Draftix, Inc

Alan Taffel- Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder- Alan is the former Chief Marketing Officer of MCI, WorldCom, and UUNET, an Internet Service Provider he helped grow from $14M to over $3B in five years. Alan is an operational Chairman at Draftix, actively involved in the business.

MikeTobin- Chief Executive Officer and Founder- Mike is anentrepreneur who has built and led a successful marketing consultancy for the past 5 years. His long experience includes executive positions withboth emerging and mature technology organizations including UUNET, Cable andWireless, and Eyecast.

BrianKatz- Vice President of Operations and Co-Founder-Brian brings to Draftix over 15 years of Software Engineering and InformationTechnology experience. He has an extensive background in ecommerce systems andsystems management, and has held management positions with Deloitte Touche,Teligent, and the Bureau of National Affairs.

MarcSimoncelli- Vice President of Engineering and Co-Founder-Marc is responsible for Draftix product development. He has over 15 years ofexperience in the development of web-based applications, database systems, andcomplex software. Marc has held senior development positions with Cable andWireless and AOL.

As a market, sports season tickets comprises 3.2 million direct ownersand $4.4B in annual sales -- nearly 70% of all Big 4 sports ticketssold. Draftix employs a business model that generates dual revenue streams. The first and primary source of revenue is transaction fees,which accrue whenever users exchange payments through the site. The fee is not burdensome, as it is more than overcome by the fact that season tickets are typically 20% less expensive than single gametickets. The second revenue source is marketing services. The site’s governancefunctions generate return visits from users, and because those users are affluent and have a clearlydefined interest, Draftix can command upper-tier advertising and sponsorship rates. Because Draftix incurs no capital costs to acquire the season tickets beingshared, and because governance functions are fully automated, the company is extremely wellpositioned for profitability. 

No other company currently offers a structuredmarketplace for sharing season tickets. One variant of the Draftix concept has emerged: SplitSeasonTickets.com. This startup, though functionally similar to Draftix, employs a SaaS distribution model that restricts it to a single revenue stream dependent upon third-party marketing efforts, and limits its ability to offer value-added services such as inter-team trading. Craigslist, eBay, and StubHub are secondarymarketplace sites oriented toward single-item sales; as such they offer neither a purpose-built marketplace nor the governance tools that directly support season ticket sharing groups.