Eventbrite: Julia Hartz

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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, I am so excited to tell you about two How I Built This live shows coming to San Francisco and Seattle in just a few weeks. In San Francisco, I'll be speaking with Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. That's happening Friday, March 27 at the Sidney Goldstein Theater. In that same week, on Thursday, the 26th of March, I'll be in Seattle at Ben Arroyo Hall, talking to the founders of Sub Pop, the label behind artists like Nirvana and Death Cab for Cutie and Soundgarden. Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt will sit down with me to recount their story. These are going to be incredible shows, so if you are a fan of Sierra Nevada, or 90s music, or Nirvana, or just of the show, be sure to join us on this West Coast swing. For more information

• 0:45Guy Raz?

  or to get your tickets, head to nprpresents.org. And I hope to see you there.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, I was packing up my window office on the 42nd floor of Fox Plaza, which is the iconic building in Century City, and literally the next day, pushing saw horses and plywood into a windowless phone closet in a warehouse with Kevin. And I remember pushing a sawhorse behind him, thinking, should I really have done this?

• 1:22Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:36Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz. And on today's show, how Julia Hartz and her husband Kevin launched their ticketing platform Eventbrite from a closet in a San Francisco warehouse, and today, manage events in 170 countries around the world.

• 1:56Guy Raz?

  There's a famous quote by Warren Buffett about his investment strategy. When he looks for investment opportunities, he looks for, quote, "economic castles protected by unbreachable moats." So, in other words, huge companies of scale that can withstand or even quash any potential competitor. And getting over that moat is meant to be hard. And sometimes, the only way to penetrate the castle isn't by crossing the drawbridge, but by going in through a side door. Sort of like the way Manoj Barghava launched Five Hour Energy. If you heard that episode, you might remember that when Manoj got started, the energy drink market was dominated by Red Bull and Monster.

• 2:38Guy Raz?

  There was no way a small upstart like his was going to compete with the big guys for shelf space. So instead of marketing Five Hour Energy as a drink, Manoj turned it into a different kind of product, an energy shot. And before his competitors could even react, he'd created a whole new kind of product in the energy drink industry. And in kind of a similar way, when Julia and Kevin Hartz decided to get into event ticketing, the obvious competition, of course, was a massive company called Ticketmaster, a company with lots of control over large events at stadiums and arenas. But Julia and Kevin noticed that Ticketmaster wasn't all that interested in small and medium-sized events.

• 3:23Guy Raz?

  And when they saw that opportunity, they realized it could be their way across the moat that Ticketmaster had built around the ticketing business. And while Ticketmaster is still the biggest player in the ticket space, Eventbrite is no slouch. Today, 14 years since it was founded, Eventbrite is a publicly traded company with a market cap of nearly $2 billion. But for Julia Hartz, not much from her early life suggested she'd become an entrepreneur. In fact, growing up in Santa Cruz, California, she was really into broadcast journalism and applied to college, thinking she'd eventually get into television news.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  First, I applied and was admitted to Pepperdine in the early admissions timeframe. But I couldn't afford to go to Pepperdine. But I also wasn't in the bracket that would get full financial aid. And my mom said, you know, if you really have your heart set on Pepperdine, you should write them a letter and tell them that. And I remember thinking like, Mom, come on, they're not gonna, that's not gonna work. And thank God I took her advice because I wrote a letter and with no other warning, a full financial aid package showed up.

• 4:41Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I couldn't believe it. And so, basically, what that meant was I took on a ton of debt, student loan debt, and I had three jobs. And my parents, obviously, contributed everything they could. So it was a group effort. And I sat through my first semester of classes that were, you know, your basic college courses. And then the second semester, I'd made a big change. I didn't realize it at the time, which was to actually concentrate on television production as my focus.

• 5:16Guy Raz?

  All right. So you are at Pepperdine and you get into, interested in television. I guess while you were in college, you got an internship on Friends, like the biggest show, one of the biggest shows ever, right? Like, what was that like?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  So it was pretty surreal because it was at the height of, you know, the Friends popularity as a show. It was as exciting as you can imagine. And there was Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox and, you know, all these huge celebrities within arm's reach. And my job on the set of Friends was to answer the set phone, which was this big wireless phone that I would carry around and connect whoever was on the line to the person they wanted to speak with. And it was still today the most terrifying job I've ever had of my life because if you have the set phone number for Friends...

• 6:12Speaker 01

  You're probably not someone who's super patient

• 6:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  about who you're looking for.

• 6:17Guy Raz?

  Right. So I guess in your senior year, you end up at MTV.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 6:22Guy Raz?

  That would prove to be an important internship, like an important turning point for you. Was it a different kind of job or internship?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that between Friends and MTV and landing at MTV in my senior year, I discovered two things for myself. One was I was not passionate about production and everything that goes into actually filming. The second thing was I just wasn't passionate about celebrity. And so when I landed at MTV in the series development department, it was as if I finally found the perfect place because development really marries business and creative. And being anchored in a network, and especially in a cable network,

• 7:13Speaker 01

  was really exciting and dynamic. And I'll never forget, I was there when we got this demo tape from these guys who were doing just really stupid stuff. And it turned out to be Jackass. And that was an incredible experience to watch something go from demo all the way through to series. And I have a lot of really great memories from that experience.

• 7:44Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you were present at the creation of Jackass?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I was a witness. I mean, I don't, yeah, I certainly didn't have any contribution that was significant, but I witnessed something that was groundbreaking. It was different. It was weird. People didn't know how to feel. I remember the weekly phone calls that we would do between the network, the standards and practices department, OSHA, the lawyers, and then the guys. And they would, in the course of a week, come up with maybe two full pages of ideas for stunts. And just the description and the brainstorming around how one would

• 8:28Speaker 01

  pull these stunts off was so entertaining. It was irreverent at its very best.

• 8:35Guy Raz?

  So you ended up going to work for MTV after you graduate,

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:39Guy Raz?

  which is a pretty great job, right? And did you end up Working on that show or with that show?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  So I did. I graduated on a Friday and was employed by Monday. I've been working since I was 14 with no break. And that was a really fortunate thing that I was able to just pick up where I'd left off and join the team as an assistant. And so I was in the development department and we-- Jackass was one of our shows amongst several others that we worked on to put on air. And being a development executive is not unlike being a VC, I guess, of several stages. So you know, you start with seed where you're cultivating talent and you're taking a lot of pitches. And then you help to cultivate the idea.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  And then you get to a place where down the line it may become a series. And our job was to take it from concept or person to series and then manage the series as it was on air.

• 9:41Guy Raz?

  I guess you stayed there for a couple of years and then got sort of recruited by FX Networks to work there, which is pretty cool. I mean, it sounds like the trajectory of your career was you were going to end up working in Hollywood, working on TV development projects and eventually become an executive, maybe. Did that seem like that was your, kind of your path?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yes. And you know, for me, definitely on, I think, a very strong trajectory. I joined FX as a manager of current series and worked on Nip Tuck, Rescue Me, and The Shield, which were all incredible pieces of content. So formative years for me and certainly, you know, something I'll never forget. But in total, my whole career in Hollywood was five years. Set against the backdrop of my, now the balance of my life, it was a brief stint. However, in those five years, I really loved the work.

• 10:38Guy Raz?

  I guess, like, 2003, you're invited to a wedding for a coworker. And you're seated next to this guy named Kevin, who would become your husband. Is that more or less what happened?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Well, so these two particular people who were getting married had been really big brother and big sister figures in my life. And so I was tapped to deliver an excerpt from Corinthians at the altar. And I did not grow up in a church. I do not know the Bible. So I'm a little bit all around anxious about this particular wedding. And I got to the church and I realized that I didn't bring a copy of the excerpt. I wasn't sure if it was at the altar. And so I thought, like, OK, I have to sit at the end of the pew. So I went to the end of the pew and I asked this guy to move over so that I could sit at the end.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  And I was sitting there pretty stressed out. And this guy started striking up a conversation with me. And that was that. And then I went up to the altar and thankfully, my reading was there. And I got through it and I came back and I was so relieved. And this guy turned to me and goes, "You're amazing. I'm so proud of you." I remember finally sort of focusing on him and being like, OK, what is going on? You know, like, he's just so friendly and not creepy friendly, like earnestly just so friendly, but didn't even know his name. And so he introduced himself as Kevin. And I remember standing on the steps of the church after the ceremony.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  And, you know, we were throwing rice at the bride and groom and they were running down the stairs. And I saw him across the way and I thought, oh, I'll never see him again. And we were standing on the lawn at the reception and he brought me over a drink. And then I realized, like, oh, no, I'm not actually gonna get rid of this guy tonight. Like, this is, you know, this isn't like just a fleeting thing. And that was it. I mean, that literally was it. Kevin and I have been together ever since.

• 12:49Guy Raz?

  And at the time, I mean, he was like a startup guy, right? He was working on this, I think it's pronounced Zoom, X O O M. It was like an international money transfer service, right?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:59Guy Raz?

  But you were working at FX Networks in LA and he's in the Bay Area. So you begin this relationship and he must have been like working insane hours in the startup, going around like, you know, looking for investors. And was he, you know, was he doing all that stuff all the time?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  He was. It actually worked for us to be long distance because during the week, he would work 24 hours a day on Zoom from his loft. They worked literally from this closet that was off the bathroom in his loft in Soma. And I would do, you know, my television thing. And that also included going to nighttime events. And so we just worked really hard during the week. And then on the weekends, we would get together and spend this really quality time together. And he would come down and he would go through his 85-page slide deck for funding. And he would attend, you know, movie awards with me. And it was just interesting. It's this two-year kind of study in these very different worlds.

• 14:00Guy Raz?

  Did you, I mean, you eventually, I think two years into your relationship, you guys decided to get married, which meant that one of you would have to move. And I guess you decided it was going to be you, that you were going to move back to Northern California and kind of leave your job at FX behind?

• 14:17Speaker 01

  We had a moment where we imagined I would still work in Hollywood. He would still be working on Zoom, but doing it somewhat remotely. But ultimately, what ended up happening is I knew I was in the wrong industry. There was something nagging at me when I would learn more about the tech industry from Kevin or I would see these early ideas come to life. And the thing that was nagging at me was something was moving faster than cable television. And I love velocity. I just felt disruption coming.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  It just was very clear that something was going to disrupt traditional media.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  And so I thought that I needed to just find a career here in San Francisco that married my experience in television, you know, with maybe the future of of media.

• 15:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  That was the plan.

• 15:19Guy Raz?

  And so I guess at the time, there was, some people remember this, there was this television channel called Current, which which was sort of, it was partially owned or run by Al Gore and he had some investors involved and they tried to recruit you, right? Or you you found them and and considered working working for them?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  That's right. Joel Hyatt and Al Gore had a great vision. And in fact, I met with them. I mean, it was a, it was really exciting. And I was offered a, you know, middle management position on the founding team. And then I got the offer. And, you know, the numbers that I remember, roughly speaking, are I was making $80,000 at FX and they offered me $50,000 in annual salary to join. And I brought the offer to Kevin to get his opinion. And he just, I think, saw an opening, I'm not sure how calculated he was in this, but he just said, you know, you could go work on someone else's startup and make less than

• 16:20Speaker 01

  your worth, for sure. Or you could build something with me and we, you know, make no money, but at least it's our own. And, you know, we could even invest our own money in bootstrapping something. I just, I really don't know why or how that sounded more compelling. But I do think the genesis of why Kevin was so convincing there is because his optimism was contagious. And I thought, why not?

• 16:51Guy Raz?

  So does that mean that he was, he was going to leave his startup or kind of just? Stop working there?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, what happened there was Zoom was about five years old at the time. And they finally reached a point where it was clear that they were on their way to becoming a grown-up financial services company. And Kevin was not interested in being the CEO of a financial services company. That wasn't his, you know, kind of end game.

• 17:17Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  And so he was already transitioning out of Zoom. And he was starting to look at what he wanted to do next, what he wanted to build next. So he was primed to be in ideation phase. And now that I know him a lot better than even when I did in 2005, I know what that means.

• 17:36Guy Raz?

  So had he already come up with an idea that would be involved with ticket sales?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  No, it really wasn't well-defined when I moved up. There were several ideas that he had actually prototyped and to some extent had built early versions of. One of the things was about this very simple transactional platform to sell tickets to any kind of event. And it was really, the conversation about why we would go and approach ticketing was much, much less about the industry and more about the notion that experiences are so vital to human beings thriving. And that became, that was the first idea that we had to work on together.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And, you know, it just so happened to stick. But I really didn't give it much thought. And all of a sudden, I was packing up my window office on the 42nd floor of Fox Plaza, which is the, you know, iconic building in Century City, saying goodbye to this career that was on this uphill trajectory. And driving north and literally the next day pushing sawhorses and plywood into a windowless phone closet in a warehouse in Potrero Hill where we had gotten some free office space with Kevin. And I remember pushing a sawhorse behind him, thinking, I hope he's not crazy. Like, there's a reason why he's so excited,

• 19:06Speaker 01

  and I really trust that there's this reason. But there was a little bit of me that was thinking like, should I really have done this? That was terrifying.

• 19:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I mean, for Kevin, this was, I think this was his third startup, right? Because he had another company that he sold before launching Zoom. And then he was also an early investor in PayPal, when we all know how that turned out. So really, I mean, you're in a pretty great place because initially I'm assuming you didn't have to raise any money. And now you guys could just sort of try to focus on trying to create a company.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, it was incredibly fortunate. So it's important to know that we spent less than a quarter of a million dollars in the first two years of Eventbrite, being up and running and operating. That, to us, was an incredible luxury to be able to invest that type of money into our own company. But we were also really fortunate because we didn't have to moonlight to grow Eventbrite. And furthermore, we were in this space, like I mentioned, a warehouse in Potrero Hill. We knew the landlord, and he let us be there for free for a certain period of time as long as we let other startup teams know about the space.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  And so what ended up happening is that we started in the phone closet, and then we graduated to a conference room. And for about a year, we were in this conference room. It was like a fishbowl, and that was Eventbrite. And, you know, I was pregnant during the time, so I kind of visualized this like crazy. Just, it wasn't luxurious. It was very humble. And meanwhile, these other startup teams started to know that there was this space. And at the height, we had 12 companies in a 10,000-square-foot space. And we were all at very early stages of building these companies.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  It wasn't an incubator, it wasn't an accelerator, it was a community. And that's a huge part of our story.

• 21:13Guy Raz?

  When the idea for what Eventbrite would start to kind of take shape in 2006, like when you describe it to people and they're like, hey, what are you working on? What would you say?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  We would say a ticketing platform. And I would say that the one of the most remarkable things that has happened in this journey is that we imagined Eventbrite would be what it is today. And that's not because we're clairvoyant. There's a lot of luck that goes into not having to pivot or to completely change your business plan or strategy. But we imagined that we could build a self-service platform that would allow anybody to sell tickets to any type of event at a really low cost that was accessible and be able to serve the most diverse community of event creators.

• 22:01Guy Raz?

  Explain something to me, right? In 2006, what was a ticketing world? Like, was it just Ticketmaster? Was that what was out there?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so basically, there was this big void in the market. Either you were using checks and cash collected at the door and tracking your attendees on maybe Excel spreadsheets or by hand, or you were using really expensive kind of dinosaur software on the enterprise side. There was no consumer-friendly platform in between that could both give you the tools to be able to create and promote and manage your event ticketing, as well as be accessible and something that you could afford using as a small organization.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  And so essentially, what we were focused on was the SMB market of live events. And we just had absolutely zero idea how big it was.

• 23:01Guy Raz?

  Was it just you and Kevin? Because I guess you launched this in January of 2006, you really started working on it in 2006. It was just the two of you, you and your... Your soon to be husband.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Well, in the fall of 2005, or near the end of that year, we found our co-founding CTO. Because neither Kevin nor I are engineers. And we knew we needed at least a third to help us start this company. And we found Renaud Visage through, you know, he was somebody that Kevin had been somewhat familiar with, and he was just coming out of his last company. And so it just, it all worked out that the timing worked, that we could all assemble ourselves, pretty much by the holidays of 2005. And then in 2006, that's really when we officially launching at the beginning of 2006. I would call Renaud like the bravest man, you know, in business to start a company with a couple that's about to get married.

• 23:57Guy Raz?

  So like in 2006, right, in January of 2006, it was essentially the three of you. And what was Eventbrite for like, just a regular person? Like, how would you interact with it? Would you at all?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  You would when you bought tickets. So the brilliant part of the model is, of course, that we had, you know, our primary customer are what we call event creators. They would be promoting the event page, and then you'd have ticket buyers come to that event page and buy tickets. And so there was a platform and basic functionality where you could create an event listing in, you know, two minutes. We used to test it on Kevin's father as our first user group. And you could promote your event, and then you could track your attendees and your ticket sales. And that was the premise of the first Eventbrite product experience.

• 24:51Guy Raz?

  And who was using Eventbrite in the early days?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Well, the, really, the, I think we focused on building what I would call the MVP of our product with tech bloggers who were hosting meetups and wanted to start charging for these events. And I can't imagine a better user group, sort of tech bloggers and critics.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  To test your product out on. So basically, what I did was I took their, their needs and wants and their feature requests and distilled those into themes. And there was a theme around, you know, being able to publish an event page in, in minutes and this friction-free, easy-to-use value proposition. There was the promotional aspect of being able to get the word out about your event online without, you know, a lot of marketing budget. And then there was the, being able to get to know your attendees. When you're, you know, collecting cash at the door, you're not obviously understanding who this is, what their email address is, you're not getting the benefit of customer relationship.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  And so being able to manage your event as you, or manage your ticket sales was the third. And so it was really around this create, promote, manage. And I think that's what made Eventbrite start to grow organically through both word of mouth and then, you know, paid marketing. And we did that for two full years. It was just the three of us.

• 26:21Guy Raz?

  And so, I mean, what was your business model at that time? I mean, was it going to be, you know, we'll take a fee or a cut? Because, I mean, that's how Ticketmaster, more or less, or credit card companies work, right?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  So we decided to charge a per-paid ticket fee of 2.5% plus 99 cents. And we decided to not charge for free tickets. We only charged you when you sold a paid ticket because we figured that would be a great way for people to try out the service. And we would undercut any other competitors who were charging subscription fees for, for free events or, you know, charging a fee per ticket on free events.

• 27:03Guy Raz?

  In the early days, were you really still focused on the San Francisco market? Like trying to get, because it sounds like there were sort of small events happening, like a tech blogger would have a meetup. Was that where you really were kind of focused on, that the local market initially?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  We really started with that focus. However, we were very intentional to roll out Eventbrite in a way that could be used by anyone, anywhere in the world. And what we did was we set up this map where we could see where all the ticket sales were happening in real time, visualized. And I'll never forget the day when we discovered that someone was selling tickets to a speed dating event in New York. And that was really exciting because it meant that we were crossing geographical bounds. So we were breaking out of the Bay Area, as well as format and category bounds.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  So a completely non-tech-related event. And it really started to organically spread. And it was pretty incredible to watch it happen. Again, not overnight by any means. It was over several years.

• 28:16Guy Raz?

  And, I mean, it was certainly in the early days, like, small money, right? Like, people were selling tickets for like, five bucks or 10 bucks, stuff like that, right?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  They were. I mean, it's interesting that the median ticket price on Eventbrite is around $40. So it's actually higher than you would think. You know, it's always been within that range. And so there were a lot of $5 ticket events. And there were a few, you know, $100 events. There were lots of free events. I'll never forget, there was a 100,000-person free salsa congress in Mexico City that happened on Eventbrite, when we had no business ticketing a 100,000-person event. And it really opened our eyes to how flexible the platform was. And we were following our users. They were leading the way.

• 29:09Guy Raz?

  And so, all right, so you, I mean, was the idea initially to just kind of see if you guys could fund it yourselves? Or from the beginning, did you know that eventually you would have to go out and look for funding?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  We had to take a very incremental approach to everything. And I think Kevin and I and Renaud decided, hey, let's see how far we get in a month. And then let's see how far we get in a quarter. And then let's see how far we get in a year. And then we raised a round of friends and family money, basically an angel round, less than a million dollars. And that took us until 2008. And we had maybe two employees, two or three employees who had joined us. And then we decided to go raise our first round of institutional money. Once we knew that we had a business that could become a company.

• 30:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  And that was 2008, which was really bad timing.

• 30:10Guy Raz?

  And what do you remember about, I guess you guys, I've read you approached like almost 30 different VC firms. Do you, do you remember those meetings?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I do. I mean, I, I remember us getting to the point where it made sense for, you know, the business. We had proven out that this could, this idea could be a business. It wasn't because we were out of money or dried up the balance sheet. It was more about, we knew that this was now showing signs of being something that we could scale.

• 30:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And so we went to Sand Hill Road and pitched 27 firms.

• 30:48Guy Raz?

  And what do you remember about the questions you were asked by investors? I mean, when you went to VC firms, were they like, this is amazing. This is awesome. Or were they, were they sort of poking holes in your business model at that time?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Well, I think that there was an equal amount of confidence or comfort in Kevin's track record because again, you know, he had founded a company prior to Eventbrite, Zoom. And we had that as an advantage. On the other side, There were questions ranging from how is this going to work for you two to operate the company as a married couple?

• 31:27Guy Raz?

  Because investors don't like married couples running companies, right?

• 31:30Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's true today, and I would say that for every positive story like Eventbrite, it becomes less of an issue.

• 31:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  So what we did to address that is we would come into the room and we would just address that question head on without anybody asking us.

• 31:46Guy Raz?

  What would you say?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  We would say, obviously, two of us are married. Here's how we work together. We never work on the same part of the business at the same time, and we have complementary skills, and we have a set of rules to work through conflict quickly. And we didn't really go into those rules because they were sort of personal, but I think our conviction helped investors at least not sit there and wonder if I really want to back a married couple.

• 32:16Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  The one question that we got about the business was consistently was how big is the total addressable market? Because if you have the reference point of, oh, you're just trying to build a Ticketmaster, no. Or you're just trying to build a next Evite, no. So then what are you trying to do? And so we needed to quickly illustrate what we were trying to do, who we were building for, and why they would buy what we built, and how big that market was. And I would say there was a very high level of skepticism about how big the mid-market of events were back in 2008.

• 33:00Guy Raz?

  I mean, I can understand, you know, back in 2008, an investor saying, so are you guys going to be like the new Ticketmaster? Why wouldn't that be a good way to pitch what you were doing?

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny, there's, everybody has an opinion about a brand that's so well-known, like Ticketmaster. But I would, I would simplify it as the Ticketmaster strategy is one part of a Live Nation strategy, which is to be vertically integrated into an event. It's large arenas and stadiums that typically serve sports and music. But Eventbrite is a horizontal platform that enables a wide array of small to medium-sized businesses and venues and individuals to be able to sell tickets on an open platform.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  And I think that we even underestimated the effect that could have in, in scaling something that, you know, just didn't really exist. And it's not like it's, I think when people say something didn't exist, you immediately think of, you know, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, who are truly creating something that hasn't actually existed. But it doesn't always have to be rocket science. It's really about how do you make something that people want to do even easier?

• 34:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And that's really what we were coming from. We were coming from a point of wanting to empower entrepreneurs to make their businesses stronger. And there wasn't a solution like Eventbrite at that point.

• 34:33Guy Raz?

  All right. So you, you go to Sand Hill Road. Over the course of three weeks, you meet with almost 30 VC firms. And I'm assuming you were going there expecting or hoping that you'd get some checks.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:46Guy Raz?

  And how many of these firms wrote you checks?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Well, we went and saw 27 firms and we received 27 noes or not right now.

• 34:56Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  So we received zero checks. No checks.

• 35:03Guy Raz?

  Coming up after the break, the simple strategy that Julia and Kevin used to convince some of those VCs to give Eventbrite another shot. And also why the founders later took the company public, even though lots of people told them not to do that. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 35:42Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the end of 2008, and Julia and our co-founders have just made 27 pitches to VCs. And none of them are interested in investing in Eventbrite. But one thing Julia learns is that there are different ways to get rejected.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  When people hear our story, it's hard for them to really imagine, you know, 27 no's. The thing I learned back then is it's so important to give a fast no rather than nothing at all. Because certainly not 27 VCs did not call us and say, hey, you know what? It's not for us for these reasons. Or not right now, but would love to see this, this, and this. There was a whole host of VCs who just sort of didn't respond at all. So I think that was a really good lesson for me, to experience that type of rejection and non-rejection rejection, to know which one's better.

• 36:41Guy Raz?

  So but I'm curious about those rejections, right? Because to some extent, right, when you meet with investors, you're sort of seeking their approval. Like, if they give you money, it's another way of them saying, yep, we like this idea. We believe in it. And here you go. But when all 27 of them say, we're just not ready to do this right now, a part of you feels, and I've had this conversation with other founders, you know, part of you feels like, well, am I wrong? Like, did that ever cross your mind?

• 37:10Speaker 01

  I'm sure, yes. I mean, I think I remember us gut checking whether or not we all, all three of us, had the conviction to keep going. Because we knew that it was, you know, it was going to be tricky. We weren't out of money, like I mentioned. So what we did was, we left our 2009 operating plan with every VC that we met with. And that was sort of seen as, you know, a little risky, because nobody knew what 2009 would hold. And then our plan B was to take a more lean approach to scaling in 2009. Go back and see those VCs around the same time in the fall. And we hunkered down.

• 37:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  By the way, let us not forget that we had an infant, you know, in 2008. So I kind of forget that part. I mean, there are pictures of us working on our 2009 plan, you know, and she's like in the corner on a play mat. So I think we probably were also just too sleep deprived and busy to even have time to worry, if that makes sense. And so we just kept going. And thank God we did because 2009 ended up being one of the best years of Eventbrite's history.

• 38:28Guy Raz?

  Why? What happened?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I think we had a few unlocks. So one thing that happened was the recession was looming and then finally upon us. And we started to see people who had lost their jobs start to use Eventbrite to teach their skills to other people in order to make a living. And also, social media started to become a real thing. One of the things that happened in 2009 is we started to see Facebook become one of the top 10 drivers of traffic to our site. So we went and did some investigating. We found out that event creators were using Eventbrite to sell tickets, but they would

• 39:11Speaker 01

  then take all of their event details and republish them into Facebook as a Facebook event and link back to the Eventbrite page to sell the tickets. And so effectively, we were the commerce engine and they were using Facebook as the promotion engine. And so we were meeting our event creators and we were solving the friction or taking the friction away and making it easier for them to promote their events on Facebook.

• 39:37Guy Raz?

  I'm curious, who, I mean, that year, when, you know, the economy is collapsing and unemployment starts to ratchet up, what kinds of events were people doing? Like, it would be somebody who was like, I'm an accountant and I'm holding an event to talk about basic accounting. And they would just like, you know, Sell tickets and have people meet at like a church hall or something like that?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. We had a lot of financial skills courses, I mean, just to go on that example. We saw some, a rise in entrepreneurial type events where folks were, you know, selling their independently made goods or teaching, say, yoga certification or networking became, you know, paid networking events became a big, a big deal. So at that point, we were, I think, had density in the coast regions of, of the US and then we were starting to light up in London and Melbourne and a few other places around the world, but it was not nearly as global as it is today.

• 40:42Guy Raz?

  When you saw the combination of Facebook and this really interesting people losing their jobs and trying to figure out how to become entrepreneurial, you know, host events and whatever, did you guys have a revenue goal that year? I mean, you, you said you had a plan for 2009. Do you remember how much revenue you felt like you needed to make that year to meet your goal?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  We always had a revenue goal. So from the first month that we started working on Eventbrite, we would have our revenue goal up on the whiteboard and every month we would meet in a quasi-board meeting to report on our progress against revenue. So what I do know, while I don't have the exact number for 2009 in my head, I know gross ticket sales was around 10 million.

• 41:30Guy Raz?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  That's total gross ticket sales. That's gross volume and then derive our fee from that. Roughly speaking, our, our fee is about $3 per ticket. But, so our actual revenue, our net revenue was much smaller than that, but we were about break even at the start of 2009. We continued to hire, so we needed to bridge that gap a bit.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  But I do recollect that we surpassed the plan that we set for ourselves in 2009. We started to pick up steam. So we went back to not all 27, but probably about 12 of the VC firms that we felt, would be good people to talk to and to continue the conversation.

• 42:16Guy Raz?

  So you went back to some of these VC firms armed with data, showing them that, look, since we last saw you, we've done $10 million in gross ticket sales. And I'm assuming the response was different a year later.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  It was. I was surprised by how doing what you said you were going to do, meaning the 2009 plan that we left with them at the end of 2008, was a novel idea. Because it was met with a lot of wow. I mean, it really made, just that fact alone, like, doing what you said you were going to do, I think was pretty much all we needed to say. I mean, obviously, there were more questions about what we had learned in that year, and the market, and future plans for growth. But it was quite impactful.

• 43:09Guy Raz?

  What happens? Do you get a check?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a quicker process. So I think it was maybe four weeks. And we were confident enough to say that we were accepting term sheets on a certain date. And we received three term sheets. And we raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital in that round.

• 43:34Guy Raz?

  So, all right. So you have this $6.5 million. You can start to hire lots of people quickly, I guess.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Well, and yeah, when we created the plan, we were going to grow from 30 to 100 people by the end of 2010. And that was breathtaking to me because at least to me, my reference point was 30 as a team, 100 company. I mean, there's no denying that 100 people is company. And, you know, we could sit around sort of one large table and eat, you know, from a few pizza boxes as 30. And as 100, we needed systems and facilities and, you know, we needed to like get our act together. And I felt like we were going to inevitably go through a really tough time scaling from 30 to 100 people. And I wasn't sure how

• 44:26Speaker 01

  we were going to do that and, you know, maintain this great culture.

• 44:30Guy Raz?

  Did you, I mean, this is, this is more of a, like, I'm trying to get into your head a little bit. I sort of try to think of myself in that situation. Like, what would I, how would I feel? And how would I make decisions, right? And you were 30, you had this huge responsibility. And did you ever have any anxiety over, I don't know, being a leader?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I mean, all the time. You know, it's, I, I think most human beings have moments of not feeling old enough or prepared enough or experienced enough to be in a place of authority. I think if you're a parent, you feel that way. I think if you're a leader, you feel that way. And I didn't let it get in my way. I think building something from scratch allows you to expand and grow with the progress. That's why when I look at other companies that have had this sort of hockey stick growth or like just that rocket ship, that would be difficult.

• 45:34Guy Raz?

  You know, I'm wondering, did you and Kevin ever have tension or fights or arguments? I mean, I would imagine that, given that he'd run businesses and probably had a way of doing things, I mean, that there might have been times where you weren't doing it the way he thought it should be done. And was there tension? I mean, I would think that would be normal.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  There's definitely been tension, I think less than you would imagine. So.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  We were very intentional when we started the company and we set a few rules, as I mentioned, and one of them was if we ever were frustrated or had an impasse, we would stop what we were doing, turn the lights off, and I'm not kidding, lay down on the ground and hold hands and talk about it.

• 46:19Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  No, this is when we didn't have any office mates.

• 46:22Guy Raz?

  Okay, yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  So, obviously, we're not doing that today. I mean, we do that at home, obviously.

• 46:26Guy Raz?

  That's a cool technique. I want to try that.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like so ridiculous that it would break the tension. And if we could even, you know, stop laughing, we would talk through what was really going on. But, you know, that was a great mode for us in the very early days. When we were scaling the company, you know, to 100 and 200 and 300, and he was CEO and I was president, I think we were just really good at not having disagreements in front of people and dealing with that on our own time. And we're very strong communicators with each other. And so, for any co-founder team, I think it's really important to understand that, you know, to openly debate is one thing, but to disagree or have beef with each other in front of your employees.

• 47:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Because it's just not productive. That's the guiding principle that we've used, I think, now for quite some time.

• 47:19Guy Raz?

  Julia, once you guys had a lot of capital to work with, was that, I mean, did you start to really take off at that point? Was it growth, year after year after year of growth? Because I know you, 2012, you hit your 50 millionth ticket sold and then you do a billion dollars in total gross ticket sales that year, and next year was $2 billion. I mean, it sounds, I don't mean for this to sound seamless and easy, but it sounds like that was it. I mean, you guys were just on this growth trajectory.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  We were off to the races, for sure. I mean, again, one of the, I think, unique things about Eventbrite is that we haven't had to pivot. We are doing exactly what we intended to do.

• 48:01Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  And lots of things change, new, you know, technologies change, but the actual concept is exactly spot on to what we had intended to build for, for the event creator community. One of the things that was remarkable for me to observe was just the validation of having a Sequoia Capital come in, seemingly kind of how easy it was to raise after that with their seal of approval. And I think that, you know, we took advantage of that. We raised private capital sometimes when we didn't need it because we wanted to ensure that we would have it when, you know, the bottom fell out again.

• 48:41Guy Raz?

  If we were doing the movie version of Eventbrite, at this point, you know, it would be like, the next year's $2 billion, then $4 billion in ticket sales, and then $10 billion ticket sales. 2015, Kevin, he decides to take a leave as CEO, and it was temporary initially. I guess he had a medical condition. And then he basically says, you know what, I actually want to step down. And you become CEO in 2016. At that point, I have to imagine, it probably felt like the right, natural, seamless move for you. Or were you, I don't know, was any part of you hesitant?

• 49:20Speaker 01

  You know, I wasn't hesitant to step up because it was the right thing for the company. Mind you, we also were dealing with life, right? So it's, there's this duality of doing what's right for the company, and also, we also needed to put Kevin's health first and foremost. And, you know, I needed to wear both hats, which was wife and co-founder.

• 49:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  And that was, that was a really, really difficult time.

• 49:49Guy Raz?

  He's OK now, of course. He's healthy, right, doing well?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  He's great. Yeah, I think, I think he's a testament of why it's so important to put your health first.

• 49:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  I think that, you know, for us, it's, you know, life is very, very short. And while we've been lucky enough, knock on wood, to not lose, you know, any loved ones too early, we just, to some extent, it's a little bit of a blur, but it wasn't a joyful time, let's put it that way. So I wasn't stepping into this role.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  With a smile on my face, per se. Maybe it was a brave smile, but, you know, behind the scenes, I was terrified.

• 50:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you step up, you become the CEO. By 2018, your revenues were about $290 million. That year, September that year, Eventbrite goes public. You go, you take the company public. Was this sort of like, you know, you hear when founders start a company, they say, all right, well, the investors want an exit. It's either going to be a sale or you go public. Was that the point you reached where, you know, your investors needed a return? And so this was a way to do it?

• 50:59Speaker 01

  You know, it was always part of our plan to go public. Meaning, we wanted Eventbrite to be a public company. And so this wasn't an agenda that was brought on to us by our investors, but rather, you know, our own agenda.

• 51:16Guy Raz?

  But I'm just, I'm curious about going public because that is a different kind of stress. And, I mean, all of a sudden, it's not just a private company and you're answering to the board and investors. Now, it's you are a publicly traded company with thousands and thousands of shareholders. I've asked CEOs and entrepreneurs who've taken companies public all the time, like, why would you want that stress? And also, you're answering to a whole new constituency now.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I have thought about that a lot. And I guess, like, to back up for a minute, I heard, I, I don't think ever once heard in the nine months we were preparing to go public that going public was a good idea.

• 52:03Guy Raz?

  Everybody said, don't do it.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Everyone said, don't go public. But the process of going public was really helpful for us. It forced us to codify. Who we are and what we're building and why people are buying what we're building and what our strategy is for the future. And it's not as if we weren't doing those things, but I think along the way, as you're scaling and building and evolving, that can get a little bit fuzzy around the edges. And I loved the crispness that was the output of the work that we did on the IPO and the impact that had on the company. And so when we did go public, a lot of what's happened to us in the last year is basically what everybody was talking about. But it hasn't caused any regret.

• 52:47Guy Raz?

  I want to add some context because you mentioned what happened over the past year and we're having this conversation at the end of 2019.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:55Guy Raz?

  And I think the day that your stock debuted is $23. I think it ended that day at like 30, almost $34. It was a great first day. And today, the stock price is like down to a little under $20 a share. And that's the question I have, right? There's a whole visibility that is, right? I mean, that's stressful, right? And you've got shareholders saying, hey, why is the stock down? What's going on? Why? I bought it for $35 and now it's at $19. And what do you say?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Believe me, one of the most painful situations in my life has yet to be resolved, which is this wonderful man who works at the hotel next to our office. And he's such a kind man and he bought into our IPO, bought stock. And so I see him every day and I'm visually reminded of the loss that he incurred. And that, for me, is a great motivator. But I look at it as it's my responsibility to grow the value of Eventbrite. And if you can't take the heat of that responsibility, then you absolutely shouldn't be a public company CEO. And I think I'm always learning something new.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  And certainly, this year's been a year of learning lots and lots and lots of new things. But I'm not hating the game, right? It's really like something that we chose eyes wide open. And so I don't spend any time lamenting about being a public company. I think that's So boring and unoriginal.

• 54:30Guy Raz?

  When you are, how many people work for Eventbrite now around the world?

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Roughly 1,100.

• 54:35Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, I mean, that's a, I mean, that's a serious number of people that you're the CEO, you're the boss. It seems to me that you are probably better structured to withstand economic headwinds, which everyone says is going to happen because you've already been there. Because it's not, you're not making a product that people buy. It's something that is a, people will need, whether the economy is good or bad.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Well, I think we benefit from the innate human behavior of gathering and the fact that we've been doing it for thousands of years, for sure, and the global nature of live experiences. I would say that where I worry is, we, yes, have seen really bad times, but we were very small back then. And, you know, my, my responsibility to a million event creators and 1,100 Brightlings and thousands of shareholders is an order of magnitude larger than the responsibility we had in 2008 and 2009, when it was just us and a few folks. So it's different. And certainly, I don't think Eventbrite is completely

• 55:43Speaker 01

  impervious to another, you know, big economic meltdown. But I feel pretty confident that that we'll be able to weather the storm. Whatever the storm, whatever shape it may be, or category, you know, it's, it's anyone's guess at this point. Although, everybody seems to know that it's coming.

• 56:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You know, you left your job in 2005, and here you are. You know, a public company, 1,100 employees, valued at $1.8 billion. How much of this do you think is because you just really are smart and worked really hard? And how much of it do you attribute to just being lucky?

• 56:25Speaker 01

  I would say that 70% of this was work ethic and staying focused. And I would say 30% is about luck and whether that's luck of, you know, meeting the love of my life and co-founder and co-parent back on that fateful day in May of 2003 at a wedding, or the luck of finding really wonderful people to build this company. I think there's a lot of fortune and that comes to people and it's about what they do with it. And I think the other way around, too. When you hit hard times or you feel unlucky, you know, you have to put it all into perspective.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  And there's always something to feel lucky for.

• 57:11Guy Raz?

  That's Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. Eventbrite has 14 offices around the world and the platform powers millions of events each year, which is kind of impressive. But for Julia's kids, the thing that makes their mom truly impressive is what she did in college, working on the set of Friends.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  My daughter, my 11 and a half-year-old, who's watching Friends, like it's a show that she just discovered to watch. My husband said, "Did you know Mommy worked on the set of Friends?" And yeah, so now that is one of those moments where I feel kind of cool with her. Now I'm like, wow.

• 58:04Guy Raz?

  And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building. Hey, thanks for sticking around because it's time now for How You Built That. And today, our story starts with Tomo Delaney, who for 20 years had a dream job in the fashion industry. He traveled the world, hung out on beaches with glamorous models, went to lots of cool parties, you know, the whole thing. But around 2010, Tomo was ready to walk away.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  I really reached a point where I thought... There's more to life than standing in a studio listening to 12 people discuss which pair of shoes should be put with that dress.

• 58:37Guy Raz?

  And at that point, what Tomo wanted to do more than anything else was to just be a dad, to stay at home with his kids in New York. So he did. And he loved everything about his new life, except mealtimes, because both of his kids, Davy and Dot, were super picky eaters.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  I spend my time looking at the kids' food options in Whole Foods, wondering whether there's anything on those shelves that they would eat.

• 59:03Guy Raz?

  Tomo would sometimes talk about his mealtime struggles with an older friend named Peggy. And one morning Peggy had an idea for him.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  She said, "I was watching Shark Tank last night, and two women successfully pitched an idea for neon-colored edible cookie dough. And it was full of artificial colors and flavors." And she said, "So I started to think about what would be a healthier version of this. You know, kids respond to color, so how do we get them to respond to food by color, but food that's healthy?"

• 59:29Guy Raz?

  Within a day, Tomo and Peggy came up with an idea to take fruit and pulverize it into brightly colored purees, kind of like the consistency of syrup, but without all the sugar.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  You know, we immediately thought the yellow's going to be peach, the red's going to be strawberry, and the blue's going to be blueberry.

• 59:46Guy Raz?

  Their idea was to put the pureed fruit into these squeezable tubes, and then kids could paint with it onto their food.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  You know, it is, on one level, a paint set, even though ultimately it is just a condiment aimed specifically at children.

• 1:00:00Guy Raz?

  But remember, Tomo's only professional experience up to that point was in the fashion industry.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  We had no idea how to get into the food industry. And we didn't know that we needed a co-packer. I didn't know we needed a food scientist. I was making this stuff in my kitchen, literally buying pounds of organic fruit from the local health food store and pureeing it in a cuisinart.

• 1:00:18Guy Raz?

  And Tomo's first big challenge was getting the puree to the right consistency so it would work as paint, not too thick and not too runny. So eventually, through a connection, he found a food scientist to help him come up with a formula.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  And he was sending me samples in unrefrigerated boxes. And I distinctly remember, there was one very, very hot day. I got a box from FedEx from him, and I opened it, and it Was full of these little Tupperware pots and he'd mixed the fruit puree 50/50 with coconut oil and it was slopping around like salad, it looked like salad dressing that had settled. And I just thought, this is a disaster. My god, what is going on here?

• 1:00:55Guy Raz?

  But within a few months, Tomo found another food scientist who used some natural additives to get the consistency they needed. And then with some donations from friends and family, Tomo found a factory in Canada to put the puree into tubes. He called it Nashi food paint and finally, he was ready to test it.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  What we did was just rely on friends. We relied on, literally dots, friends from school and their parents to say, would you video your kids drawing with this stuff and tasting this stuff?

• 1:01:25Guy Raz?

  And that first group of kids liked the naturally sweet taste of the fruit. And as you might expect, they really liked drawing on their food.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Lots of smiley faces, lots of eyes, lots of smiles, sun made of peaches.

• 1:01:37Guy Raz?

  So at this point, a contact in the food industry had given him a list of 31 buyers at a national grocery chain. So Tomo picked up the phone and made that very nerve wracking first call.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  And I said, hi, it's Tomo from Nashi and I'm calling about food paint. I was wondering whether you'd got the sample. And she said, there's a pause on the line. And she said, yeah, I did.

• 1:01:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah, it kind of went downhill from there.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  She said, I don't really understand the idea behind it. I don't really understand the execution. I'm not sure about the packaging. And she just went on and on and on. And my heart was sinking lower and lower.

• 1:02:11Guy Raz?

  Anyway, Tomo eventually got into some stores, but about three years went by where he did not get a lot of traction with Nashi. But then, just last year, he was at a food expo and met a guy from Walmart. And from that meeting, he eventually got the food paint into 176 Walmarts across the country. It did $55,000 in sales last year, and by next year, Tomo is hoping to turn a profit.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's felt like I've been sort of fighting my way up a very steep hill in the middle of a rainstorm in the pitch darkness and there's trees blowing down the hill towards me and driving rain. But I'm still climbing the hill.

• 1:02:50Guy Raz?

  That's Tomo Delaney, the founder of NASHI for Kids. To hear more about it or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. Our show was produced this week by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Candace Lim, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, and Sequoia Carrillo. Our intern is Raini Toll. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 1:03:45Guy Raz?

  This is NPR.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  If you're looking for your next binge watch or you want the latest on all the big movies and albums, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour has you covered. Every weekday, we are your guide to all things entertainment. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.