How we restarted our company in two weeks during Y Combinator

Your h1 is not closed (the closing tag is in the comment). IE is rendering the whole page in red caps. It is throwing a bunch of script errors as well.

There are 32 other errors as well: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.eventjoy...

Pxtl2• 12 years ago

RED ALLCAPS.

iancarroll• 12 years ago

Thanks.

Pxtl2• 12 years ago

Oh, thank goodness. I was worried it was some bizarre stylistic fad and not just an unclosed tag.

hol• 12 years ago

Great story! Amazing what you can achieve in such a short space of time if you're focused and dedicated.

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

Agreed. Going through YC helped us remove all distractions. Beyond that, we just consumed a lot of caffeine.

keithwarren5• 12 years ago

I am curious why the focus went to ticketing and registration instead of back office systems, seems ticketing and reg are already solved problems?

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

1) Existing/new organizers loved the idea of going mobile for their events, but they didn't want to manage another platform. 2) Users were asking us if we could handle ticketing/reg. as well. 3) We now have an opportunity to make mobile engagement seamless for attendees the moment they check into an event.

There are other things as well, but these were the top three.

hpagey• 12 years ago

How do you plan to prevent event organizer churn? Since each event's data like scheduling, speaker list, sessions change from year to year, there is no real incentive for organizers to keep coming back to your platform.

keithwarren5• 12 years ago

Do you think the focus positions you better for new smaller scale events or getting access to larger events? I ask because it seems like the real value in this space would be taking down active.com and high volume high frequency events like 5K races etc.

wakeless2• 12 years ago

As someone who is working in this space with a reasonably unsexy product, I'm a believer that back-office is where it's all at.

redstripe• 12 years ago

Sorry, what is meant by back office?

keithwarren5• 12 years ago

I agree. I have a customer who is an event management firm and the complexity and size of their events (long running events that last over several days) makes the operational side of running the event the biggest challenge.

b2themax2• 12 years ago

Thanks a lot. This helps me think I am on the right track with outsourcing the non critical(non dev) aspects of my startup. I was under the false impression before that a startup consisted of doing the all aspects of the work by myself.

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

We've generally been very resistant to outsourcing anything and this is the first time we've ever done it. It didn't come out flawlessly (we had to tweak a lot), but it paid off so we could launch quicker.

b2themax2• 12 years ago

It seems like it worked out very well for you.

bdcravens2• 12 years ago

Nice writeup, but what's up with that bottom photo? I'm looking at the redchair in front of the unoccupied MacBook. If I had to work like that, I'd quit so fast I'd create a Superman 1 style reversal of the space time continuum and bump into myself on the way out the door.

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

We had three team members working on this and only two good chairs, so we rotated. What you can't see is that we have two couches around the work area.

bdcravens2• 12 years ago

I'm thinking a $100 chair from Office Depot would be a good idea. (I'm an independent working from home, and I recently bought an Aeron, out of my own pocket) I get the whole long hours, bare bones startup incubator thing, but just like we often use MacBooks instead of $249 WalMart specials, seating isn't an area to skimp on! :-) (as for the couch, I think I couldn't do that for long as an alternative - my MBP Retina gets way too hot for that)

sithu• 12 years ago

Todd, thanks for sharing your personal experiences. Really nice writeup and interesting details. All the best!

jonathanmarvens• 12 years ago

LOL ... I totally agree.

pbreit• 12 years ago

I guess eventbrite.com wasn't available...

namenotrequired2• 12 years ago

Great job on the relaunch and rebranding, and on the blog as well! Thanks for sharing.

Just so you know, I had a few minor issues on the blog:

- None of the images are visible.

- I think a word and period are missing at the end of this line:

Todd, one of the Eventjoy co-founders, began the design for the new web product and necessary updates to our existing

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

Thanks for catching that, turns out I cut off two words :x

Images are working fine on our end. What browser?

namenotrequired2• 12 years ago

I use (webkit-based) Epic, but on Firefox and Chrome it's working fine so I guess you don't need to worry! Sorry for the false alarm :)

uiri• 12 years ago

They're not showing up for me in Firefox 27 on Mac OS X. If I remove the amazon part of the URL (leaving the domain as cdn.eventjoy.com) and use http instead of https, the image loads. On HTTPS, an Amazon certificate shows up and Amazon is sending some weird redirect XML.

callmeed• 12 years ago

we had to announce our name change in an upcoming edition of a local newspaper. Yes, it’s exactly like it sounds.

I don't think this is out of the ordinary (in the US). My understanding is that printed fictitious name filings are required in most places when you do business as a name other than your personal name or corporate entity name.

If your town has a weekly alt newspaper, it's usually pretty easy to go through them (and usually < $100).

seancoleman• 12 years ago

It is very common (I've filed over a dozen articles of organization and incorporation across 3 states) but clearly an archaic, inefficient means of announcing a business name establishment. There are "newspapers" in Arizona dedicated entirely to publishing these announcements. It seems like a racket, becoming a recommended vendor to provide a service for a legal requirement in an obsolete way.

samstave2• 12 years ago

Automate the setup of all your events!

FB, TWITTER, TICKETS! WALLS!!!

Enter eventomator.com!!

samstave2• 12 years ago

I was trying to illustrate that eventomator.com was available....

sthatipamala• 12 years ago

I expected some minor design tweaks but everything changed. Amazing work for 2 weeks.

I like how you guys offloaded as much unnecessary work as possible (e.g. blog hosting, Tumblr theme, email template).

jesusx• 12 years ago

the like and follow buttons in https://www.eventjoy.com/organizing/ overlap each other

Chrome 33 on Mac OS X

cclogg• 12 years ago

"the .com was owned by a domain broker in South Korea. Within five minutes we emailed the broker asking for a price. A few hours later we had a price and quickly countered, which ultimately resulted in a low four-figure deal we accepted."

-> On an unrelated note, it seems like buying up a bunch of well-named domains 20 years ago would have been a smart thing to do lol (if you just wanted money). But I guess that's like owning real-estate in a way.

chrsstrm5• 12 years ago

Just the other day I emailed the owner of a name I wanted. 17 years registered and it had never been used, the guy wanted 5 figures for it for no other reason than that's the price he paid for it. I countered with a more reasonable offer and didn't hear back from him, so the next day I bought the same name with a different TLD, for $35. I feel like at one point having that coveted .com was a priority for any business that wanted to be taken seriously, but today that just doesn't seem like the case anymore thanks to marketing mediums that use links instead of catchy names. Did I want the .com? Sure. Did I absolutely need it? Not at all. If my venture becomes successful down the road then maybe I'll inquire about the .com again and have more leverage to negotiate, but I'm not losing sleep over it until then.

meowface2• 12 years ago

5 figures? Damn. How many characters was it, if I might ask?

simonw• 12 years ago

"If my venture becomes successful down the road then maybe I'll inquire about the .com again and have more leverage to negotiate."

If you do that, you'll find yourself with a lot LESS leverage. What's to stop the owner of the .com from saying "Now that you've established a brand on that name, the price is four times higher"?

lumpypua2• 12 years ago

Out of curiosity, what CMS did you use for your help center? My startup is hitting exactly the point where we're getting common questions and need an FAQ.

tgoldberg12• 12 years ago

Zendesk. They even have a startup program where you can get some months for free. You might have to search around to find it.

lumpypua2• 12 years ago

Sick, thanks!

joelrunyon2• 12 years ago

Is it me or is every YC company coming out with "joy" as the second part of their name?

* ridejoy

* homejoy

* eventjoy

jonnybgood• 12 years ago

A startup culture meme. There'll be another hip suffix (or prefix) in due time.

Honest question, does this meme provide any actual benefits? Wouldn't it cause confusion of your brand?

skndr• 12 years ago

It's a simple solution if you don't want to spend a lot of time on a name. It means you can get back to providing an amazing service or product all that much quicker.

joelrunyon2• 12 years ago

I don't know - I always think it's funny choice of words. I like homejoy a lot actually - but I don't know if they've caused me to feel "joy."

That said - nicely done on such a fast turnaround.

gfodor• 12 years ago

Worse than this is the use of the word "delight" to describe UI. I cringe every time.

zosegal• 12 years ago

It's short, memorable, and evokes positive emotion.

Pacabel• 12 years ago

Such names become much less memorable once there are numerous ones that share the same format.

It can rapidly get to the point where people remember that the name has an -ify or -ly or -joy suffix, but can't remember what the root word was.

zefi• 12 years ago

3 out of 600+ is not every.

kimonos• 12 years ago

Great post! Keep it up!

AdamFernandez• 12 years ago

I'm just curious about the reason for this, but I notice a lot of startup's (especially from Y Combinator) tagline is 'The easiest/best/fastest way to x'. Should there be more originality here, or has it tested so successfully that it is recommended for everyone? (I am genuinely asking if there is data to support this, and am not being critical of eventjoy)

larrys4• 12 years ago

While there could very well be something to back this up it could also be similar to the "Netscape Now" button that was very common back in the mid to late 90's. People doing it in other words because they are merely copying what others do. I think this is probably more common with startups because young people who do startups aren't aware of anything fresh out of school and are certainly more likely to mimic what they see others do. "Oh ok so we get a ping pong table".

ghc• 12 years ago

Non sequitur, but...

Seeing that whiteboard, after constantly feeling ashamed of my whiteboard writing next to that of my team members, I am just overjoyed to see whiteboard writing that looks as messy as mine. In fact it looks exactly like mine, letter shapes and all.

karlhwhite2• 12 years ago

Other Eventjoy founder here... I have no shame about my whiteboard writing. I try not to spend time worrying about my cursive handwriting these days :D

How we restarted our company in two weeks during Y Combinator

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