Startup Of The Week: TICKETS CLOUD
Tickets Cloud Founder Egor Egerev talks about the project.
Source: Venture Club, published January, 15th 2016:
«TICKETS CLOUD has no rivals anywhere in the world. B2B MARKETPLACE is the business model of the future».
About the Founder:
My name is Egor Egerev. I have been involved in event industry for more than 10 years (in fact, all my professional life). First, I used to promote concerts and parties, next, launched a ticket agent nanobilet.ru, and the latest project is Tickets Cloud — a B2B ticketing MARKETPLACE.

About The Project:
Tickets Cloud is a b2b marketplace connecting event organisers and ticket sellers. In addition, we provide an elaborate set of tools for ticketing from marketing to paperless admission control system.
About The Idea:
When I was promoting events, I wished I had an option to sell e-tickets. Traditional ticket agents wouldn’t sell them. I wanted to be able to sell e-tickets, I wanted to have access to sales analytics and other tools nobody would provide at that time. So I created my own project, nanobilet.ru.
When the first project was launched, I realized that the market needed more than that. It was an old-school b2b market with ticket agents looking for the events to sell and event promoters looking for ticket agents. And there was no platform to bring the two parties together. Everybody had to look for partners on their own and sign tons of papers for every deal. Everybody would use different software, event organisers would not have access to their own sales analytics, hence would not be able to efficiently promote their events or set pricing correctly. In other words, all market participants had to manually perform a lot of similar actions to collaborate. A technological solution to optimize this process was necessary.

This is how an idea to launch Tickets Cloud was born. A marketplace, that would establish unified rules, where all market participants would only have to sign only one agreement and could use the same software. Even at the very start I knew this idea would change the market and it should be done as soon as possible. In February 2014 we made a decision to write the code for a platform that would bring this new business model to life. In November 2014 we welcomed the first clients and celebrated the first ticket sales.
About The Difficulties:
At first, all the difficulties originated from my lack of understanding of venture capital market and what the right strategy to finance the development of a project with such a long term potential should be. The first investment I got was non-core, and in-spite of the project’s success at launch, it was too optimistic to expect it to reach self-sufficiency in a year. I got into debts and bank loans and went on developing the project.
I was absolutely sure the market needed my project. Building a team, convinced people to work for options, often I was left working on my own. It was exactly at this moment when my project made it to the 25 best startup teams in Russia. When financial situation reached its critical point, I was lucky to receive a core angel investment.

The next step was to start sales and connect market participants the platform that was based on a totally different business model than the one they were used to. It was a difficult, but fascinating process. Some people would understand the potential and benefits of the project for the market on their own, others required some efforts to be convinced. Some people are still a bit too careful, understanding too well that our solution is going to drastically change the market and rules of the game.
Now we’ve reached a new stage: having outgrown a startup and transforming into a serious company, fast growth requiring constant changes of business processes. The main task at this point is providing fast growth and formalizing business processes keeping our flexibility.
Current Situation:
There are more than 300 partners at the marketplace.
Our revenue comes from all transactions commission. At this point it already covers the costs of sales department and a part of development. We are currently scaling the sales department and working on customer service.
We’ve developed a unique product that requires a unique system, helping our clients make the most of the platform: training, support, problem solving, gathering feedback for product development. Our revenue depends on how successful our partners are. We are also working on three new products that will help our partners increase sales and provide us with an additional income source. As for investment, we are going through a post-Seed $500K round, in which our current shareholders take part among others, having closed $200K. Invest now on VentureClub.ru
Investment Goals:
The current round of investment will enable us:
- To scale the business model that has already proved to be successful in Russia and reach self-sufficiency;
- Launch several new products that would help the platform users optimize marketing and increase our margin;
- Test several ideas in other countries and expand the business beyond Russian borders.
About The Development:
Tickets Cloud has no rivals anywhere in the world, the b2b marketplace is the business model of the future.
More and more market participants understand that what we have to offer is beneficial for the market. Our goal is to develop Tickets Cloud into the main ticketing platform in Russia and beyond, complete the development of all the tools we are working on, that will enable the use of data being accumulated in the system and launch the product on the global market.
Source: Venture Club
Originally published at blog.ticketscloud.org on January 18, 2016.