And now, let’s talk business (and numbers)

As our core business and value proposition is centered around transparency, we want to provide some insights and address the often brought up topic of the projected 1 million tickets sold in 2019.

To go forward, we must go back

Let’s start with a quick recap. In January 2018, the projection for a million tickets sold through GUTS Tickets was first made in this blog, as part of the Q&A section.

Here’s the excerpt:

This projection has been reiterated several times since, as more and more artists started using GUTS and our mainstream adoption was showing exponential promise. The demand for honest ticketing was -and still is- undeniable, as any artist or fan will tell you. Our focus on establishing a solid foothold in the theater market, while further improving and battle-testing our system, is still growing. Hence this early projection was a manageable milestone to work towards. Besides, it was also a great point on the horizon that matched our ambition and growing real-life traction, of which there has already been quite a lot.

Nevertheless, we were too optimistic. It is likely that GUTS Tickets will not reach the 1 million ticket goal set for 2019.

A ‘not-very-brief’ analysis of the changed projection

We‘d like to show you some insights into our business development progress and findings to date. But before we do so, it is important to say first that we don’t place the blame for the missed target on anyone but ourselves. As we grow and discover more about the business we are in every day, we are also learning some lessons through experience.

With the current crypto market still being dominated by projects that thrive off of false hype and immature business conduct, it is important to us that we stand out by remaining honest and transparent. This is how we’ve done it before and how we will continue to do it.

We are in it for the long run, which means we have to continuously check whether our ongoing activities in every department match the long-term vision and roadmap.

I’ll address two big factors for the less-than-hoped-for sales numbers and hopefully provide some insights, followed by an explanation of how we have adjusted our strategy accordingly. “Adjusted” is written in past tense, as we are already well underway with this new approach, as seen by the ITIX news and also explained in more detail in the text to come.

What might be important to state again, is the fact that this is an adjustment projection made quite some time ago, due to changes in timing. It does not mean there are less deals on the table, it is actually quite the contrary.

Factor 1: Surprisingly long sales cycles

It’s no surprise we had a fantastic start, with loads of exposure in mainstream media and heaps of potential leads, delivered in large part by our three ambassadors Jochem, Youp and Guus.

Our initial ambassadors talking about GUTS Tickets

Having these well-respected artists as the faces of our system made it possible for us to ticket hundreds of events in venues throughout the country. This was extremely beneficial for the development of our system, as it gave us the chance to finetune our service by actually selling thousands upon thousands of tickets to real people with real demands.

Being a real, relevant ticketing company and continuously selling loads of tickets for a variety of events requires you to be solid across the board. It’s not a matter of adding a ‘buy’ button to your website and then waiting for the money to come in.

You need to have a robust support system to help ticket holders with their wishes and concerns 24/7.

You need to have a dynamic and efficient team of developers that can juggle last-minute client demands, as well as keep the focus and ambition to create innovative features.

Last but not least, you need to actually develop and run a one-of-a-kind, ticketing system that is so reliable that venues, artists and managements are willing to trust their entire revenue streams to it.

We have all of these things.

A recent team picture, showing a happy mix of developers, sales, support, scanning, community managers, founders, etcetera.

With our current, active ticketing system -and not counting the additional innovative features we are currently building- we are a serious player within the ticketing market. Not the blockchain ticketing market; the ticketing market in general.

On both technical aspects and user experience, we match or trump the current ticketing systems out there. (Not to mention our honest ticketing features and proposition that protects ticket buyers and event organizers from the perils of fraud and dishonest reselling.)

Please excuse the moment of bragging, but it’s important to also state where we stand within the bigger picture, as this directly relates to what we have to offer to our prospective clients and our future approach to business development.

It’s also why we are surprised by the lack of speed we’ve encountered during sales cycles. We are fully aware deals aren’t closed over one cup of coffee, but the time it is taking to go from an initial introduction to actually selling tickets for artists/venues/agencies (especially those who are more than willing to work with us) is much longer than expected.

In all fairness this can probably be chalked up in part to our own naivety with regards to how long these things take. Our excitement for our features and their benefits makes our fingers itch to put our system to work and sell all the tickets in the world right now. In reality, there are many time-consuming factors at play during the cycles of acquisitions. A few examples:

Existing contracts

We’ve encountered venues with ongoing contracts with ticketing companies that range in length anywhere between 2 and 15 years. Breaking open these contracts is nearly impossible for venues or artists, even if they are unhappy with their current ticketing system. We have had countless talks with parties who are more than interested, but simply can not make the switch at this point. Thus, these leads require some patience.

We’ve encountered venues with ongoing contracts with ticketing companies that range in length anywhere between 2 and 15 years. Breaking open these contracts is nearly impossible for venues or artists, even if they are unhappy with their current ticketing system. We have had countless talks with parties who are more than interested, but simply can not make the switch at this point. Thus, these leads require some patience. Extensive technical overhaul

Especially for larger venues — stadiums and the like — committing to a new ticketing system can require a lot of man hours and restructuring. It is simply not something to be taken lightly, as it impacts a lot of layers within the company. In some cases, where venues have not been set up very future-proof, it can mean a complete overhaul on their technical system, requiring significant restructuring in the way their business works.

These parties usually do see the necessity of making their ticketing honest (besides usually being very impressed with features such as direct communication), but have to incorporate this into their multi-year strategy and carefully find a way to integrate this. Often this requires successfully conducted pilots and many more assurances.

Especially for larger venues — stadiums and the like — committing to a new ticketing system can require a lot of man hours and restructuring. It is simply not something to be taken lightly, as it impacts a lot of layers within the company. In some cases, where venues have not been set up very future-proof, it can mean a complete overhaul on their technical system, requiring significant restructuring in the way their business works. These parties usually do see the necessity of making their ticketing honest (besides usually being very impressed with features such as direct communication), but have to incorporate this into their multi-year strategy and carefully find a way to integrate this. Often this requires successfully conducted pilots and many more assurances. Fear of innovation

For some of the ‘old dogs’ in the business, change is sometimes seen as a threat. They’ve always done things the old way, and either don’t see the benefit of renewal, or simply would rather not deal with the hassle themselves.

The first examples above are completely understandable, and something we will simply have to work with. The last point is something that we take issue with. We refuse to accept the unsubstantiated reluctance to commit to changes that benefit practically everyone. This Jochem Myjer tweet from last month is directly in line with our own sentiment on the matter.

Translation:

“Weird how some theaters still don’t get how great GUTS is. They are afraid of change. It’s easier for the audience. For artists there is no more reselling. And there are maaaany other advantages. #Gowiththetimes ”

It is remarkable to see the friction and resistance that certain parties still have when it comes to implementing a system that guarantees true transparency and drastically improves a major source of frustration and loss of money. Fear of innovation is hurting consumers and can seriously harm the future of certain venues — especially in the theater sector — where the average age of attendees is very high and the demands from the visitors of the future are being ignored.

Honest ticketing is coming one way or the other, whether those people who are against it agree or not. Unfortunately, in some cases our appeals and suggestions for an honest system falls on deaf ears. This is where you can make a major difference.

If more and more consumers let venue employees and event organizers know that they want — and need — a better ticketing system that protects them, the message will start to resonate. Public demands from consumers (like on social media) are extremely valuable and have more impact than you might think. So please, make your voice heard! We will keep up our part and always find new ways to present our message and change the world of ticketing for the better.

Let’s speed things up!

Factor 2: Niche demands from theaters

We have been in serious talks with dozens of theaters about integrating our system. Besides the obvious element of honest ticketing, using our digital tickets would provide plenty of incredibly valuable benefits. Things like direct communication with all ticket holders, major marketing opportunities thanks to 100% relevant data and custom referral options. Especially for the rapidly aging theater markets, GUTS has some great features that speak to the audiences of the future and provide valuable tools for business continuity.

These features have not always proven to be enough for theaters, as many have presented their own lists of demands for features they would like to have upon integration. This has resulted in endless lists of venue-specific edgecase-features that would take years to fully complete.

Building in the right direction

Please don’t see this as complaining. Clients are clients, and updating entire systems that visitors, employees and managements have been using for years requires a lot of flexibility from both sides. That’s a given.

What’s more, if we really wanted to service these prospects, we could. It would, however, mean that we devote all of our development resources to delivering a wide range of venue-specific features (things like allergy notifications for the restaurant next door) and fully commit ourselves to the theater sector. It would also mean that we would have to put all larger leads on hold, stop working on improving our system to be applicable for bigger and different events, and just do slight variations of the same thing over and over.

It would probably also mean that we’d end up losing all joy and ambition for what we do.

We have a global mission as a digital ticketing company — meaning that we we are building for scale — and every step we take should fit within this bigger picture.

With our initial artists and ambassadors, we were somewhat forced to tackle the most tricky vertical, theaters, first. We knew this was going to be a challenge, but as mentioned above, we were still surprised by the level of friction we encountered.

This is why GUTS will not be focussing on servicing theaters directly, but rather servicing artists — at whichever venue they perform.

This does not mean that we’ll turn our back on ticketing theater venues or shows. It simply means we are choosing to go bigger, as was planned for this stage in our existence.