StubHub began in 2000 as a class project. Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr cofounded it at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. They saw a need for a platform to facilitate ticket resale and founded StubHub accordingly. They serve as a middleman between the buyer and seller, profiting from ticket sales commissions. It is an easy way to find cheaper or last minute tickets.
In 2007, StubHub was sold to eBay for 310 million dollars. In 2019, it changed ownership again and became part of Viagogo, an online marketplace founded by original StubHub inventor Eric Baker. Unfortunately, StubHub was hit hard by COVID right after Baker acquired the business, but it has mostly recovered to where it was.
Today, StubHub is the biggest market for ticket resales. Customers sell tickets for Taylor Swift concerts to the Super Bowl. Sales go from tickets that people can no longer use to resale for a profit. There are a wide variety of customers that use StubHub. Users can post tickets for their desired price.
Baker and Fluhr turned a class project into a multi-billion dollar business. They were not afraid to expand their company when they realized they had an excellent idea. When StubHub was created, it was a unique way to sell unused tickets conveniently. It has become the most notable platform for ticket sales.
StubHub was a class project? It is honesty breathtaking that in seven, short years, Fluhr and Baker sold their company for 310 million dollars. I love how the founders saw the worth of their company and felt comfortable enough to pass it on to someone else (eBay). Ticket resale was definitely a problem and they made the perfect solution. I have used StubHub and it is absurdly easy to navigate.