With more than $400 million in projected gross sales for 2011, Eventbrite is getting big enough that it has to worry about fending off the criminals. In the above clip of Founder Stories with Chris Dixon, Julia Hartz discusses Eventbrites’ digital shield, while her partner in crime Kevin Hartz describes a new box-office iPad app the ticketing site recently rolled out.
Speaking to theft, the majority of illegal activity on Eventbrite is not from thieves purchasing tickets with stolen cards says Julia, rather the real issue is entirely different. She says “we are a self service platform and anybody can create an event and you know that presents an opportunity for fraudsters to run credit cards through our system.” To combat the issue of crime, Eventbrite has created its own in-house security team, which Julia calls “a competitive advantage.”
With one team locking down fraud, another team locks down mobile sales. In the back end of the clip, Kevin Hartz discusses their new feature, “Eventbrite at the Door” an iPad app that was roughly a year in development and provides convenience by allowing event organizers to “collect money at the door, swipe credit cards, collect cash and really tie the two systems together.”
In the exchange below, the husband and wife team discuss, well, being a husband and wife team. Says Juila, “We learned a really valuable lesson early on from Michael and Xochi Burch who funded Bebo … they said divide and conquer, never work on the same project at the same time. We have actually followed that to a tee for the last five years.”
The two go on to discuss hiring based on IQ vs. EQ, their long range plans for Eventbrite (their exit strategy is “when we die”) and offer advice to rising entrepreneurs.
Make sure to watch episodes I and II of Chris Dixon’s interview with Eventbrite.
And, be sure to check out past interviews of Founder Stories.