Julie Hartz is an American entrepreneur, and investor, known as the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global ticketing and event technology platform.
Early life and education
Julia Hartz was born on November 20, 1979, and raised in Santa Cruz, California. Hartz lives in San Francisco with husband, Kevin Hartz and two daughters. She is an American entrepreneur, investor and co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. Eventbrite is a worldwide ticketing and event technology platform. Hartz holds a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunication from Pepperdine University in 2001.
Career
Hartz started her career as a development executive at MTV after studying communication and broadcast journalism, where she provided to the Jackass TV series from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she helped administer shows including The Shield, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck and 30 Days at FX Networks. Then in January 2006, Hartz co-founded Eventbrite with then-fiancé, Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage.
They bootstrapped the company for the first two years and didn’t much contemplate of contracting until their 4th year. Hartz and her co-founders envisaged democratizing ticketing when they started Eventbrite 10 years ago. The ticketing industry back in 2006 did not continuously bring a warm fuzzy feeling to consumers. High fees, bad encounters when trying to get a ticket, and overall lack of innovation meant that the ticketing was ready for disruption.
With the proper technology and platform in place, Eventbrite has effectively generated a better experience for both tickets sellers and buyers. The company has spent beyond the life-cycle of ticketing. Under Hartz’ supervision and with over 500 staffs in nine offices worldwide, company culture is integral.
Eventbrite obtained spots on Fortune’s 100 Best Workplaces for Women and for Millennials and has been voted one of the Best Places to Work in the San Francisco Bay Area for nine consecutive years. Hartz has been respected as one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 business leaders, Inc.’s 35 under 35, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, and has been characterized in top publications.
In April 2016, Kevin Hartz stepped down from his CEO duties, taking a temporary medical leave and handing over to his wife, Julia Hartz the office of the CEO. Hartz was then appointed as the new CEO and became a member of Eventbrite Board of Directors.
Other investments
Julia Hartz is also an investor in Chairish, Minted, Playa Capital Company, Tamara Mellon and Color Genomics. Hartz showed on the cover of Forbes Magazine in 2014, in a feature of Sequoia Capital’s founding stars. She works on the Board of directors of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and in San Francisco, the University of California’s Board of overseers.
The San Francisco-based Eventbrite powered over 2 million events a year and has processed over $5 billion in gross tickets sales since it was launched a decade ago. Hartz seized the reigns at a critical time. In late 2014, the company determined to reach profitability by the end of 2016. The company has focused on a distributed commerce strategy to help her deliver her promise.
Eventbrite customers include the Tribeca Film Festival, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, the Maker Faire, and many more. The company produces money by charging organizers – not buyers – a cutback of each ticket sold.
In 2018, The Aspen Institute also acknowledged Hartz as one of the 2018 Class of Henry Crown Fellows. She often talks on the subject of building and scaling a global business, entrepreneurship, and the power of human connection through live occurrences. Hartz also imparts her intuition on Eventbrite’s business, building a sustainable and evolving company culture, leading with empathy, empowering millennials, and the leadership in general.
Hartz was interviewed by Reid Hoffman on the Masters of Scale podcast, where she talked about how listening to customer’s feedback and maniacally following customers helped her to catapult Eventbrite forward.
IPO
Eventbrite went public in a much-anticipated IPO in September 2018. The stock debuted at a share price of $23 and immediately shot up. Today it’s around $30, with Eventbrite closing in on $300 million of annual sales. This makes Julia Hartz as one of the very few female CEOs to lead a successful tech IPO.
Under Hartz’ leadership, workplace performance and company culture have remained an integral part of Eventbrite, which now has over 700 global employees with offices in 12 different countries. She has established time and time again that no challenge is too great or goal unachievable. Her commitment to empowering others has ensured that Eventbrite’s culture of inclusivity remains an emblematic facet of the company as it scales. A persistent advocate for diversity in tech, she has steered both Eventbrite’s executive team and board to directors to reach a 50/50 gender split, a balance Hartz believes has been a significant asset to both her rise and the company’s success.