Tixel’s the Name, and Ticket Re-selling is the Game
Let’s set the scene...
Spice Girls have just reunited and are only playing a handful of shows globally. You’ve been one of their biggest fans FOREVER. And they announce they will be coming to Melbourne in six months.
You wait with baited breath for weeks until the tickets go live on site. The night comes. So you sit at your computer frantically refreshing the ticket page... and boom! As soon as the page goes live, all of the tickets sell out and you miss your only ever chance to see your idols.
Between the uncontrollable sobs, you try to figure out what to do next. Because you NEED TO SEE THE SPICE GIRLS. Or your life won’t be complete.
So you start trawling Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace. Eventually you find someone who’s selling their ticket for 3x what they paid, but it doesn’t matter. Getting to the gig is all that matters at this point.
The night finally arrives. You and your besties are lining up for the concert in your 90’s fan merch ready and raring to go. You get to the front and all of your friends get their tickets scanned and pass through the gate. Finally it’s your turn. The security guard scans your ticket and pauses… “excuse me, can you please step to the side?”. ACCESS DENIED!
It turns out you got scammed. You paid 3x market price for a fake ticket.
The thing is, you’re not alone. This happens to millions of people every year, globally.
How many people? Well no-one knows exactly, but ticket fraud is estimated to be up to 25% of global resale tickets. With an Australian resale market of $200m, and a US resell market of $10B dollars annually.
This makes safe ticket resale a big problem, and a big opportunity.
Australian startup Tixel’s co-founders Zac Leigh, Jason Webb and Denis Mysenko knew the problem all too well - having been left standing outside a concert with a fake ticket. They launched Tixel as a one stop solution to safe and convenient ticket resale. With all uploaded tickets scanned, the platform guarantees zero ticket fraud.
‘We’re all about helping fans and musicians keep the industry fair and free from scammers. We’ve worked out a way to automatically remove fake tickets and keep ticket re-sales capped at 20% above the original purchase price so that fans are guaranteed to get a real ticket at a fair price.’ says Zac, Tixel’s CEO.
But tixel isn’t just about creating a safe and fair way of buying and selling resale tickets, it’s also a resale ticket marketplace. Making it easier than ever to find tickets to sold out shows.
Tixel have only been operating for less than a year and have already made some solid progress. Since launching, they have seen more than$500k of tickets bought and sold through their platform, and are estimated to see $3.5m of ticket resales go through their platform this summer in Australia alone.
But their reach doesn’t stop in Australia. The nature of Tixel’s platform means that they can scale globally. And not surprisingly they are already seeing ticket sales through their platforms in the US and Germany without any paid marketing.
And large scale ticketing and event partners are already catching on. Tixel has already locked in an official partnership with global ticketing giant, Eventbrite.
So what’s next? Tixel has just finished up at the Collider Accelerator in Brisbane, and are now coming through with the 2018 Generator Accelerator cohort run by Monash University. Their focus during The Generator Accelerator program is to raise a seed round of $500k as part of their strategy to scale.
Is it a sure bet that Tixel are going to reach ticket resale market dominance in Australia and the US? Well nothing’s a sure bet. But their current traction and platform puts them ahead of the pack.
Here’s the team behind Tixel:
Zac Leigh - CEO
Zac Monash University Alumni, having finished a BA Engineering and Commerce in 2012.
What advice would you give any founder who gets knocked back from an accelerator?
- “Find out what was holding you back and try to fill in the gaps. Take onboard the advice and learn from the experience - then try again!”
What’s the most important thing you’ve ever learnt?
- “How to learn from people who know better than me.”
Find Zac on LinkedIn HERE.
Jason Webb - COO
Jason Monash University Alumni, having finished a BA Commerce in 2010.
What’s the most important thing you’ve ever learnt?
- "To give back as much as you get - karma!"
What advice would you give someone who has an idea but doesn’t know where to start?
- "Get the most basic version of your idea in the hands of you customers and see how they use it"
Find Jason on LinkedIn HERE.
DENIS MYSENKO - CTO
Has been developing software and leading developers for the past 15 years in 5 different countries.
Find Denis on LinkedIn HERE.