Entrepreneur Kooshiar Azimian’s part-time hobby a few years ago has become one of the hottest secondary ticket brokerages on the Web.
It’s called Concertboom, and the Costa Mesa-based startup is drawing more than 3 million visitors per month.
The company—which Azimian launched two years ago in his apartment when he lived in San Jose—is converting those views into $700,000 a month in ticket sales, according to company documents—without a single advertisement.
“We’re trying to be the Kayak for concert tickets,” Azimian said, referring to the online travel service, as he scrolled through data in Concertboom’s office at TechSpace.
The facility offers shared conference rooms, fully-equipped data networks and Wi-Fi connections to entrepreneurs on two floors of a seven-story building at the corner of Bristol Street and Sunflower Avenue.
The 29-year-old developed the search engine that powers Concertboom in his spare time while working as a data scientist for Mountain View startup NetSeer Inc., which uses proprietary algorithms to match advertisements with targeted audiences.
In less than six months, the site was drawing more than 300,000 monthly visitors as Azimian handled graphic design, business development, engineering, marketing and nearly every other facet of the business.
If an idea to boost revenue came to him at 3 a.m., the night owl would just plug in code and wait a few days for results.
“It was more efficient,” Azimian said. “That’s why the website grew so fast.”
The company made the move to TechSpace in April as it prepared to grow into more than a one-man operation.
New Hires
In December, Azimian moved to Orange County, attracted by the quality of life, cheaper operating costs than Los Angeles and San Francisco, and a rich base of engineering talent in the private sector and nearby universities. He has since hired four engineers, a consultant, a graphic designer, public relations manager and business development officer since arriving in Costa Mesa.
“Orange County could be a very good place for startups,” said Azimian. “There’s so much money here, it’s quiet and has less traffic.”
The Iranian-born transplant came to the U.S. in 2006 to attend Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he earned a master’s degree in computer science, with the goal of becoming a mathematician. He spent two years at the University of California, San Diego working on a doctorate degree before leaving to pursue business opportunities in Silicon Valley, then made his way to Orange County.
After being exposed to the region’s online consumer successes, he started experimenting with his own interests.
Azimian, who enjoys live music, festivals and night life—though he has only cursory knowledge of popular music—chose the concert segment because of its size, legions of loyal fans and the abrupt nature of tour announcements and special appearances, characteristics that play well in social media networks. The concert market and his advanced computer skills proved to be a profitable combination.
Fresno-based trade publication Pollstar estimated concert ticket sales topped $4 billion last year in the U.S. alone.
Concertboom recently introduced a comment feature for users to drum up chatter and inquire and answer questions about bands, shows and venues, among other topics.
“We want people to communicate, share pictures and talk about their experiences,” Azimian said. “There’s huge value in building communities.”
The site, which has more than 31,500 “likes” on Facebook, expects to generate more than $10 million in ticket sales and ad revenue this year. Concertboom takes a cut of 9% to 12% from each transaction, the industry standard.
Azimian said its overhead is very low. Its servers, which constantly crunch numbers from thousands of data points around the globe, cost just $500 a month to run, a benefit of cloud computing.
No Inventory
But unlike other ticket brokers, Concertboom carries no inventory, so it’s never left holding the bag.
“We just aggregate all the data and give you the best seats and the best- priced seats,” Azimian said. “We have very good [search engine optimization].”
The company competes against industry leader StubHub in San Francisco, which eBay Inc. acquired in 2007 for $292.4 million, as well as dozens of smaller players in the fragmented industry.
Concertboom has become a noted rival without raising outside funding.
Despite the company’s early success—Azimian said it hit profitability in March 2012—he has his eyes set on another growing segment: events.
“We are very close to becoming the recommendation engine for events,” he said. “Google and Facebook haven’t been able to do it yet.”
Zoovilla
The company’s in-development beta engine, dubbed Zoovilla, analyzes user data, generated content and preferences in near real time and spits out a list of five weekend events in the city of the user’s choice that may suit their tastes and budget.
Azimian has a lofty goal of turning Zoovilla into a multibillion-cap company.
“It could easily be the next LinkedIn or Yelp,” he said. “No one has done this, and consumer acceptance is right there.”
