How I Met My Co-Founder
What I learned from meeting the Co-Founder of TicketManager back in 2005
StubHub was a wild ride. And one I'll detail after we're done with our very public court case with them. But for today, we'll talk about how I met my co-founder while working there and what I learned about hiring a team in the process.
In 2006, Corporate Sales at StubHub was booming. I'd been in charge of the southwest market - basically everything Southern California, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico while working from an office in downtown LA.
We had created an algorithm to pull hot leads from the customer database and were introducing StubHub to companies everywhere. I'll go into a lot more detail about how this all happened in the near future… It's a unique story of luck and divine help.
At the time:
I had way too many leads to call
I was making a lot of money for a 25-year-old kid
I couldn't keep up even working a minimum of 7 am to 7 pm every day
StubHub was small. It was the mid-2000s, so tickets were not electronic yet. This meant anyone buying tickets to an event within two days of a game would have to go to a StubHub office in downtown Los Angeles. There were a handful of people working out of the office, most of whom worked later hours to support game days (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.).
I was lonely working at home so Gary, the regional lead in charge of the office, gave me an office which I'd go to quite often.
One of the team members, Aric Haut, would come in early sometimes. He'd ask questions about my job and was interested in sales due in part to how much money I was making - much more than a 25-year-old should have been making (there's a why behind it, which I'll share another time.)
One day, Aric asked if there was a chance he could get a job in sales. It was a great idea. I needed someone inexpensive to call all the good leads I had.
I had been obliterating my quotas and setting new sales records daily so I felt I had the political capital to ask the boss if I could hire him.
Nope. No budget and he's too valuable to last-minute services, which was already short-staffed.
I broke the news to Aric.
He suggested something else.
His hours were 11 am to 9 pm. What if he came in early, really early, and made calls? He could work from 6 to 11 am calling all the leads in Texas and the Midwest and I would give him half the commission on any deal. No salary or anything. Just commissions from me.
We spent the first few months getting up really early, cranking crappy music and slamming caffeine. I would sell from 6 am to 7 pm and was wiped. He would stay at least two hours more. When I wasn’t on the road, we sat at the same desk in the little office with no windows in the Cal National Bank building in downtown LA. We’d take a short lunch break to walk to Subway, but that was about it. He was in the office even when I was out meeting clients.
By month three, he was the number two sales rep in the company. Only he wasn’t even really a rep. He was even visiting customers out of town on his own dime!
When I laid out what we were doing to my boss Colin, he started and moved a quick process to get Aric to sales, where we worked together until late 2007 when we decided to break off and start TicketManager
Three lessons I learned from the experience:
The best partners I've had really will do whatever it takes when they get a chance.
I’m at a wedding today in Denver of one of our long-time team members, Peter. When I met Peter, we were interviewing him for an entry-level sales job. Only he had no sales experience and was working as a bar back at Barney’s Beanery. At the end of the interview, I’ll never forget the way he said to me. “Just give me a chance.” he meant it.
He was going to do whatever it took. Like Aric. We hired him and it’s been a wildly successful partnership.
The best partners I've had are self-motivated to do all the small things right - even the little things I don’t see.
We’ve got a teammate here at TicketManager who ascribes to the “lights” mentality. Has since the day he got here. Meaning he turns them in when he gets to the office and turns them off when he leaves. First one in, last one out.
Aric was the same way. He was self-motivated.
All the best ones have been. Lights has jumped the line and is leading a rather large and important team for us.The best partners I've worked with don't wait for their chance, they make it.
Aric saw something he wanted and he went and did it. He didn’t wait for anyone else and he didn’t accept no when Colin told me I couldn't hire him.
Our executive team is full of stories like Aric’s. My journey at StubHub was the same way.
I learned that when I see something, it’s best to move fast and commit. Aric did when he was 21 years old and jumped the line by ten years. I had the same experience at StubHub. Texas wasn’t even my region, and we were trying to hire someone there. But nobody was calling it, so I came in early and called it for months before Aric joined. It got me promoted multiple times.
Our head of people ops created the job. She didn't wait for anyone else, just took the responsibility on and is the heart and soul of our company now.If I come across great people at work, I'm going to try to get them on my team wherever I go. Whether they're co-workers, vendors, or customers.
Work friends and life friends are different. We all have personal friends we love, but we’d never hire.
Finding a co-founder we’ve already worked closely with made the transition really easy. Aric and I then recruited Joe, who we’d also worked with, which was helpful through the early years.
We have multiple vendors, former customers, and people we’ve done business with working on our team in important roles. Working with someone has been a terrific window into finding great teammates for us.
One day, we sat down at a desk at 6 a.m. and tried something. What happened next changed a lot of lives.
What a ride.