How a Crisis Turned Julia Hartz Into the CEO Eventbrite Needed

Eventbrite has survived nearly every kind of challenge a startup can face: launching into a financial crisis, raising venture capital after 27 rejections, going public, watching its core business disappear during COVID, and eventually leaving the public markets after nearly two decades of building.

In this episode of Build Mode, host Isabelle Johannesen sits down with Julia Hartz, co-founder and former CEO of Eventbrite, to unpack the decisions that helped the company weather those highs and lows. When Eventbrite went public in 2018, Julia became just the 21st woman founder-CEO to lead her company through an IPO and the second-youngest woman to do so (milestones she remembers as both an achievement and a stark reminder of how few women had reached that point).

But getting to the IPO, and navigating what came afterward, was anything but straightforward. Julia explains what it was like to take over as CEO from her husband and co-founder Kevin Hartz, why she initially questioned whether she was ready for the job, and how leading through the pandemic forced her to find her own leadership style. She also looks back on Eventbrite’s unusual fundraising journey, from bootstrapping the company for its first two-and-a-half years to the success during the 2008 financial crisis that ultimately landed them Sequoia as a lead investor. 

Julia reflects on the realities of running a public company, balancing investor expectations against the needs of customers, the mistakes that took years to repair, and the painful decision to take Eventbrite private following its acquisition by Bending Spoons. Through it all, she shares what nearly 20 years of building Eventbrite taught her about resilience, leadership, reinvention, and making hard decisions when there is no obvious playbook.

They get into:

How Julia Hartz and Kevin Hartz built Eventbrite from a bootstrapped startup into a global ticketing platform

Why 27 venture firms rejected Eventbrite during the 2008 financial crisis

How strong execution helped Eventbrite turn those rejections into a Sequoia-backed round

What it was like for Julia to take over as CEO from her husband and co-founder

Why becoming CEO felt “terrifying” and how Julia eventually found her own leadership style

How Eventbrite responded when COVID caused the company to process more refunds than revenue

The crisis-management exercise that helped Julia’s team rethink the business from scratch