How I Built Resilience: Live with Julia Hartz

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. 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?

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• 0:45Guy Raz?

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• 1:30Guy Raz?

  based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2:00 AM kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one Hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people?

• 2:14Guy Raz?

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• 2:54Guy Raz?

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• 4:21Guy Raz?

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• 5:06Guy Raz?

  If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Hello, everyone, and welcome to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how to think creatively during this really disruptive moment. And today, I am bringing you my conversation with Julia Hartz, the founder of Eventbrite. Eventbrite is an online platform that people can use to create, plan, and market their events. When Julia came on the show earlier this year,

• 5:51Guy Raz?

  she and we had no idea that essentially, all in-person events for the year would be canceled. I spoke with Julia from her home in the Bay Area, where her company is focusing on virtual events, but also dealing with the harsh reality of layoffs. Talk a little bit about what's been happening for your business over the past couple of months.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Well, it really began in late February. So we had a board meeting, and two of our board members have deep ties to businesses in China. And there was a very remarkable sense of concern from these two board members that I'm so grateful for. And we started to pay really close attention to how COVID could impact particularly the United States, where two thirds of our business is produced. And on March 5, I woke up and looked at the previous day's results, and there it was. The direct hit of COVID on our business really maps to the point at which we, as Americans,

• 6:54Speaker 01

  became very well aware that the virus could hit us and was, in fact, hitting us. But our awareness at Eventbrite was much earlier than the mass general business awareness of the COVID impact. So in a sense, that allowed us to move quickly and have this first mover advantage. But it also was an incredibly surreal and difficult time because, first and foremost, our priorities were our team. So we started to get everyone ready to work from home. And for some people in offices all over the world, that seemed very strange at the time. The second thing we needed to think about was our creators. We needed to prepare them to cancel their events.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  And the third thing we needed to do was to prepare consumers. Events were likely not going to be happening as they had planned and bought tickets for. So I would describe the first three or four weeks of the COVID pandemic in March and April as being incredibly surreal.

• 7:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, I remember already in, I think, the first week of March, when the epicenter was Seattle, if you can remember that.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  I do.

• 8:05Guy Raz?

  We had an event planned there, a live event. We had to cancel it. We had to cancel all of our live events for the year. Our, our big summit that we do in October, we, we obviously had to postpone. You've had to make some really hard decisions, Julia. I mean, you aren't just the founder, co-founder of the company, you're the CEO. You, you, you oversaw 1,100 employees and you had to do layoffs.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  We did. It chokes me up just talking about it still. I think it's one of those things that will take a, a long while to, to get emotionally okay with. But, you know, I think for any owner of a business, when you have to make a critical decision that involves people and people's lives, it's heartbreaking and gut wrenching. But I think that it, for us in particular, given the fact that we knew that this was going to be big, meaning we could see the impact in early March. We had to make the very hard choice of what do we do? How do we take our own destiny in our own hands? And in the worst case scenario, be a stronger company and come out of this really fighting

• 9:09Speaker 01

  and being there for our customers. And so between that first day of impact and when we announced our restructuring in early April, it was brutal. I mean, there was, you know, days and nights didn't have any delineation. You know, our team was working around the clock. And ultimately what compelled us to move so quickly was the notion that we knew that we would need to make this decision. And there was really absolutely no point in dragging our feet. And that the most humane way we can move through this was decisively and getting the 45% of our company that we had to cut,

• 9:55Speaker 01

  getting those humans back out into the job market and putting all the weight of our talent acquisition team and our team, our leadership team, behind them to help them find new jobs. So that's the emotional part that really compelled us to move as quickly as we did.

• 10:11Guy Raz?

  Wow. 45% is painful. I, I do want to talk to you about the idea of a Pivot. I know it's kind of a cliche word and we use it a lot on the show, but it's such an important word because it, to me, it's a hopeful word and it it ties into this idea of resilience. I guess you guys had an increase in in virtual ticket sales in May compared to April, still not where it was last year. Is there some hope and of, you know, some optimism about the possibility of virtual events making up for some of the lost revenue?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We have seen, you know, multiple thousand percentage increase of online events on our platform in comparison to last year. What's interesting is that 85% of consumers who are buying tickets to these virtual events knew the creator prior to COVID.

• 11:01Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  So there's a continuity of relationship and a gathering of community on a virtual experience that didn't exist before. And in, I think, April alone, we processed over 8 million tickets to

• 11:15Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  events virtually when, you know, many in-person events were not happening. And so in-person events are starting to return, smaller, hyper-local events, but online events are continuing to flourish. And it's, you know, it's a whole new world. And frankly, our creators are showing us the way. These are professionals. They're small businesses. They know how to generate revenue and they're deeply connected to their community. Our job is to create a product experience that's better, faster, and more effective for what they're already using the platform to do.

• 11:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah. We're getting a lot of questions. I'm going to start with this question from Meg Jurey, who works for NPR, for NPR Presents, our live events team. And Meg asks, do you have advice for event planners on how to add enough value to justify hosting paid virtual events versus free virtual events? Like, what determines value in that, you know, in that scenario?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll give you a great example to sort of illustrate what we're seeing as viable business models that are emerging through online events. So there's a founder of a company called Craft Jam. Her name is Nora Abastate, and she used to have social crafting jams. She pivoted her business to Online workshops during COVID and what she found was this incredible repeat rate. So people are showing up time and time again and they're also ordering the craft kits to be delivered to their home. So she has this whole new revenue stream where she's bringing offline to online. And there's something really delightful about receiving a physical good and then going online with other people who've also re- received that physical good,

• 12:56Speaker 01

  whether it's a craft kit or it's um craft beer tasting, um or it's cheese tasting. We've seen this across the board. The second thing that we've seen is that communities and consumers are donating. They're donating because they want their creators, their event producers, their small business owners to survive through this time. You know, many, many small businesses received small business loans, but as we've read and as we know, that's not going to cut it for for however long this is lasting. So we've seen a strong philanthropic bent to live events that have happened where where event creators are asking people to just donate what they can to be in that experience.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  And finally, the third thing I would say is that while ticket prices tend to be lower, a bit lower on online events, and we imagine they may have a premium for in-person events once we can gather again in in person. Those online events can hold a lot more people, right, at a lower cost. And so it actually works out as you look at the math and the frequency at which you can gather communities online. And the final thing I'll say is that I'm a huge fan of Priya Parker's book, The Art of Gathering. And I think her premise of, you know, making that gathering special is so vitally important, especially when we're not in the same space and we're not feeling each other's energy.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I really love how she outlines sort of why we gather, to solve problems, to be with each other, to celebrate, to mourn. But, you know, it takes a lot to engage folks in an online environment. So I would say that that more time needs to be spent on that. Why is this experience special? And how is it going to change every person's life who tunes in?

• 14:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And I guess sort of the value proposition too is if you are hosting an event, you are available to engage. I mean, it's not a face to face engagement, but you're there. You can answer questions. You can you can acknowledge somebody in that corner window. And and, you know, there's obviously meaning in that. Um, I want to move to another question. This is from Catherine Morse. She's seeing a lot of Eventbrite events for more and more for free virtual events. So she asks how, you know, how is hosting free events beneficial for A, the organizations, but B, for Eventbrite? Because I'm assuming you don't make money off of that of the of those events.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  We never have charged for free events in the history of of Eventbrite. And we're a 14 year old company. So why is that? It's a great question. Well, we feel like, you know, our free platform capability, when you can, you know, register for an event and free creators can can host events without paying us, is a great competitive mode for Eventbrite. As a business, it attracts more and more people to the platform. And as they come to the platform, they become aware of Eventbrite. They start to think about Eventbrite when they want to find new things to do, new ways to connect with other people. And eventually, some of those consumers turn into event creators. So it's a really important part of our of our flywheel.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  It doesn't generate revenue, but it generates massive amount of awareness.

• 16:15Guy Raz?

  What is the what's the advantage of doing an Eventbrite? Like, for example, here we are, we're having a live conversation. What's the advantage of doing it as sort of a ticketed event, even if it's free versus just putting it out there and saying, you know, here we are?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Well, I come back to that to that notion of community. So Eventbrite, the platform, is effectively an event team in the cloud for event creators. We allow you to easily publish a great looking event listing, which is effectively your landing page, your storefront for the event. We give you tools to get the word out about your events, whether it's through distribution. You know, people can click and buy the ticket without leaving wherever they are. And then we have a really amazing suite of reporting tools and analytics so that you understand, you know, what worked, what marketing channel worked, what marketing channel didn't deliver, and who do you have now in your community?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Which as event creators are becoming more and more frequent event publishers in this online event world, that becomes even more important. And so the team is now really coalescing around this idea of how do we make the frequent event creator more successful? And I think that when we look at the future, it's definitely a hybrid future. Our event creators have spoken loud and clear that this has opened up a channel for them to build a more global audience. However, they're at the heart of what they do are in-person gatherings. So they'll, you know, continue to be able to build both channels on one platform, which

• 17:50Speaker 01

  is uniquely beneficial to our, you know, our creator community.

• 17:55Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, we'll hear from Julia about what live events might look like in the future and how the current crisis has changed her as a leader. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This: Resilience Edition from NPR.

• 18:16Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. Live events are the backbone of Eventbrite, which was founded by Julia Hartz in 2006. And even though most in-person events have been canceled for the year, Julia is optimistic about the future. Do you think we're going to go back to what events were like in January of 2020? Is that possible? I mean, I think the answer is yes, that we will. But what do you think?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  I'm incredibly bullish that live gatherings will reemerge. So I think that smaller, more, you know, controllable gatherings will come back first. And I think that is going to be what starts to bring us back together. I also think that there will be some really fun new formats. For instance, we've had over a thousand drive-in events on the platform in the last month alone. A great example is the band Magic Beans in Colorado. They have an annual music festival called Beanstalk. And instead of cancelling the festival, they transitioned the festival to a two-day drive-in concert. And the reason why they did that was because they wanted to give the artists that play

• 19:28Speaker 01

  at their festival a platform to play live because they don't have the followings online that would really generate, you know, meaningful revenue. And they wanted to connect them to a live audience. And it was so successful that they're going to do a part two next month. So you see these pivots in format. And I think that it really shows the strength of the pent-up demand for gathering. They easily sold out this new format, even though no, you know, probably many people hadn't attended a drive-in concert before. And I think that when you look forward, you look way into the future. So that's the short term. When you look at the long term and you look at history, right? So the last massive pandemic that we faced as a global society, many people are pointing

• 20:12Speaker 01

  back to the 1917, 18 flu pandemic. And what came after that was the roaring twenties.

• 20:19Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  There are several other examples of that where pandemics have given rise to creativity and innovation, to this thirst of life and being together. And the fact that we've been gathering for thousands of years as humans predetermines that we will be back together again. But I also think that it's incumbent upon us as a unifying force globally to understand that it is our business to keep each other safe and that we're unified in this fight to eradicate COVID. And I think that there's something really beautiful in that.

• 20:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I do hope we get the roaring twenties and not the Great Depression and fascism and then the war that followed.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:04Guy Raz?

  That would be nice.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  I conveniently left those parts out.

• 21:08Guy Raz?

  Julia, with respect to virtual events, right, could you somewhat replicate like a conference, for example, virtually? I mean, I don't know that we can approach that intimacy of human-to-human connection virtually. I don't think so, but I don't know. I mean, what do you think?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Well, I think that this time, you know, this pandemic has accelerated many vectors of innovation. And, you know, for us in, you know, our strategy and looking forward to the future of what we do best, we leapfrogged by a few years in terms of that focus. And across the board, in terms of connectivity around the world through video, I think we're going to see just an abundance of innovation that we may have seen, maybe even 20 years from now, happen in the next year. That's exciting. That's the joy and hope amongst the despair and sorrow that we're in.

• 22:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  And I think that one of the first things we need to get right is the intimacy of communication. Because as you know, you know, this is great. We're one-on-one. I can see you. When we did the podcast, I couldn't see you, right? So this is actually an upgrade. But in a one-to-many or in a conference setting where you otherwise would be walking down the hallway and run into someone, see their name badge, have a spontaneous conversation that could literally change your life, I think there's a lot to be done around solving that problem first. I don't personally believe that we will cross the sort of connectivity of feeling other people's energy.

• 22:51Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  I mean, think about the first concert you went to. Can you imagine doing that in a virtual world where, you know, you had those chills and that indelible memory? Probably not. But I do think that we're going to see a lot of problems around communication, accessibility, and connectivity solved in the next 12 months.

• 23:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah. No, it's, I mean, which is super exciting because everything is happening so quickly. This is from Nolan Short, and he asks, you know, you are the CEO of a public company, so you also have to manage shareholder expectations. There's just so many layers of responsibility and challenge that you face as a leader. I mean, what have you kind of learned about managing company finances through this really challenging economic downturn?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Well, when we came into the crisis in the first week or so, you know, I was really, really focused on what we had done in the previous year. Because the decisions that we had made to run the company, to run it responsibly, to preserve the capital that we had raised during our IPO in 2018. All of those decisions mattered a lot in that first week. You know, when you are in crisis management mode and you're in command and control, oftentimes it's really about what you've done in the past. That helps you to springboard into action. And so we really came into this in a strong position.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And as we understood and looked forward to what could be the worst case scenario, it became my job to prepare for that. And it became all of our job. And I was so fortunate to have our board of directors, Sequoia Capital, Rulaf Bofa. I mean, they first funded us in the depths of the recession in 2009.

• 24:36Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  And 10 plus years later, Rulaf was on the phone with Kevin and I, my husband and co-founder, many nights in March and April. And just having those types of people surrounding us mattered a lot. So another thing to think about is who do you have around you? And how do you ensure that you have this wonderful support system in place? When the going goes so tough, nobody could have ever predicted how bad it would be. Right? So that mattered a whole lot.

• 25:09Guy Raz?

  How, I mean, I have to imagine, Julia, I just think it's like a crash course in crisis management and crisis leadership. Right? I mean, this is, you've had to, I mean, you had dealt with the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, but you're a much bigger company now. You're a public company, you're much more visible, and this is a worse crisis, I think. There's no question about it. Just from a leadership perspective, how have you evolved and grown and become better?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Well, I think that, you know, this is the worst crisis that has affected our generation. And there's something unifying in that. So there's this strange comfort in knowing that no one has seen this before in their lifetime. You know, I think as a leader, I've grown a lot and I've grown because I've learned to listen and lean on my team more. And these individuals are incredible. They show resilience every day. Nobody ever has asked, what is in it for me? We've all been focused on the business and our customers. And I've never felt so supported by my team. So I, my gratitude is endless.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  And every day I wake up, I feel the energy and the support of the entire company. And I think that that has taught me to actually be a little less of a lone wolf in my leadership and to, to really slow down. You know, Bridgette Schulze wrote this book, Overwhelmed, and it's one of my favorite.

• 26:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:38Guy Raz?

  She's married to an NPR reporter. Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 26:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  In the family.

• 26:43Guy Raz?

  Tom Bowman, yeah.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So she talked about the plague of busyness and how, you know, research shows that we all hate our lives with on the merry-go-round. We can't get off. We're just always busy, yet we keep leaning in more and grabbing more. And the merry-go-round came to a screeching halt. And I think that for so many people, really allowed this moment of reflection. You know, who am I? And I know that I had amidst the crisis, these moments of going, what was that life? Why were we so busy? Why was it so big? And now my life has been distilled down to family, friends, and Eventbrite. And it feels so powerful because there's a simplicity in it.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  And so I think that the plague of busyness has been displaced by a global pandemic, yes. But my hope is that we as leaders can grow even more so through this complete moment of, of slowing down.

• 27:40Guy Raz?

  One last question before we go. In five years' time, what do you want to take with you from this time and apply to your company and to your business philosophy and your leadership? And what's that one thing that you want to take with you and say, that's what I learned during the pandemic and that's what I want to keep?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you're asking me about five years and I think that we're seeing things that we wouldn't have seen 20 years from now happen today. So I, for one, am taking forth the power of positivity and the possibility of innovation. And as a leader, I hope and really want to be held accountable to five years from now slowing down, not being on the merry-go-round and being transactional about life and really being thoughtful. I think that this time is such a critical time and there's so much suffering in our country and all over the world.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  And my hope for all of us is that we find deeper humanity in the fact that we'll only beat this if we stick together. And so I hope that five years from now, as a global society, we'll feel more connected and in part, we'll feel more connected because we found each other online, but also because we needed to band together to eradicate COVID and to take care of one another.

• 28:59Guy Raz?

  Julia Hartz, co-founder, CEO of Eventbrite. Julia, thank you so much.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Thank you. It was really great to talk to you, Guy.

• 29:05Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Julia Hartz, the founder of Eventbrite. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis and search for videos. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at youtube.com/NPR. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Candace Lim with help from John Isabella, Julia Carney, Gianna Capadona, Niva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and I'll see you here in a few days. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.