Daniel Mastropietro & Josh Misko on Seatfun, Startups, Funding & the Future of Ticketing // #068

heartdea13r Podcast w/ chr1stoph3r g0nda // Episode 68 // Daniel Mastropietro (CEO) & Josh Misko (COO) (Seatfun)

Episode Summary:

Seatfun founders Daniel Mastropietro and Josh Misko share their journey, philosophy, and strategies behind building a human-centric, innovative ticketing platform. They discuss the importance of relationships, authenticity, balancing technology with human touch, and the future of the industry.

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Full Episode Transcript:

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (00:00.215)
I usually just try to like ease into the the chats and then find like a good spot for us to to flow. Why don’t we start with something like really basic. How did you guys even meet?

Daniel Mastropietro (00:13.799)
Oh man, so this is a good story. I managed an artist called Emoji. It’s an EDM duo and I was having a little fun on the side and Josh actually operates a college or just a booking agency and an artist management leg called Incubate Talent Group and they were signed to Incubate Talent Group and I met him through that and we kind of hit it off.

Josh Misko (00:41.248)
Yeah, I I pretty much covered the gist. were working in the EDM scene together and just kind of like after working together for a long time, things just naturally started turning into like late night entrepreneur conversations. And then it just started turning into business. were just like, dude, why are we not working together? And then it just, it’s really where it all started. Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (00:43.513)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (00:50.063)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (00:56.539)
Bye now.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (00:59.437)
love that. So CeeFunds the company, you guys both have like pretty storied backgrounds and we’ll get into them a little bit more. So going off of this this random meet-cute so to speak like Rising Tides philosophy that’s very specific and I think it’s actually very

Daniel Mastropietro (01:06.587)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (01:19.819)
of the times right there’s a lot of talk that I’ve seen and some of the people that I follow that we’re going into a new era that the old guard is dying the top-down control people are sick of it and it’s gonna go away not not without a fight but that we’re gonna go into an era that’s more by the people for the people groundswell ground up so how is it possible that YouTube met and you have this you know rising tides philosophy

Daniel Mastropietro (01:46.863)
So I’ll kind of go into like a little bit. So I had built SeatFun as a tool for like me and my friends to use, right? There was a few promoters I worked with. It was originally called Master of Ticks because I couldn’t figure out a name for it. And I was like, if we end up doing anything with this, we’ll get a good brand for it and everything and do a whole rebrand refresh and all that. And…

You know, it was kind of like that tool was there and I was building on it. was like, I’m working with my friends and, know, helping them like on the marketing side for their events too. And just really more like a partner. And then, you know, I told Josh that, know, about, I’ve seen it kind of trend up where I was getting more and more promoters. People were now talking to people and then Josh came on and me and Josh talking to you was like, this has a lot of potential. And he’s like, kind of what you’re doing is what I’ve envisioned for this too, a little bit was.

building relationships with organizers, like actually being a partner, not just being like a software platform. I think in the day of AI and everything that’s happening right now, the way technology is moving is we get to a point where we’re now starting to see companies replace humans with artificial intelligence. An example of this is blocks. I don’t know if you follow Jack Dorsey, Square, Cash App and all that. They laid off, I believe it was, and don’t quote me on this, I want to say it was like 40 % of their staff and their stock went up.

up the next day. And what that’s saying now is the market looks at humans almost as a liability. And I don’t believe in that. I think the only way we can build a really good ticketing company is to have really good relationships and actually help venues out. I mean, if we wanted to just scale something, use artificial intelligence and try to exit, it wouldn’t be ticketing because that’s not the kind of, you know, space that we want to build relationships, see venues grow. Josh has a ton of experience with

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (03:13.773)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (03:37.14)
the whole COVID era, watching venues sink and then these ticketing platforms were fine. And just kind of goes to, he always says, it kind of goes to show how greedy the industry was. And, you know, we’re really working with helping venues like scale operations versus like, hey, we’re a ticketing platform. You sign up, you log in, you use our software. If you have a problem, good luck. You know, we’re not, we’re very much like, you got a problem. Here’s my number. Here’s Josh’s number. Call us at four in the morning. I’ll probably be up at my

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (04:05.113)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (04:07.066)
newborn anyways, so give me a call. Let’s get through it together. But it’s been cool to take that approach with ticketing because we see software companies pop up and we see them, especially in the ticketing, you’ll see a ticketing company pop up because they’re a couple of developers and they know how to build software. And they pop up and they disappear within six months because they’re like, shit, people weren’t just going to sign up and use my platform. Where our edge, I really feel like in the market is we’re actually partnering with venues, helping them on marketing.

building features that are very specific to what they need just for them, not for the whole platform, you know, and taking the approach of taking in the software and tying it into almost like an operating system completely for that specific venue has been very, very beneficial. It’s allowed us to see some really cool growth in the last like six to eight months. you know, we’ve been profitable since day one, you know, we just did a big funding round and it’s allowed us to like really double down and go all in.

this project so.

Josh Misko (05:09.26)
Yeah, you know, it’s funny how we naturally ended up becoming the next generation of ticketing. And the irony of all that is you would think that being human centric and people first would be like wanting to actually help partners. Like the reason we’re invite only is so we can have this level of connection with all of our clients and really help them scale. It’s not just like a licensing software dealing with some of our competition, for example. I won’t mention names, but it’s funny how we naturally got

kind of labeled the next generation of ticketing because we really believe that the future of ticketing is not software. We believe it’s service. there’s a lot of things that we do that are public and not public about the way we structure our system and our partnerships. And if we were not invite only, we would not be able to provide that level of service to an open marketplace. And so it’s very much built by organizers for organizers. And I don’t see that in any other company out there.

Daniel Mastropietro (05:56.926)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (06:03.586)
you know, most of them are developed by developers for bankers. You know what I mean? And so it’s especially the guys getting in that big lawsuit right now. And so, you know, that’s, yeah, that’s, really where the rising times philosophy comes from, because if they don’t win, we don’t win. And when we saw that happen with COVID, that was when we were like, okay, well, if we’re going to do this, we can’t just play, take a master’s game, for example, we need to, we need to do our thing and provide our value and help human beings, because without the human beings, there is nothing, it’s all just an idea. And so.

Daniel Mastropietro (06:07.23)
You

Daniel Mastropietro (06:25.768)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (06:32.98)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (06:33.145)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (06:33.41)
Yeah, it pretty much covers the gist of it.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (06:35.831)
Yeah, I love that. And I agree with so many of the things you guys said, you know, we talked before we hit record about love and logic, which are, you know, the fundamental principles that I live by. And there’s this crazy concept called conscious business where you can have a for prop mod, a for profit model, and you can make lots of money, but not screw the people that you’re working with. Maybe it’s, you know, staying private and not.

Daniel Mastropietro (06:56.625)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (06:58.284)
What a weird idea.

Daniel Mastropietro (07:00.036)
Yeah, who would have thought, you know?

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (07:03.535)
I also think that technology is important. Technology is a huge disruptor and that competition breeds innovation, right? So if you have a huge company like Alive Nation or Ticketmaster that’s, you know, cornering the entire market, then they can do whatever they want. You’re not going to have innovation. You’re going to have stagnation because no one’s feeling pushed or pressured into doing things. Disruptors will come with both good and bad, but overall, think tech on its own is very positive and

Daniel Mastropietro (07:24.412)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (07:33.119)
AI is the same thing. There are negative implications for sure, but as an entrepreneur, as a startup, I’m able to get more out of my team and use my money more wisely because I have these built-in robotic assistants that can do deep dive stuff that I don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to do or want to burn cash on. So it’s about finding that balance.

Daniel Mastropietro (07:43.89)
Go.

Daniel Mastropietro (07:58.49)
Yeah, I talked to Josh about this. Like we’re building a couple of AI models right now on some of the different models we’re doing for, if it’s finance things, if it’s something to do just with like little things in the platform and just maybe bug fixes and things like that. We’re using it, right? I’m not saying that. What my thing is is like,

We’ll never use it to automate a relationship and we’ll never use it for customer support and the things where it’s human to human Artificial intelligence can help us scale the technology and all that but it can’t scale the relationship and that’s really really Like what we’re I mean Josh sit down and talk about this. We’re like no matter what let’s not make it so that’s not become that help center where you hit a chatbot and then it says Someone’s random name, but it’s actually just art you can AI model

talking to you, you know, it’s that’s what we’re trying not to do. But everything else. yeah, we’re we enable AI across the board right now.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (08:55.855)
You know what’s funny is… Go ahead, go ahead.

Josh Misko (08:55.99)
Yeah, it’s really helping us. Yeah. sorry. Go ahead. I was just saying it’s really helping us scale and we’re using it strategically, but it’s not, it’s not being like Dan said, it’s not being leaned on to replace anybody. It’s actually being leaned on to increase our ability to be scaled with this type of communication with all of our clients. And yeah, I mean.

Daniel Mastropietro (09:12.591)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (09:16.782)
We’re big fans, but you know like anything it’s you know too much of one thing can be Harmful, and I think that’s what we’re starting to experience across the globe at the end of the day I mean I find myself talking to organizers about this all the time or business folks or you know my mentors and anybody you know Business coach whatever you know there’s really like three big pillars to any sort of human centric business right? I mean there’s obviously money then technology

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (09:18.873)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (09:27.074)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (09:43.544)
But then there’s relationships. And if you’re missing one of those three, it’s not going to scale. It’s not possible. And so it’s not like anybody with money can just get into this industry and do this. The relationships are crucial. They’re absolute complete deal breaker. You know what I mean? And so that’s the most important thing for us. And then as we continue to scale the software and grow it and build it, ever since we got funded, we have quarterly updates happening. There’s so much coming down the pipeline that we’re really excited about. it’s just going, improving the software is just, it’s just.

It’s gonna it’s just gonna be a normal thing. You know what mean? Like our software is already crushing We’re so excited about it, and now it’s gonna be even bigger and so Yeah

Daniel Mastropietro (10:17.067)
Yeah.

I talked to Josh about this, like we’re not in like a space that’s like project management, right? Like ClickUp for example. I love ClickUp. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the software ClickUp. The guy, the CEO Zeb Evans is, it’s crazy how they’ve scaled things. I’m a huge fan of them, but it’s been like ship, ship, ship, ship, ship, feature, feature, feature, feature. If there’s a bug, we’ll fix it as we’re shipping new stuff. Let’s just keep on going. And they’ve, think they’re, they’re worth, I want to say like four or five billion out, be more.

to Josh about that and one thing in ticketing, there really isn’t that much innovation happening.

at all. It’s been the same like if you look at some of these legacy platforms, and I want to say names, but they look like they’re PayPal in 2009. Like it’s very like, do I want to put my card on here? Is this going you know, and it’s just, there’s not a lot of innovation happening. So not only is there relationships are getting served, right? People aren’t getting served, but also the technology is like, I feel like five years behind a lot of other industries. So when we’re coming in, we’re moving fast, we’re adding new features like, and we’re just kind of

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (11:20.535)
Mm.

Daniel Mastropietro (11:25.337)
Like with the pace we’re going at, we’re trying to kind of have the click up style where we’re adding new features. We’re constantly adding new features. We’re shipping new things that help organizers sell more tickets, help the market, help them get better reporting and more data analysis, things like that.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (11:39.149)
But you’re factoring in balance. And I think that that’s like an important thing that not only comes up with tech and entrepreneurship, but artistry as well, just with living in general. I’m by no means affiliated with Riverside. I just use their tool. We talk about support and the balance of AI and human.

Daniel Mastropietro (11:42.624)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (11:50.048)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (11:54.902)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (12:00.195)
They do such an incredible job with their support where instantly on their website everywhere you can talk to AI, can get the different tools, different, not blog posts, but the different articles you can look up to.

Daniel Mastropietro (12:14.048)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (12:14.761)
things but as soon as you’re stuck as soon as you want help you can be like human and they connect you like this and if the human can’t help you they’re like no problem I’m gonna start to take it we’ll email you later that’s that good balance that people need and so it sounds like you guys are factoring that into your growth but let me take a quick philosophical step back so there’s rising tide it’s not necessarily that everyone needs to be the same and fair because I do believe in merit right like those that work hard for what they get or achieve for

Daniel Mastropietro (12:25.428)
Yep. Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (12:44.625)
because of the working hard deserve the reward so to speak. Is that something you guys always had built into your mindset? Is that something you were taught that you grew up with? Did it happen Daniel when you became a dad? Like tell me a bit about your ethics and where that morality was birthed.

Daniel Mastropietro (13:02.326)
Yeah, I guess I’ll go into the idea of like the rising tides thing is, is massive. mean, I see what we’re doing. It’s allowed us to scale just being like, especially in this industry, don’t get me wrong. There’s other industries where there’s not a lot of communication. There’s not a lot of relationships and that’s just normal. But in this industry where we were both organizers, like I wish we threw a festival at the Kentucky Speedway and we had issues with our ticketing. And I don’t want to say the name of the company and we couldn’t reach anyone. And people are trying to check in at a Speedway and they’re

It was camping and it’s just it’s moments like that that were like wow is Little little something little is like a relationship could have moved the needle for me so much to be like this is I’m gonna write a review I’m gonna go publicly and make these guys are awesome. I think that’s big for me as far as that goes just on the relationship side

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (13:53.807)
What about you, Josh?

Josh Misko (13:54.06)
Yeah, I can add to that for sure. mean, know both Dan and I have, in all of our business ventures, especially, I’ll speak for myself coming from being an artist, that philosophy has been in any business that I have done back when things were not working out well to when they started working out well. And so that’s one fundamental philosophy that never changed. And you’ll find that in…

all of the things that we’re doing together now, both within and outside of C-Fund. Because we really believe again, as technology continues to advance, the relationships and the services and the connection that’s going to be the X factor.

Daniel Mastropietro (14:36.723)
I think there’s another thing too with me and Josh, we both share this like weird motivation, right? Where, and I talk about Will Smith. I’m a big Will Smith quote guy. I don’t know, I just love Will Smith. I was listening to a podcast from him recently and he said, if you put me and my competitor on a treadmill,

I am either going to die or you’re going to get off the treadmill first. And I think me and Josh very much have that mindset. We’re putting in like 16, 18 hour days right now. We believe in this mission so much and we’re seeing the reaction from organizations, from venues is like so rewarding in the sense where they’re like, Josh, what was the, someone said something recently to you. It was about, we make money together. It’s not you making money. What was that? It’s things like this.

Josh Misko (15:23.948)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (15:24.916)
that just like fire me up every single morning.

Josh Misko (15:28.206)
So we are meeting with organizers daily, right? Some very big ones, some smaller ones, it depends on their needs. Everything’s kind of individually different. Everyone’s needs are different, right? But I had a really cool thing happen the other day sitting down with an organizer and it was a venue. And they have met with everyone, all the majors, you know, and they’ve had bids and quotes and whatever, the whole normal game, right? And they said that after meeting with us, we were the first people to sit down and show

what we do and not sit here and tell them how we are going to make money off of their tickets. We were sitting down being like, this is how we are going to be successful together and how we are going to provide a more equitable structuring together so that we are winning together as your partner, literally like you own the software basically. That’s how we want it to feel. And they stopped me in the meeting and they were like, you know, we met with everyone. You’re the first.

Daniel Mastropietro (16:13.848)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (16:22.326)
company that’s ever framed it this way. It’s always the same thing with everybody else. It’s always this, you know, this is how we commission. Yeah. We’ll commission this. Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (16:26.932)
Here’s a signing bonus. Here’s this. Yeah. Well, what you’ll you know reach out to someone’s yeah, and it’s crazy because it’s like it’s something like that. That’s like whoa Relationships were the blue ocean the whole time you’re telling me the blue ocean to ticketing was just being a good person and building relationships with these venues and it’s like a light bulb has been going off the last like like month or so with us we’re like, this is crazy. We’re talking to really big venues and they’re like

it’s crazy to get you guys on a phone call, you know, and you guys aren’t starting off with like this and that. I’m just like, this is insane. Like what is going on here? So.

Josh Misko (17:03.382)
It’s like that old guard comment you made a moment ago. There’s very much a shift in the collective consciousness around the old guard right now. you know, I believe that we are doing our thing at the right time, you know, in addition to everything else. And it’s really exciting, you know, I mean, as organizers ourselves, know, we’re giving these partners what we would desire.

and every one of them needs something different and we have that level of flexibility to provide that type of service. so again, I keep being a broken record about the invite only thing, but it’s super important because if we were a marketplace, it just wouldn’t be, you know, it wouldn’t be possible. And so, yeah, I mean, that’s really kind of where that all stems from. My mom drilled it into me too, by the way, being raised by a Canadian really drilled in a lot of kindness and a lot of thinking about others too.

Daniel Mastropietro (17:38.444)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (17:40.846)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (17:46.307)
That’s awesome. mean, Josh, you got a huge.

Daniel Mastropietro (17:52.91)
You

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (17:55.887)
Be nice, I mean, be good for goodness sake is how I was raised, right? Like, why should I be good? Because it’s good to be good, end of story, don’t discuss this, be good. You’re a musician, you come from a huge background of like musical training, musical schooling. Do you consider yourself a musician first and foremost before like a tech entrepreneur?

Daniel Mastropietro (18:04.352)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (18:05.518)
It feels good. It feels good to be good, you know? I think.

Josh Misko (18:20.43)
I consider myself human first and foremost, but yeah, mean if I’m going to identify as something, I’ll always be an artist. I would be unfair to my soul if I wasn’t that way. But as such, I feel like I really relate to these organizers in a way that, because I’ve been in their shoes, both on the business side as well as on the artist side. so, yeah, I would definitely.

say that’s a huge part of my identity.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (18:53.083)
I mean, I totally agree. It’s funny because when I first started doing V13 promotions, which is evolved into V13 music, V13 promo still exists and it’s kind of like more of an incubator for all of the business related stuff we do, marketing, advertising, web development.

but we were trying to focus in on artists. And then we got some like corporate work, know, redoing some sales funnels, some websites, some marketing, some branding. And we realized working with a painter, writers, journalists, musicians, photographers, and entrepreneurs that they’re all the same. They’re all under the bucket of creative. And it really, just comes down to balancing the artistry with the business. Like how do you make the music and then how do you sell the music and how do you join them?

Daniel Mastropietro (19:38.966)
Mm-mm.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (19:42.337)
with balance to do something that’s authentic and that gives the product the best possible chance of success, right? Without forcing it.

Daniel Mastropietro (19:48.705)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (19:49.646)
That’s the golden word right there. That’s the key to success. In my opinion, authenticity. That’s the key. And does it resonate with people? That’s up to the people, if it’s authentic.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (19:55.671)
Which one?

Daniel Mastropietro (19:59.282)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (20:04.514)
That’s the extractor. That’s where I think a lot of the mainstream is suffering, especially with what’s happening with AI and releasing music on Spotify and the depreciation of recorded music that’s happening. know, a lot of people are trying to sound like other people. Yeah. for sure.

Daniel Mastropietro (20:16.341)
Well, you see what gets rewarded too. Well, like what is the algorithm reward? And it’s like, you got these bands who are so talented that would, that the music like would, it’s just undiscovered, right? But the thing is, is management’s like, all right, go do this TikTok. And it’s like, this band like that changes the whole brand and everything they want to do. And then they’re doing things they don’t want to do because it pushes an algorithm and rewards, you know, like the music. just sucks. It’s built like that. Yeah.

Josh Misko (20:41.144)
Super, super true. I’m still a manager and I manage two artists still. you know, it’s very, very much that. I mean, can be genre dependent too, right? But like the genres that make the most money, you know, and I do think the majors just are winging it too. I don’t think anyone truly knows what they’re doing anymore. I think they’re just doing the best they can at what they think is working. And that’s why so many of them are like, TikTok’s trying to do more of that. You know what I mean? Because they’re just trying to.

Daniel Mastropietro (20:51.688)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (21:08.667)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Josh Misko (21:10.936)
You know, everyone’s, everyone’s weighing in it, man, on this space rock at the end of the day, right? I know I am.

Daniel Mastropietro (21:15.068)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (21:17.743)
Well, I think that’s actually a really interesting point and you made me kind of coin something. When you get to a certain level and maybe you’re playing within a system, maybe it’s the old guard, maybe there’s a lot of BS that’s happening.

you’re at a point where you’re winging or swinging. You’re either going by the seat of your pants or you know you’re pushing something, you’re pushing an agenda. You’re not doing things authentically like you said, Josh. Daniel, let me ask you a question because you brought up something that I haven’t talked about a lot on this podcast that I want to do more of, which is the grind. Okay, so I’m 45. I have kids and stepkids. They’re in this house, halftime and halftime. So we

Daniel Mastropietro (21:51.675)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (22:00.191)
have the kids, I think every two weeks we have them 11 days. So there’s like, you know, three days in two weeks that we are free.

Daniel Mastropietro (22:04.329)
Mm-hmm.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (22:09.045)
I’m usually working 24-7 all of those days. try to take obviously time off or big chunks of time off in the evenings when they’re home or on weekends to be present to be a good father. But like I’ll easily do 10 to 14 hour days. And I’m feeling burnt out sometimes and I’m feeling exhausted. But you just said 18 hour days and you have a newborn. Like talk to me about your sanity.

Daniel Mastropietro (22:26.141)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (22:33.66)
Yeah, yeah.

So I say this like this is I love this right I talk I talked to my wife about this before we even you know started talking about having a baby like I Love work. I am obsessed with work and it’s not the destination. I’m obsessed with I love the journey I the day-to-day I love putting out fires at 2 in the morning because something happened here. I love it I love going to war every single day and and that’s what I enjoy but also I Wouldn’t be able to do that without my wife my wife

holds it down. Like her and her mom, her mom nannies for us full-time now.

She holds it down. mean, she knows, you know, our goals as a family and all that. And she sees kind of like what I’m doing. I have my role and she has hers and she holds it down like all around like very much. And Josh knows this. Brianna is a, she’s a champ, right? So it’s, I think it’s also setting expectations and just understanding like what you guys both want. And I mean, we…

She knows. mean, she’s known me for eight years now. This is all I’ve done was build since she’s met me. So she gets it. It’s not like it was different. And then all of sudden I just dipped into this kind of lifestyle.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (23:49.709)
Yeah, the support and the family life and the considerations around that are super important and I’ll come back to it. But like you personally, how do you balance it all? How do you balance the sleep deprivation, the…

It’s very easy to stay motivated. I’m like you, I love grinding. I wake up every day and I feel so blessed to do this that there’s nothing else that I want to do. So that itself is inspiration to keep going. But there’s still all the fatigue and other stuff that sets in. Do you have any special tricks? Do you stand all day long? Do you meditate? Like what’s Daniel doing?

Daniel Mastropietro (24:08.165)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (24:24.549)
No, it’s just in my life is integrated like everything is integrated into my life. There’s no like Separation between work and life everything in my life is built around work and it’s almost a degree or two away a little bit There’s not I don’t really I don’t know. I don’t really think about it like that I just I know what I want. I I love doing what I do So it’s almost like I mean it’s a dream to be able to sit here and even be able to do what we’re doing in the ticking industry because I love music, you know, and

I love live events and it’s just it’s exciting to go to war I call it war but I go to work every day right and just and just do this you know but I mean there’s definitely don’t get me wrong I’m not working like that like that type of schedule like on the on the weekends I mean I sleep a lot on the weekends I gotta catch up on some sleep and with the newborn we’re doing a bunch of he just rolled actually

last night. So like one in the morning I was like, what’s going on? I came down and he had rolled. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (25:23.465)
That’s cool. I think you just accidentally coined a new term. The three of us will take it away. We’ll have like three part ownership. Work. So not work. From now on it’s work.

Daniel Mastropietro (25:33.836)
work. There it is.

Josh Misko (25:36.366)
I like it.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (25:37.327)
So you love what you do, you’re motivated, you’re passionate. Give me an example of one or two things that you’ve done, Daniel, to integrate your life into the work to make it easier. Like what are some of the habits or pro tools that you swear by that you have to use? For me, it’s Riverside.

Daniel Mastropietro (25:55.107)
Yeah, I mean, I’m a big ClickUp user. My life is on ClickUp. I’m really big on my project. I use a project management software for everything. Like every little project me and Josh are working on, everything with our development team, everything, my home chores. Like I have a project coming. We’re about to open up an office here in Cincinnati. I’m building up a ClickUp list for it and I’m just going through, I think staying organized is very important to me. But then also too, I just, I really

believe in finding a partner that just gets it, you know, that’s massive. Being able to have those conversations and there’s not like resentment around like work is really big. And I think that’s like, at least for me, I’m 30, we have a newborn, you were recently married, like we are on the same page and that makes everything in life so much easier, you know.

Josh Misko (26:50.311)
Huge X factor. I’ve experienced the opposite.

Daniel Mastropietro (26:51.616)
because I don’t feel guilty, right? She champions it, which is awesome.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (26:59.971)
What about you, Josh? Give me something on your end.

Josh Misko (27:03.95)
Well, I very much share the obsession that Dan shares and you know there’s obviously pros and cons to that but I at the end of the day I think it’s the biggest blessing and the biggest gift to be obsessed about what you love. Like I can sit here and burn the candle at both ends all day long if it’s about our business and our baby and our passion and it’s actually making a difference. I’m not just doing some sort of basic sales. I find that

even the selling process for us is more so informing than it is even a sale, you know? But for me, you know, I got to give a lot of credit to my ex-wife actually. She really helped me see my capabilities that I wasn’t able to see as we had our journey together. you know, within that journey that we had together, I started to really find my self-value and self-love and I really started to embody.

If I can’t love myself, if I can’t find the value within myself, how can I ever give that out to the world and give it to anybody else? And it was a really deep journey that we were on together for a long time. I was very grateful for that, even through all the ups and downs that resulted in us not in our divorce. But in terms of the day-to-day and the obsession being on all the time, it doesn’t matter the time zone. I’m constantly mixing time zones up, which is something I’m working on fixing within my relationship with my calendar.

Daniel Mastropietro (28:22.703)
Yeah, but he still shows up for the meetings though, you know? It’s like, what’s, you know?

Josh Misko (28:25.806)
I won’t miss them. I won’t miss it. meditation has been very helpful. Like, you know, self-help books and all that kind of stuff. Super, super helpful. A lot of tools I’ve learned. Mentors, coaching. You know, I work with various coaches on different things from business to spirituality to all sorts of stuff. You know, there’s always more to learn. And it’s one of my biggest core desires as a human is to feel inspired and inspire as well. And a lot of that stems from

that type of practice. know, and so I’m very, grateful for the journey that that Kayla and I had together for a lot of those reasons. You know, she really helped me help me that makes sense.

Daniel Mastropietro (29:05.309)
I also, I do want to say too.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (29:05.401)
That’s a big.

Daniel Mastropietro (29:09.279)
I do want to say too, when I say 18 hours, it’s not like I’m sitting in front of my computer. I’ll schedule meetings for when I’m at the gym. I’ll go out and walk to my dog and be on the phone, but I’m just always in work mode. I’m not just sitting here in a dark room just beating the keyboard for 18 hours. When we’re doing sprints with new updates, yeah, that’s definitely a thing. Yeah.

Josh Misko (29:21.901)
Yeah.

Sometimes though, yeah. Well and Jim too, Jim is an absolute must. And I’m feeling it right now. I’ve been on the road for, man, I don’t know, a few months now. I’ve been in Nashville maybe like seven days total. And it wears on me, especially if I’m out with bands or we have some drinks, you know what I mean? Like it just, it can really wear me out. And so my supplement routine.

My gym routine has been lacking right now because I’ve just been go, go, go and it’s a problem. Like I’m currently working on making some adjustments so that I don’t screw that up. But I mean those are things that just, I tell my family too because my mom’s just like, do you, you’re always go, go, go. And I’m just like, well, it’s because if I don’t do these few things, I can’t execute at that level. I need to be able to execute. So I don’t drink very often because if I regularly drink like I used to when I was in a touring band.

I can’t physically execute at the level that we need me to execute at. And I need to be everywhere all the time. That’s how I live my life. I love it. I live a borderline gypsy life and I love that our company benefits as a result. I’m actually coming to you right now from Wayne, Pennsylvania. We have a show here in town today. so this evening. And the travel stuff is just as much a soul filler for me as the…

Daniel Mastropietro (30:24.392)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (30:33.005)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (30:46.542)
the journey like Dan was saying, the experience of being everywhere at once is as fulfilling to me as it is tiring. And so that is a form of meditation for me in and of itself. I hope that makes sense.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (31:02.147)
No, it absolutely does. And these are all really important things to discuss because I think that outside looking in, a lot of people think that it’s just grind, grind, grind, go, go, go, but it’s not. I do believe in forward momentum or motion all the time, but you have to be able to pull in things that help to fill your cup to rejuvenate things.

example that one of my life coaches used a couple years ago was Formula One race car. If your Formula One race car is going to constantly go, go, go and win and be at the top of its class, it needs the best team, the best training, the best fuel, the best engineering. You have to constantly put in to get the results. And I think that it’s important thing for us to be discussing when you know, the grind, the payoff, the hustle is great. But what goes into it? You know, I love to discover that. And Daniel, you know, I’m a family guy myself. I’ve got kids as I mentioned,

The newborn phase is awesome.

Daniel Mastropietro (31:57.678)
Circle.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (31:57.679)
It took me two failed marriages to really start to look at myself and evaluate who I was and then do what you did Josh, which was go inward and really adopt self love and realize like, oh shit, if I’m burnt out, then everyone else is gonna get a shit version of myself. I need to make sure I’m at top form so that I can give more and more. And Daniel, you reminded me of a book that I read, came out in think 2000, it’s,

The Millionaire Mind by Jay Stanley or Thomas J Stanley. looked it up. I don’t know if you guys have read that, but it’s life changing. And this guy did this huge survey of like millionaire families in the U S all different, like, you know, races, religions, statuses, locations. It wasn’t like sequestered to a certain area. And one of the key things that came back from all of the people that created and retained wealth was only one parent worked. And it wasn’t like a man or a woman or a man.

I didn’t have to do with that. It was just that the family is so important and it’s such a big job that for me to go out and crush and slay and succeed, I needed that equal support at home. And it sounds like you have that in your life and that you might also have had that Josh and you appreciate it and you learned lessons from it as well.

Daniel Mastropietro (32:57.625)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Misko (33:18.956)
Yeah, mean, I don’t have a children, you know, my ex and I had talked about it. We didn’t actually end up doing it, which, you know, in hindsight now is probably for the best because we weren’t able to work through things. But I totally relates that in different ways. I know all about that book. I’ve read a lot of similar ones. I’ve not read that one yet, but it’s on my short list. you know.

Daniel Mastropietro (33:40.503)
You’re an uncle to Leonardo though, so, you know.

Josh Misko (33:42.286)
Yeah, yeah, I’m an uncle. I’m a cool uncle to several awesome children. But, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, I think about Dan and I talk about this all the time, because Dan was there during my whole divorce process, which was very difficult for me. And I talked to him also about how much I learned. Like, I’m not the same man or human being that I was. You know, she, she, her and I don’t talk anymore. But if we were to sit down over coffee, I think she would be very

Daniel Mastropietro (33:45.07)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (33:45.455)
you

Josh Misko (34:10.348)
surprised at the different person I am today and I’m sure she’s probably changed as a result as well. And so I consider that a huge blessing in terms of the impact that a family setting had, my unit being her and I, for example.

Daniel Mastropietro (34:23.479)
Well, and Josh has had such, feel like, and if you don’t mind me speaking to this, Josh, I feel like you’ve had such a glass half full mentality since then. And the way you’ve just expanded has been crazy, man. Just like, I’ve been learning so much shit from you for the last couple months through, know, like, seriously, life lessons. I’m like, oh, but you’ve had such a positive mindset where it’s very glass half full, not half empty. Like life is gonna be all right. Like we’re gonna figure this shit out. Versus like…

Josh Misko (34:38.882)
Thanks, man.

Josh Misko (34:48.63)
No. Yeah, well, it’s because I have amazing friends and mentors who helped me because I could not have gotten through that journey alone, especially my cat passed during that period of time, too, and he was my son. And that was like, wow, that was hard having it all happen together, you know, but I really believe that God put those challenges in front of me for me to come out with who I am today. And I’m very grateful for that as well. And I just find.

Daniel Mastropietro (34:50.135)
The world’s crashing down, you know, so, no.

Josh Misko (35:16.142)
Practicing gratitude is a heck of a lot easier than, or not easier, but a heck of a more fulfilling than just being angry. At least in my opinion.

Daniel Mastropietro (35:23.011)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (35:23.183)
Oh, totally agree. Yeah, I mean, it’s funny, like I’ve references before, but like diamonds are created under pressure, Immense pressure. And if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. So I’m with you there, Josh, that the bad things are just unrealized good things in my book. And similar to how Daniel commented earlier, like, you know, in two in the morning when something goes wrong.

That’s exciting. It doesn’t have to be scary or bad. Everything is down in the world’s crack. It’s like, cool. Let’s fix this. Let’s triage this as best we can. There was a Navy SEAL who I…

I don’t think I follow, think it was just something that got fed to me in an algorithm and he said that from a business perspective what he learned from being a SEAL and then took into the world of business was there’s no such thing as an emergency because emergency immediately alters the mind state to like panic mode and fight or flight. He said everything is just a task with different levels of priority based on like urgency and they address everything the same way and it’s such a simple concept that means so much and so if I walk through my front door and all of a sudden there’s a

Daniel Mastropietro (36:19.613)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (36:28.177)
I’m pouring down from my ceiling is it going to help the situation if I’m panicking or freaking out or if I stay calm and I’m just like there’s a flood what do I have to do shut off the water get a bucket start thinking you know and you probably do the same thing when it comes to the problems you know with with the software or running an application or running a business

Daniel Mastropietro (36:33.619)
No.

Daniel Mastropietro (36:46.292)
Mm.

Josh Misko (36:47.606)
Everything. It’s a huge, I mean, that’s that’s a huge fundamental of philosophy, right? It’s not anything happening to us. It’s our response to the things around us that create anything, right?

Daniel Mastropietro (36:48.723)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (36:59.397)
Yeah. Well, I also need it. I need the chaos a little bit. I feel like I thrive in it. Like, feel like if we afford, if there’s not a city we’re going to run and take over, you know, like kind of thing, you know, with the idea of like war, like if there’s not like something we’re marching towards, like I feel like we’re just sitting there being very like reactive to things and I don’t like that.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (37:01.699)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (37:21.241)
The amount of times.

Josh Misko (37:21.496)
Dan manifest the hustle.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (37:24.591)
The amount of times the Jurassic Park gets referenced because of Ian Malcolm and like, you know, life will find a way and then his love for chaos and chaos theory. I agree. You got to find peace in the chaos, right? You got to like, it comes back to balance. We said it earlier. Like I mentioned the book to talk about the family analogy and how Daniel, you’ve got like that support at home, but it’s also equally important.

Daniel Mastropietro (37:32.219)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (37:38.991)
yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (37:49.864)
Mm.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (37:52.335)
in the entrepreneur grind, right? Like I am leading this ship and running this podcast and have a home and have a partner here that’s amazing and all this stuff. Like I can’t execute at the level that I do without my business partner Lance and our really important team around us. It’s like a small tight team, Aaron and Melissa, like shout out to you ladies. You guys just crush things. You have to be able to rely on other people to get things done in order for you to go and slay as well. You guys have that biotic relationship, right?

Daniel Mastropietro (37:55.24)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (38:19.398)
Yeah, I hope.

One yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean Josh literally talk all day. I feel like we’re working and talking at the same time literally all day It’s like a it’s literally like a 24-hour phone call I feel like every day, but I will say this jump what we said with building a team Josh I got he’s one of the best like Hiring people knows how to hire people really well how to find very loyal people. I’ve never seen anyone like it Josh’s is so talented at finding people who fit in to a team’s like culture and then

Josh Misko (38:31.032)
Right.

Daniel Mastropietro (38:51.783)
finding a place for them, you know, that works for them too and that like they enjoy and finding like where they feel like confident and can thrive and Josh is amazing at it. I’m not the best when it comes to that. This man is, but when it comes to team building I’m like, Josh, where’d you find this person? He’s like, they’re gonna be doing that. I’m like, what? What’s going on? This is crazy. So Josh is great at that.

Josh Misko (39:04.334)
you

Josh Misko (39:11.246)
I appreciate that. I just think how important it is. We’re all good at different things, right? And there’s things we’re not good at. And that’s one thing I’m really grateful in the partnership that Dan and I have is we execute in different places really well together and we scale. Because I don’t know if you’re familiar, partnership models in business are actually the highest failing model by far. And it’s because people struggle to navigate that relationship.

And so I feel very grateful that we are both good at these different things and they come together very semiotically because I’ve had several partnerships that have not worked out as a result. And I think a lot of people have, probably most entrepreneurs, know, but thanks for saying that. And I think that the foundation of that really comes to what do I want to experience within the culture of what I’m spending my time on. And I want to…

figure out as much as I can about an individual and find what they’re good at and put them in a place where they’re to excel because if I set them up for failure they’re going to burn out and they’re going to fail. And not everyone’s good at a certain position or good at certain things. And so that’s a huge priority just in terms of engaging with humans is just trying to put people good at what they’re good at and the role that requires what they’re good at. Because they’re going to be a heck of a lot more inspired and they’re going to perform better too.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (40:26.425)
Yeah, I agree.

Josh Misko (40:26.712)
But you get to know people that way. You gotta get to know them. You know? Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (40:28.664)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (40:30.979)
Humanity we talked about personality like personal relationships like humanity is so important and

A lot of what you touched on guys is I think the answer is like being aware of yourself enough to see what your flaws are, what your faults are, learning to love yourself, including the flaws and faults. These all lead you to be a better person that ultimately sets you up to be a better leader. And as such, you’re able to then identify other amazing people who you know what, that guy is so good at that. And I’m terrible at that. I bet you if we combine forces, we’ll have a better overall package or framework

to deploy this product or idea, whatever it is. And it sounds like you’re both in a good spot of self-awareness and appreciating what you do poorly and identifying the counterpart in someone else. And that’s what will have success. It’s also that model that helped you guys to just say like, screw big tech, screw all these things. Let’s just focus on the person. And that’s why the company is doing well, or at least that’s why there’s a lot of interest right now.

Daniel Mastropietro (41:36.533)
Yeah, we’ve been profitable since day one. Like the funding round wasn’t like, now we’ve been like, but in order to do what we wanted to do and to really go all in on this, right? you know, we’re, yeah, it made sense to, you know, do a funding round.

Josh Misko (41:46.56)
at the

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (41:53.135)
So why don’t you guys tell me a little bit about that. I’ve got a really amazing picture of who you are and where you come from and how you work together and the fundamentals and the philosophy behind Seed Fund. Tell me a little bit about the nerdy stuff, like funding. There’s probably a lot of people who are like, I don’t even know how to get funding or what is involved in that and how much to ask for and where do I even ask? How did that work out for you guys?

Daniel Mastropietro (42:17.537)
That’s a Josh thing. Josh is a wizard.

Josh Misko (42:21.3)
I mean, I, man, it’s obviously not just easy, right? I mean, it’s going to be, I think it really, I know we keep getting into philosophy, but I really think it boils down to, are we providing value to people? And is that valuable? know, Nashville is also very strategically beneficial. Our funding partners are not from there, ironically, but there’s a large

private investor community there, like venture capital community and things like that. And if you really hustle and put together a package and it makes sense and it’s profitable, you know, you can get meetings like that. It just takes hustle. You got to turn over the stones, find these people that they make themselves reachable. You know, I think most people’s problem is they don’t even try. They overthink it before they even put any action in it. There’s no accident doesn’t happen. Now, obviously, it’s really difficult. I had

Daniel Mastropietro (43:04.233)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (43:17.994)
We had talked to many people and had even received a couple offers before we actually settled on the partner we have now who’s amazing. And I think it really just boils down to what are you giving to the community? What is the value providing? Are you just trying to turn a profit? you actually trying to, what’s the mission of what you’re trying to do here and why is it different? Why do they want to put their money into you and buy into the company basically?

Daniel Mastropietro (43:45.483)
I always I also see ya. Yeah. no, you’re I always I see a world too right now where

Josh Misko (43:45.708)
And so there was a whole bunch of steps to, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Daniel Mastropietro (43:51.975)
Everything is like pre-revenue. Let’s fund one more pre-revenue. We have an idea We’re pre-revenue or pre-revenue, right? And it’s like and I think I don’t know like maybe I’m to my language Maybe I’m fucking wrong here But I do think there’s a world where like a business’s purpose is to make money, know Not I don’t we’re not trying we’re trying to be like a very profitable company, right? Like we’re not trying to build an idea Raise a bunch of capital and then try to get acquired like that’s not the goal here, right? And I think that’s another thing where like

Josh Misko (43:56.898)
I was gonna mention that, yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (44:21.819)
Like a lot of companies are like, this could be worth this much. A lot of people have ideas and they assume they just need funding to do anything. We bootstrapped this from the ground up in the trenches. Let’s go to war every day. And I think then it became, okay, now it makes sense to do a funding round. But I think, yeah.

Josh Misko (44:37.816)
We had so many meetings about it and it was a strategic thing. It wasn’t, and I think a lot of people are kind of desperate for it and it totally makes sense. I’ve been there. been there. You know, I mean, it’s really surreal feeling being post that experience now. It’s changed everything. I mean, our, even our whole network has changed. Us trying to move big conversations has changed. Like it’s, it’s crazy. We had a big dinner with our partners the other day and what we accomplished just at that dinner was like, wow, we’ve really teared up from this, you know? But,

Daniel Mastropietro (44:51.591)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (45:06.066)
People don’t even know if there’s a demand and if the market even wants this so they have an idea and they go straight to funding before They throw a couple of grand behind something just test it see if you can go get 30 users or 30 clients Whatever it is, but I think there’s this weird Culture around funding where it’s like in order to even go to market I need funding and I think there’s a lot especially with AI There’s gonna be a lot of people and me and Josh talk about this all day long There’s gonna be a lot of people with ideas that you know can build things and you know come up with ideas and sit there with

Josh Misko (45:08.395)
Right.

Daniel Mastropietro (45:36.13)
all day and talk about it. But the issue and I feel like what’s happening is go to market strategy is where people fail the most. They don’t know how to get their first 10 users and we proved that this is like the market wanted something like this before we even went to go after funding. It wasn’t like a theoretical thing. It was like here’s the data, here’s our profit. If we scale, we do this, we get this many. It’s like you know there was a model there already built based off of going to market before we went through.

Josh Misko (45:55.928)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (46:05.99)
funding round.

Josh Misko (46:06.926)
Yeah, it was very strategic. was, we were weighing, weighing out like, you know, we know we can meet these KPIs if we continue to bootstrap. However, we know that we can scale ourselves and go way faster if we take a funding route. But we had a specific way to do it in mind that required a specific individual. I’m not going to get into this, I’m not going to get into the specifics because of privacy and the, you know, the whole like NDA stuff, but our

The way we structured it was a unique act. It required one individual group or entity to be involved in several different ways with the funding. And in doing so, it also allowed us to have 100 % control. So we don’t have that type of limitations that a lot of other companies have.

Daniel Mastropietro (46:38.08)
Yeah, very creative.

Daniel Mastropietro (46:56.304)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (46:56.547)
That’s amazing. funding is out there. It’s something that you guys believe that is not necessary in order to get going. Like try your hand at something, proof of concept maybe, and then explore funding afterwards.

Daniel Mastropietro (47:05.594)
No.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (47:11.491)
From a personal and philosophical level with this concept of rising tides philosophy, how do you envision balancing revenue and profit with also keeping things person to person, keeping things honest and fair?

Daniel Mastropietro (47:29.634)
I mean, we only win when organizers win.

So that’s like been the whole thing and the way we’ve structured our models for partners is very much that and that’s our whole thing. we don’t, what is it Josh, you said we either dive with you or thrive with you and that’s so true with all of our partners. Like it’s all, there’s no monthly software licensing fees. There’s nothing weird like that. It’s literally just like as you sell tickets, you that’s the only way we could, you know, the more tickets you sell, the better everyone does, you know, and just build.

Josh Misko (47:46.092)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (47:48.899)
Nice.

Daniel Mastropietro (48:02.405)
building it like that has been like the go-to since the beginning.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (48:07.759)
So build the benefits, build the goodwill right into the business model.

Daniel Mastropietro (48:14.677)
we work with our organizers and our venues one-on-one with marketing. I’m in ad accounts helping them scale out marketing funnels and ad funnels and doing these things where, again, I feel like the music industry, again, especially you know this from working with artists and businesses that are doing social media and advertising and meta and all that.

Josh Misko (48:18.446)
That’s the value, right?

Daniel Mastropietro (48:38.115)
They’re pretty behind. It’s just, let’s throw spaghetti at the wall. Here’s a $500 ad budget. It’s this long, you know, and let’s see what sticks. And then, I don’t know, we sit there and we really figure out with our partners too, like how much do you need to pay to buy a ticket? Because if I know it costs $2.35 to buy a ticket, that’s $40, and we know what your capacity is, we can scale that, and now it just prints tickets because we know what the cost per ticket is on Meta, you know, things like that.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (49:03.759)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (49:07.094)
It’s surprising how many people don’t market properly.

Daniel Mastropietro (49:10.36)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (49:13.794)
So the elephant elephant in the room is is live nation the lawsuit the stuff that’s going on with the DOJ I don’t want to get into the politics of it but you know in your hearts and your guts how do you feel that we that we as an industry or as innovators

help heal these issues that we find a better way for all of the players that don’t want to be forced to play that game. They want to be in the game, but by their own doings and their own accord rather than you have to do this. What do you guys think?

Daniel Mastropietro (49:49.331)
You ever seen the Spider-Man meme?

Where it’s like, no you or no you yeah, that’s what I feel like it is like all eyes are on ticketmaster But some of these legacy platforms are this do it the same shit. It’s not just ticketmaster It’s a it’s a culture that’s built at the highest level of taking it’s not just ticketmaster and I think I think let’s pull the scope back a little bit and look at everyone’s doing at that high of a level like where they’re Buying up venues and and running the touring and all that. It’s just it’s not just ticketmaster that’s doing

things like this but Ticketmaster being the biggest elephant in the room right that’s like the they’re gonna get the the most flack for this but it’s it’s very much it’s an industry-wide problem outside of just Ticketmaster too you know

Josh Misko (50:34.63)
and they’re playing the same game against each other. You who can purchase exclusivity as long as they can to increase their bottom line and maximize shareholder value. It’s got really nothing to do with venue support. It’s basically just close the deal, throw as much money as you can, and then when that contract’s over, bid again and throw as much money as you can, keep that going. You know, we think the solution is very much from software to service. It’s very much the individual. It’s the needs of every one of our clients are completely different. There’s similarities, you know, if it’s a promoter versus, you know,

and things like that and there’s definitely themes that we can put into forms of data and help better serve them. But at the end of the day, it’s that direct connection that allows us to, we think, heel towards the new generation, the next generation of ticketing, which is kind how that all naturally happened in terms of branding.

Daniel Mastropietro (51:24.959)
Our friend, have ever heard of the company ToneDen?

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (51:29.858)
No.

Daniel Mastropietro (51:30.577)
So they sold to Eventbrite. My friend, Ali, was the CMO and he was a co-founder of it. you know, as we went through this funding round and everything, Ali’s been a great resource for me, you know, just kind of telling me like, do this, do this. This is the right way. This is normal. We talked about the industry and he was like, dude, just promise me whatever you do. Cause he had to work at Eventbrite for a few years after he was like, just don’t become another transactional ticketing company where the only thing that’s going to separate you is how many zeros you can put

put on a signing bonus. Build relationships with these guys. You guys are already winning with the venues you have. Just keep on doing that. You don’t need to sit there and every time a contract’s up, it’s about who can add another zero. And that’s all that becomes important to the client at the time. And so where our bread and butter is, is working with venues and partners that care about the relationship more than they care about that. And a lot of times that’s in the 750 to

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (52:02.51)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (52:30.205)
2500 cap range. Now granted, it’s not just a shoe that fits all sizes, right? It’s very much, I we’re working with a stadium in Arkansas, you know, and things like that. it’s like…

It’s scalable. It’s also the person and the person type and the relationship they want to have. But beyond that and just the general, let’s just add another zero and it’s very transactional. We don’t want to do that. And that was some of the best advice I got from him was like, whatever you do, just don’t be like that. Cause it’s just another ticketing company that’s doing a signing bonus at the end of the contract, you know?

Josh Misko (53:05.07)
So many of these smaller size ones too need so much more support and they just don’t get it You know the majors are focusing on closing those larger venues But we you know we have partners who are less than a hundred cap You know it just depends it scales from that to you know stadium size and it just

Daniel Mastropietro (53:09.84)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (53:21.568)
Everyone’s needs are different. And as long as we can continue to have this type of connection between them, like with group texts and all that, literally they can reach us whenever and we can grow together that way. Then that’s where the real difference and change is going to be made. And there’s just so many, we’re finding there’s so many organizers out there who just are conditioned to believing this is the norm. And it’s just them getting no support, that’s just how it is. And that was why I was saying in the sales process, our sales process hardly sales. It’s very much informing.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (53:45.476)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (53:51.278)
It’s very much like teaching the philosophy of opportunity costs people don’t even realize how much they’re leaving on the table in terms of service and bottom line Just doing the normal thing with the normal company that everyone knows about and playing the normal game You know what mean? And so I find that yeah

Daniel Mastropietro (54:04.73)
Yeah.

We get customizable from the the ground up right and just to kind of go with little bells and whistles and kind of what we we do That’s a lot different We do custom service fees We figure out the service fees with the venue because the nightclub in Las Vegas that’s selling a girl at $90 vodka Red Bull It’s gonna have different service fees than a small theater in Bristol, Tennessee, right? It’s kind of just that’s it’s it’s got to be very customizable where all these legacy softwares are like, nope The fee is 29 %

you know, and things like that. So I think that’s, that’s been a big one for us. And also for me, right, doing Interstellar at the Kentucky Speedway, cashflow was so hard. was like, and the ticketing company at the time was holding the funds until the end of the event. With us, we do daily, weekly, or monthly payouts automatically with the ticket money, where a lot of these legacy platforms, they hold the funds for at least like, I think a lot of them are average 14 days after the event is usually the norm.

in that range but we do daily cash flow where it’s like Sarah buys a ticket on Monday you get paid the ticket money on Tuesday and it allows these venues especially the smaller ones to have access to their cash flow and not have to rob Peter to pay Paul and things like that.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (55:23.823)
awesome. You guys answered like kind of all my last questions. I wanted to reference another book that I read recently, The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend reading it. It’s basically this guy who was you know a university dude that was kind of a hippie and just wanted to meditate in the woods and his journey was to become a you know, decamillionaire. I think he sold his company for a billion plus valuation and it was just a transformative book.

Daniel Mastropietro (55:50.458)
Peace.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (55:53.729)
in every way possible but his underlying principle was that he just kept doing you know the thing that was being shown to him and he hired and grew his company

by having that human relationship, that one-to-one, by being real, by being himself. I think that’s a very good example of that principle of conscious business where you can have a very successful for-profit model that doesn’t screw anyone. How do you guys, this my last question, how do you guys envisioning that scaling happen while retaining the one-to-one with the venues?

Daniel Mastropietro (56:29.696)
Yeah, I think it’s,

more team eventually, it would be scaling human capital, it wouldn’t be scaling AI. That wouldn’t be the solution for us. If me and Josh have talked to this, if we get to a certain point where it’s like, okay, between meetings here, meetings there, the one-on-one relationships, we just need more team. That’s all it is. And I think that’s like, again, it’s not like some crazy Dexter’s laboratory problem where we to figure this. It’s like, okay, we just add another team member that we trust working with venues.

introduce them and then they build their relationship with us and it’s like I don’t know that’s yeah yeah exactly

Josh Misko (57:04.27)
That’s the X factor of the trust. So it’s not necessarily easy, but you know, we are utilizing AI to really help scale the things that are weedy, right? And the more that we can maximize our system and really efficiency, the more we can maximize our efficiency, the more high touch we can be. And again, you know, we may not be the best for every single person. Like we’re not the marketplace, for example. And that’s where we can really quality control and determine in our meetings and our sales.

meetings and these things like, you know, the whole invite only system. It really helps us keep control on that scale and keep control of our ability to deliver the services that we deliver, you know, and as we grow, will, we will inevitably have growing pains. Everybody does, and we will figure out how to do that. But we do, you know, the trust thing is important. And there are several people both in both of our networks that we do trust that we have in mind when we one day reach that, that place, but there’s still a long way to go because of how.

important efficiency is to us before we run into that type of diminished returns. so, and we were very data heavy people too. And so as such, we’re running models constantly to make sure we keep track of that kind of thing. You know? Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (58:10.92)
Yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (58:15.797)
Yeah, and when it comes close to meeting on the graph, we’ll have a solution ready to go for it.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (58:21.933)
That’s what Daniel says. I’m busy that day. got a newborn. Josh, you’re the people person going on here.

Daniel Mastropietro (58:27.047)
Yeah, I’m like, Josh, can’t, what’s going on, man, you know?

Josh Misko (58:31.278)
You can’t be in Pennsylvania and in Little Rock. But I can, sort of. I’m on a big tour right now and I’m in venue meetings on Zoom all day long while also sitting down with them at the same time. I love it, it’s the best. I get to meet the coolest people and build these relationships and it’s my favorite. It’s like being on tour with the band, the same kind of thing.

Daniel Mastropietro (58:32.883)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (58:33.935)
you

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (58:38.958)
You

Daniel Mastropietro (58:44.008)
Yeah.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (58:53.369)
Yeah.

I live for this too. I love me and you people. love getting information that not only betters my life and maybe changes some of my positions on things and it makes me a better person, better boss, but also, you know, sharing this outward with people that are on similar journeys to us. Cause everyone has, you know, a great idea until there’s a better idea that maybe comes along from someone else. So thanks for sharing so much of your story and your insight guys. You know, I’m really grateful for your time. And now we’re at the fun slash hard part where you have to wrap us up by giving me

each, know, something important and tangible to take away. Advice, opinion, you know, you really don’t want to

Daniel Mastropietro (59:32.18)
Got one already. I got one already. So I think in business

We tend to have shiny object syndrome and I think people start at the top of the circle and they get to about here and they’re like if they just kept on going another like few months they’d probably break over into the next like barrier but instead they’re like this isn’t for me they go back to the top new idea shiny object same thing and I think 80 probably not maybe like 60 percent of people do this and they keep on going back and then they think it’s a them problem you know they think like this isn’t for me this when in reality if you just stick with

that one thing and just keep pushing through the bad days because you’re going to have bad days. That’s part of the game, you know. You can’t think everything’s going to be pretty. I think it’s just getting, yeah, it’s brutal out here in the trenches, right? So again, I think it’s getting past those bad days and then realizing there’s good days ahead and keep on building that one thing. You don’t just keep on shiny object syndrome, something new, something new, something new, because you’re going to drive yourself insane.

Josh Misko (01:00:16.078)
It’s not, yeah.

That’s it.

Josh Misko (01:00:33.966)
It’s a few hours.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:00:37.301)
doing that, you know?

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (01:00:39.629)
Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think that that’s going to come in handy with a newborn at home. What was a new day?

Daniel Mastropietro (01:00:44.989)
yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly. you’re on mute. Josh, you’re on mute.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (01:00:50.137)
Josh, we’re muted.

Josh Misko (01:00:53.258)
sorry, I thought it was unmuted. I said he’s really good at time blocking strong because he got to deal with the kids too, you know, which is important, but.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:00:58.195)
yeah. And then Dancing Fruit, that’s another thing. Any new dads out there, Dancing Fruit on YouTube is one of the best. I might actually pay for the YouTube premium to get rid of ads, just so when that’s playing, it just plays through.

Chr1stoph3r G0nda (01:01:16.031)
Dancing fruit. love what you’re saying. Closing loops is so key. I think that it’s really open. It’s really easy to open new loops. It’s really hard to close loops. And I agree, man. You got to see it through, close the loop, then just, know, on that. Yeah, finish.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:01:17.391)
yeah.

Josh Misko (01:01:17.56)
That’s awesome.

Josh Misko (01:01:29.964)
I finish, execute, finish people like, and I wanna think, and if any listeners who are like considering funding or looking into that world, it’s super duper important that they understand that it’s not like, I’m funded, things are just easy now. I’ve never felt more pressure after we closed. I was just like, my God, now we’ve gotta execute. Like we gotta like, and it was lit a fire, you know? And so, it’s not like you just get that and suddenly like.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:01:31.238)
Get it.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:01:51.451)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (01:01:55.81)
you kick your feet up and things are good now. Now it’s like, wow, okay, we gotta go, you know?

Daniel Mastropietro (01:01:59.93)
Yeah, if you want if I could say how me and Josh celebrated it I think it was literally like dude awesome week We did it on a phone call and then the next day was just back to the grind, you know same thing

Josh Misko (01:02:09.422)
Yeah, I think we made a point to have a steak dinner together at some point, like a month later, two months later. And it’s not that we’re not taking time to celebrate. It’s just like, oh dude, here we are. We’ve leveled up. Now we gotta go, you know what I mean? Which is great. I mean, that’s important. And then like, there’s two things that come to mind for me with your question. One is a billionaire mindset that I love and it is just provide real value. If you can figure out how to provide actual value.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:02:12.983)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:02:19.472)
Yeah.

Josh Misko (01:02:37.034)
and you can figure out how to get to market and not just create something and move to the next thing that it’s going to reach. It’s going to reach if you’re actually providing human beings value. And then RuPaul has an amazing quote to you know, RuPaul says, if you can’t love yourself, how can you love somebody else? And I just that I think about that almost every single day. And so if you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not loving yourself, how on earth are you supposed to add value? If you’re not valuing yourself, how on earth are you supposed to add value to anybody else?

And that is hugely a business there. mean, think Napoleon Hill crosses the barrier between business and philosophy and like spirituality in one of the most organic, amazing ways. In my opinion, his books say borderline the same thing that spirituality books do just from the perspective of business and in all roots from self-value, self-love and so on. Those are two super important things in my opinion.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:03:04.622)
person.

Daniel Mastropietro (01:03:28.13)
Here we go.