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“It took me a long time to consider myself an entrepreneur,” says Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz of her journey from startup cofounder to CEO of the $2.4 billion ticketing company that has upended the event industry. “Real entrepreneurs,” she says, are those infectiously optimistic leaders “who are born missing the chip in their brain that says things might not work out.” Hartz never had entrepreneurial ambitions growing up, describing herself as a “dutiful” ballerina rather than the classic kid with the lemonade stand, proof that startup success isn't predetermined by a mindset or distinct set of skills.
Hartz launched Eventbrite in 2006 with then-fiancé, Kevin, and CTO Renaud Visage after a successful stint in television, a career pivot that took her into uncharted territory. “I had no idea what I was doing, nor did I know what was going to happen,” she recalls. “It was the first time in my life that I didn't have that picture of what of what the plan was.” Along the way, Hartz learned to push past self-doubt and her fears of the unknown. “You realize that you can learn how to turn off your doubts, the wasted thoughts and negativity in your head,” she says.
After ten years as Eventbrite’s president, Hartz took the over the CEO reins from her husband in 2016, a career evolution that she says required her to “hold her breath and jump.” “When you become CEO, there's something in that title that changes everything mentally,” says Hartz, who navigated the new challenge with a laser focus on the company’s ultimate purpose, not her pressures. “I had to quickly figure out how to center myself and focus on the mission and not let the bigness of it get in my way or slow me down or render me paralyzed,” Hartz says. “It’s about having conviction about what you're running towards.”
Eventbrite now powers over three million events annually in more than 170 countries around the world. Leading the company through its IPO in September 2018 was a defining moment for Hartz that allowed her to reflect not only what her team had accomplished, but also on the rarity of being a female CEO of a publicly-traded tech company. “It reinforced the feeling of being very purpose-driven in both the work that we do in and in my position at Eventbrite,” says Hartz. It’s a position she doesn’t take lightly and one which has instilled a sense of responsibility to serve as a role model for those following in her footsteps. “I know important that was to me and still is today to surround myself with strong women,” she says.
Hartz’s dedication to empowering others has ensured that Eventbrite’s culture of inclusivity remains an emblematic facet of the company as it scales. A relentless 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 critical asset to both her rise and the company’s success. “My hope is that someday people write about Eventbrite because of the kind of company we are, not just about what we did or how much money we made,” she says.
I recently sat down with Hartz to discuss her journey from founder to company CEO and what’s she learned about failure and purpose along the way and how she defines power. Edited highlights below.
On Becoming An Entrepreneur
“I felt like what I brought to the table was operational muscle over entrepreneurial muscle. My point of view has changed over time with experience that I don't think entrepreneurs are necessarily always born that way. I think that you can become an entrepreneur even if you are born a little bit more risk averse.”
On The Upside Of Being Overlooked
“One of the reasons we were successful is because we didn't have a lot of capital in the beginning. We needed to do things differently. We needed to think about how to build smartly and scale. We needed to focus on the most critical things versus everything. We did that in a horizontal manner and we looked across all categories and types of events to build a platform that would serve their many needs. I think had we had more capital, we might've been pulled towards verticalizing too early and we wouldn't have then created the largest ticketing platform in the world.”
On Staying Focused
“There’s this sort of mental Jujitsu that I do with myself to stay focused and not think about how much pressure is in this job. It happens a lot where I have to wake up or I have to go through that exercise. Oftentimes it's when I'm waking up in the morning and I'm in the shower and I don't think about it, I just focus on the task at hand.”
On Failure
“Nobody ever makes it through a journey without having moments of failure. But if you look at those moments of failure as lessons learned and data points and you don't get too hung up on the emotional value of failure, then you start grinding away. Nobody enjoys failure. Nobody is fearless. It's about how you handle your own feelings. ”
On Taking Eventbrite Public
“Talk about the flood of emotions. It almost felt like our wedding again, with our parents and one hundred team members and event creators all gathered on the New York Stock Exchange floor. Kids running around everywhere, which is totally normal to us. I felt an amazing amount of pride, and it was just this day of, ‘Wow, here we are.’” And the next day it felt like I had had a newborn baby that you need to raise and grow. It felt like day one again I find these analogies to other life events and moments and milestones so significantly similar.”
On Power
“Power is having a platform and a voice and being able to inspire and influence and create change. Certainly, for many years I didn't feel even old enough to hold any sort of influence or be a role model. I still don't feel old enough. I don't think hopefully we ever feel the old enough to do anything but to, to be in a certain place or time.”
On Success
“When I think about why I’ve been able to succeed in this journey, I think in strong part it's because I'm surrounded by so many feminists and men who really see the power of raising women up and clearly transformative it's been an asset to our company.”
On The Power Of Connections
“I think one of my superpowers is being able to feel other people's energy and really understand or seek to quickly understand their motivations.”
On Her Leadership Philosophy
“We talk a lot at Eventbrite about being a work in progress, and how important it is for us to be rooted in our values, but always be looking to constantly be changing. I think if you asked anybody at the company, they would say that I'm one of the people who can cause change to happen now. I've become the agent of change amongst our company, looking for opportunities to break status quo, to seek a better way to do things, to shift things around. I think if you are building a durable company, you have to always understand what can disrupt you and get ahead of that.”
On Purpose
“My focus is on cultivating a great company. At the end of the day, if we can do what's right by the millions of event creators who use our platform and we can actually be the catalyst for more live experiences in the world to bring people together, that's a major step in the right direction. It’s who we are, how we walk this walk and how we travel this path.”
On The Advice She’d Give Her Younger Self
“To not spend any time doubting myself. That was all wasted time. I want all of that time back. I'd like to use that time to sleep more.”
