14:31You just have different PSPs in Europe than in the States and in Australia and so on and so forth.
14:36Point-of-sales and box office systems, access control systems.
14:40Now, this was a big challenge for our industry 10, 20 years ago, but it was a modern, open, API-first tech stack.
14:47I think it isn't anymore.
14:48Second of all, cultural differences, right?
14:51Internally as well as externally.
14:52I believe I mentioned in the beginning that we have offices in the States as well as in Europe.
14:57There's cultural differences, right?
14:59And we're very close in terms of what entertainment content we consume, what Netflix shows we watch.
15:06But we're very different in the way that we work, the way that we want to be managed, the way that we want to be led, the way we want to make money.
15:14American dream over here and kind of a very risk-based attitude more in Europe, right?
15:19And you've got to factor all of this in, and that was definitely a tough challenge to overcome.
15:24So from a product standpoint, I think scaling internationally was relatively easy for us.
15:30From a cultural standpoint, there was so many challenges that we had to overcome and so many things that we had to learn.
15:35I want to touch on that a little bit more in terms of, like you said, expanding to the U.S., having offices there, having offices here.
15:41What have been some of the ways you've had to kind of change either how you sell the product or how you integrate it in those different markets?
15:48Absolutely.
15:51So there are sub-segments of the markets that are just more digital-savvy already.
15:55So they think in terms of digital ecosystem.
15:57If you look at the color space, for example, they've got their single sign-on provider, they've got a CIM, they've got access control, all the good stuff.
16:04Whereas if you look at a theater company, probably in Germany, that might be exactly the opposite, right?
16:10They don't have a digital ecosystem.
16:12So I think in the States, for example, the American dream still exists, right?
16:15People want to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.
16:17They want to grow in their career.
16:19They want to improve the importance of their respective division.
16:23So ticketing versus marketing versus the digital function.
16:27And they see purchasing products as a way or a mean to do so, right?
16:32If you purchase a new ticketing technology, for example, there's opportunity for you to grow within your company.
16:38So we see a very benefit-oriented go-to-market motion in the States.
16:44They care about revenue increases.
16:45They care about data ownership.
16:47They care about how they can present themselves and the importance of their division within the company.
16:53In Europe, it's different, right?
16:54In Europe, I think buyers are looking more for efficiency.
16:57They're looking more for the admin aspects of purchasing products.
17:01So is it saving time?
17:03Is it saving money?
17:05Can I automate things?
17:07Is it the least risky way to go?
17:12And therefore, we have a more benefit-oriented buying culture here.
17:17And we have a bit more risk-worth buying culture here.
17:21There's no advantages or disadvantages.
17:23It's just a different way of how you got to phrase your message and how you communicate into the market.
17:27Are either one of those, I mean, easier to sell to?
17:32I mean, we grew quicker in the States.
17:35Over the last two years, we expanded mid of or end of 2022, let's say.
17:40And now they make up more than 50% of our revenues already.
17:43So it seems to be a bit easier to grow a business like ours in the States.
17:48There's a billion reasons for that, though.
17:50I don't think that this is a general theme.
17:55In our industry, for our product, in our go-to-market motion, the States tend to work a little bit easier.
18:01Totally.
18:02My last question for you is, what is next for you, for the company?
18:06Are you going to raise again?
18:07I know your last raise was in 2021.
18:09So is the money going to come in?
18:11Are you guys going to focus on something else?
18:13What is next?
18:14What does 2025 look like for you and the brand?
18:16Yeah, absolutely.
18:17Our mission is to become the largest ticketing provider globally.
18:20And therefore, we have a long-term mission.
18:24It's not a short-term mission.
18:25It's not a mid-term mission.
18:26It's a long-term mission.
18:27And therefore, we also scale the company in a very capital-efficient and sustainable way.
18:31So right now, we don't have any need for further fundraising.
18:35But we want to double this year, headcount growth, revenue growth, as well as sales headcount.
18:43So yeah, just scaling quicker than we even did in the past.
18:47Hiring more people, expanding into more markets.
18:50We opened three satellite offices just in Q4 last year.
18:55So becoming more of an international brand, expanding the roster of our clients into even
19:01more geos, essentially.
19:03Yeah, and just growing, growing, growing.
19:05Well, I'm super excited to see all that you guys do and how much you guys can grow in the
19:09next couple of years.
19:09So thank you so much for sitting down with me today.