Building a Secondary Ticketing Business From Spain: Ander Michelena, CEO of Ticketbis (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The numbers you are quoting are amazing. Even in India, you cannot get a great engineer for $25,000.

Ander Michelena: You can get very good talent at a cheaper rate. That is one of our main competitive advantages. We are almost more than 300 people in the company at this point. Most of the team is based in Spain where the salary cost is under control. We fight against some American players but their cost base is much higher. That gives us an advantage.

Sramana Mitra: What were the milestones that you accomplished with your Series A financing?

Ander Michelena: We launched the website with our money in January 2010. The money was raised in July 2009. With that first round, we obtained revenues of one million euros. The model was working quite fast and quite well actually.

Sramana Mitra: How did you do that? What was your customer acquisition strategy that got you to a million euros right away?

Ander Michelena: It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. We identified the model that was needed in a country that nobody was playing.

Sramana Mitra: How did you get that word out? Was it more PR or did you run advertising?

Ander Michelena: No, it was more SEO strategies, even now. To play in the branding arena, you need to influence a big chunk of the market with big budgets. We have been a company that has a low budget. We have been able to create the company in 30 countries doing more than €50 million euros on a year on year basis. We never overspend. We always have been very focused on expanding. We never spent on brand. Now is a point where we can start spending on branding.

Sramana Mitra: That’s fantastic. Let’s talk through that a bit. With the first year, you did a million euro. How many people on the team did you have at that point?

Ander Michelena: At that point, we were 10 to 11.

Sramana Mitra: That’s by the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011.

Ander Michelena: Correct.

Sramana Mitra: Did you raise money again after that?

Ander Michelena: Yes, we did a second round. The second round was another million euros. With that money, we were able to launch in other countries. We launched to four other countries: Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Brazil. There wasn’t any players playing in this market. There was a need for a platform to offer a safe way to buy and sell tickets.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building a Secondary Ticketing Business From Spain: Ander Michelena, CEO of Ticketbis
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