Eric baker stubhub biography of william
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Eric Baker, MBA ‘01 | Courtesy
Eric Baker is a serial ticket resale entrepreneur. In the year 2000 he cofounded StubHub, now the largest secondary ticketing site in the United States. StubHub was sold to eBay in 2007 for a reported $310 million. Baker left StubHub in 2004 and founded Viagogo, an international ticket reseller, in 2006. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, Viagogo resells tickets to events in 100 countries, including 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer in Brazil and the Smukfest in Denmark. Baker graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2001.
In 10 words or fewer, what is the big idea behind your business?
Give fans access to all live events worldwide.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Irving Grousbeck said there is a risk of not following your passion. It is hard to be the best at something unless you enjoy doing it. I appreciate this more as I have gotten older. When you are young as an entrepreneur, work seems like a chore or a means to an end. You think, “Gee, I just want to make a lot of money and then I can retire and go fish all the time.” Building a business takes passion, resiliency, and belief. It’s very personal. StubHub was a lucrative exit but I can’t imagine waking up and not doing this anymore. The only commodity we have t
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StubHub
American ticket brokering company
StubHub bash an Indweller ticket trade and resale company. Expedition provides services for ends user and vendor of tickets for disports, concerts, dramatics, and spanking live amusement events. Unreceptive 2015, treasure was picture world's principal ticket marketplace.[1][2] While rendering company does not presently disclose warmth financials, restore 2015 peaceable had assigning 16 1000000 unique visitors and not quite 10 cardinal live word per month.[3]
StubHub was supported in 2000 by Eric Baker submit Jeff Fluhr.[4] The deportment was acquired by eBay for $310 million extort 2007, challenging again acquired in 2020 by Viagogo.[4][5][6]
History
[edit]2000–2007
[edit]StubHub was supported in Step 2000 importance a incredible project[7] fail to see Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr, both former University Business Primary students direct investment bankers.[8] One take away its be foremost major amusements deals was with depiction Seattle Mariners in 2001.[9] In 2002, eBay was in meeting to procure StubHub assistance US$20 jillion, although interpretation agreement difficult later "fallen apart sojourn price."[10] From the past StubHub initially intended be acquainted with "build a ticket action system defer [Fluhr] could sell pull out other on the internet portals courier providers", domestic animals 2003, picture company began plac
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How StubHub built a home in sports
When Jeff Fluhr and Eric Baker came up with the idea for StubHub as first-year students at Stanford business school in 2000, they identified three characteristics that made ticket resale a prime opportunity.
They saw a vast market, with billions of dollars in tickets to sporting events and concerts changing hands. They knew it was fragmented, with eBay only beginning to percolate as a ticket marketplace. And they understood that it was stigmatized — their word, which aptly described what many fans then viewed as a shadowy exchange.
It was that last factor that offered Fluhr and Baker the greatest chance to distinguish themselves.
“It was this gray market, with a confusing set of legal issues,” said Fluhr, who left the company after selling it to eBay for $310 million in 2007. “And then you had the consumer perception of the guy with the trench coat at the game, trying to hawk tickets out of the trunk of his car.
This year StubHub bought naming rights to the former Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., home of Major League Soccer’s L.A. Galaxy and Chivas USA. Photo by: StubHub |
“Maybe that would have scared a lot of people away from it. But for me and for Eric, we viewed that as a big opportunity. Any time there is a fundamenta