Building a Secondary Ticketing Business From Spain: Ander Michelena, CEO of Ticketbis (Part 5)

Ander Michelena: In 2012, Ticketbis was growing strongly and very fast with very good margin. The other business was growing but it was something that was stopping us from concentrating on one thing. We decided to close it. The learning we got out of that is if something is working very well, don’t try to do other things. Don’t deviate and start doing other projects. Just concentrate on what is working and grow it very fast. That’s the learning we got out of that. If I could go back, I would never have launched that.

Sramana Mitra: Your business is all secondary ticket marketing.

Ander Michelena: That’s our business from the beginning. The deviation that we did to include that part was a mistake. You have a good idea if a business is doing well. Don’t try to deviate with another business model.

Sramana Mitra: How do you decide which countries to go into? When you decided on the next countries, how did you decide that?

Ander Michelena: We first started with Spain because it was our own country and because it was a good place to try something that we wanted. We thought Spain was good, not only because we’re from here, but because it’s like the point from Latin America to Europe and Europe to Latin America. It really helps you to understand the Latin American market and the European market.

As soon as we realized that the model was valid, we went to the market that we previously identified. Those were Mexico, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal. What we did after that first expansion was for every market we enter, we do an analysis. We look at players in the primary and secondary markets, legislation, economic environment, and percentage of traffic from different channels. We have a very defined list of things that you need to know about a market before entering it. We have been developing that over time. It’s already very defined analysis.

Sramana Mitra: What is your largest geography today?

Ander Michelena: Our largest geography is Europe, which brings in 50% of revenues. Latin America is 40%. Asia, which we opened this year, is around 10% of revenues but growing very fast.

Sramana Mitra: Where in Asia are you?

Ander Michelena: We are in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. We opened all those over the last eight months.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. Is there anything else that you want to share with me?

Ander Michelena: Nothing in particular. I hope this interview will be helpful to your audience.

Sramana Mitra: Nice talking to you Ander. It’s great to see that there’s a solid European company being built out of Spain. Given the economy, it’s wonderful that you’re able to take advantage of the situation and at the same time, create prosperity.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Building a Secondary Ticketing Business From Spain: Ander Michelena, CEO of Ticketbis
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