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Ask HN: Rate my Start-up webticketing.net

40 points by matclayton ↗ HN
I've been slowly working on http://www.webticketing.net in between projects for the past 6 months. And its now at the point I'm ready to get feedback and open up the site.

We launched our first event today, a charity hack event for paypal.

http://www.webticketing.net/charityhack/

The idea is a simple cheap ticketing solution, with a low flat rate fee.

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

40 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] thread
foobar2k
Looks really slick, great idea too.
pclark
blargh paypal.

just kidding, thats a really good landing page.

guruslan
cool, i like the design and the idea as well very much needed
paypaldevuk
great app using new Beta PayPalX API's and has allowed us to put together a hack weekend and site in a few days.
noelevans
Great design and good, fast registration.
matclayton
Glad you like it, had some feedback suggesting the create event isn't obvious enough as a sign-up on the front page, so may change the wording.

Mat

ghostz00
I would need to see screenshots, demo, or video; before I would sign up. Other than that I like the design.
rokhayakebe
I would definitely change the name. It sounds more like a job ticketing. EDIT: And you can also add a link to an event on the front or a stream of events being created.
ErrantX
as someone who has been searching for a decent name/domain relating to tickets and ticketing (not for these kind of tickets) I can tell you it's tough!

Webticketing is an awesome catch even with the slight confusion!

keeptrying
You guys are going up against the big daddys in this space: http://www.eventbrite.com/

I did some research into this space. There are acutally tons of companies in this space which IMHO is a good thing for you. I would try to focus on one niche to get revenue coming in.

matclayton
Our initial niches are university and nightclub events, hence the wacky colors, but we do aim to tackle eventbrite.com and the more mainstreams events eventually.

Mat

smiler
Your transaction fee of 50p per ticket in the UK is far too high for University events. A lot of them would be £5-£10, so somewhere between 10% - 5% commission plus there are then withdrawal fees from PP for the money.

Eventbrite charge a flat 3% on the ticket price if you use their payment processing. What advantage do you offer over eventbrite?

keeptrying
I think you should maybe just do nightclub events as thats something eventbrite is totally not doing and theres a lot of money in it. I'm still working on my own startup but I've seen that the surest way to get a business off the ground is to kill another business.

If you can kill part of the nightclub promoter's business out there, you'd seriously make a lot of money. This would mean that apart from core ticketing you would also have to focus on helping your clients with creating a media-buzz etc. IT would definitely be something eventbrite doesnt do.

If you can keep yourself in a niche that eventbrite doesnt do then its possible they could buy you in the future.

Best of luck with this.

_pius
I haven't done anything with it yet, but I do want to say it's a really great looking design.
ErrantX
Simple, effective and well executed! nice one (I actually can think of uses for this!!)

I especially like your time chooser method - that is really natural (though susceptable to shock/shake). The rest of the sign up form seemed a little oddly laid out (with the right column)

When you create an event it doesnt take you to the "invite people" page but to the admin overview, which then takes several clicks to get to the event page possibly directing to the events page might be better (with obvious links to the overview/management)?

Also the next step is obviously promoting an event and it is not clear how to do this. Some sort of popup when your redirected to the event page after setup that says "look here are some options --->" might help.

Have you got any plans for printable tickets? Or for the ability of the admin to reserve tickets themselves (say if they sell over the phone or via another medium but still allowing them to track "sales" in one place). Any plans to create a "template" event for reuse (if you hold weekly events say).

What about the email tickets - is it possible to add the ability to customise them? (for example I know some guys who would, if using you, like the ID number printed super large for easy checking).

What about ticket id's? Is it possible to customise these or at least track them in the CSV file you provide - so that they can be checked?

I understand some of that might not apply for your target market - just throwing random thoughts out there. All in all I think its really cool!

Any use?

(whats your revenue model like and what are your target audience? Do you think you can get enough events to make it profitable (actually I can see it working for club events organisers (we host some sites for them so I know the market in our area is like) as a ticker mechanism. <-- if you dont want to answer s'cool, just interested)

matclayton
Thanks really great feedback, much appreciated.

1. The Time Picker isn't mine, its a open source JQuery Plugin http://haineault.com/media/jquery/ui-timepickr/page/

2. We are working on the Invite Friends/Promote code still, which is why there is a kink in the workflow at the moment, by the time its done, it will all make much more sense.

3. Printable Tickets are planned, actually investigating using moo.com api or something similar, but won't be doing these in the near future.

4. Reserved Tickets are due out next

5. Templates, in due course.

6. No plans to customize the Email at the moment, but we are certainly considering a white label solution which would allow this.

7. Ticket id's aren't customisable, but adding them to the CSV would make a lot of sense, will certainly do that.

I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think we could make this profitable, hope that is enough of an answer :)

Thanks for the great feedback much to ponder, and will certainly adjust the feature list accordingly.

Mat

ErrantX
wicked stuff (and thanks for the link to the JQuery plugin).

One comment I would have is that I would look into the white label approach a bit more. There could be a niche for brandable ticket sales sites - you know like if you run a club night a way to brand the whole interface with their theme and so forth.

We host a few club nights websites and I know something like that would interest them (because current solutions are a bit steep in upfornt cost, installation and maintenance).

matclayton
Not going to say too much more on here, but watch this space :)
joshuamarch
Great app - not a fan of paypal though!
johns
I started clicking on the giant green + to start creating an event and it wasn't clickable. You should link that to your sign up page.
matclayton
Thanks, we have had this comment a few times now, time to make the big boxes clickable :)
NEPatriot
I would recommend a simple video highlighting the simple sign up process. 1-2-3 really prove to people that it takes minutes focusing on the number of steps involved and that the screens are not very long (not much scrolling).

Then I would focus on the ease of creating an event. Again hopefully 1-2-3.

The same or another video would contain the end user experience of buying tix for your event. So before signing up for anything you have a full blown view of what signing up will be like, setting up an event, and what your event goers will be experiencing.

Great idea. Best of luck.

matclayton
Thanks, much appreciated. Looks like a screencast is in order, truth is from http://www.webticketing.net it takes 1 click to register (on the front page), then one click to create event. From there on, it will all go live the instance you click the confirmation email.

We really should demo how easy this is though.

Mat

amirmc
I've actually gone through this process and it was amazingly quick to get create an event (I thought I'd got something wrong). A lot better than eventbrite. However, a screencast would be great.
matclayton
Thanks for taking the time to go through the process. It's our main goal, to make the whole process as quick as possible. Which is why we didn't bother with a screencast, but seems we need one! Thanks for the tips, will put one together next week.
redorb
why have a image like this? http://s.wtimg.com/site_media/images/payment_options.png

at 128k its heavier than some whole web pages. (any ideas?)

matclayton
Ouch thanks, that image isn't even used in this version of the site, its from an old build, which is why it is still a high res version. Have removed it from the next CSS revision to go out. Will have a check around for anymore excess images, Thanks.

Mat

clistctrl
The convenient part of event brite for me is their extensive API, do you have anything like that planned?
matclayton
Of course, just take time and we don't want to open it up until we are confident the design is robust.
rawson
All very good so far... Only a couple of things: I found the UI when creating the event to be slightly muddled, my eye followed down the page and i completely forgot about the right hand side panels. I feel the user feedback on errors could be more noticeable - maybe put it at the top of the page as well as above the field it is referring to. A smooth looking site none the less...
natts
Great start, though provide alternative payment options if possible - that way you don't scare anyone off.
danw
Would love a link to an event .ical file, like eventbrite etc do.
matclayton
Already provide these, when you signup to an event the iCal file is include in the email, an should auto add to your calender.
danw
Awesome, adding it in the email is a lovely touch.
icey
I don't know if it's too late to mention this; but this posting has all the same fake user reviews like matclayton's other post did.