Eventbrite - Driving ticket sales to $1 bln

Interview with Eventbrite CEO Kevin Hartz on the ticketing startups goals in 2010 and beyond

It's the start of a new year, a time of celebration and hope for many companies. One startup that's staring the new year with a bang is Eventbrite, which just closed a year of ticket sales topping $100 million.

What are some of Eventbrite's goals this year to drive ticket sales even higher? For starters, the young, fast-growing online event planning company, founded by Kevin and Julia Hartz, wants to focus on serving and building out verticals, such as conferences, classes and social events (such as fundraisers).

Specializing in the long-tail of events has already been a big win for Eventbrite, which estimates ticket sales in 2009 to be $100 million. But in the next several years, the goal is to hit $1 billion in ticket sales, said  Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Kevin Hartz. That would equate to some $25 million in revenue for Eventbrite, which takes a fee of 2.5% of ticket sales, plus $1 per event it hosts.

In this second part of a series of interviews conducted with Kevin, he talks about Eventbrite's plans to scale and, as he puts it: "add some fuel to the fire."