Goldstar

Startup #1: Goldstar It is the world’s largest online seller of half-price tickets to a broad range of live entertainment.

How’d they do it?Starting with $1000 ($800 being paid to the state) Rich Webster, Jim McCarthy, and Robert Graff noticed something wrong with the ticketing business.

Venues were giving away tickets for free to shows that were unsellable. Instead of being able to fill up a show, venues found themselves with a lot of unwanted seats. The trio quickly realized that it was a lose-lose situation for both the consumers and the venues, and decided to take action. “No venue wants to be told that their product is worthless, and no customer wants to go see a show that’s unsellable,”  said Robert Graff.

In October of 2001, Webster, McCarthy, and Graff decided to do just that and GoldStar was born. They were able to get the company off of the ground by focusing on their solution for popular undersold shows.

Already disenchanted with the waste of funds and inefficiency caused by accepting VC investments they’d seen at another Startup, the trio decided against seeking any outside funding. “We purposefully didn’t want anyone else’s money because we didn’t want their advice” said Graff.

Today, Goldstar works directly with 4,000 venue partners to connect them with their huge and growing audience. Venues list tickets with Goldstar to sell to their members for a discounted price. The company has over 1.5 million subscribers and offers over 900 tickets to events at one time.

Here is the link to their website: Goldstar International Express Couriers :: Providing a full range of ...