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TicketSwap success story: CEO Hans Ober (29) about his rapid growth

Without external funding, TicketSwap has become a successful international company. In 40 countries, people resell event tickets through the company of CEO and co-founder Hans Ober (29). “We still have no competition.”

Anyone who has bought a concert ticket, but is not using it, can sell it online via TicketSwap. Through the link with Facebook, buyer and seller know who they are dealing with, supported by additional assessment options from TicketSwap.

To avoid extortionate prices, a ticket can also be sold for a maximum of 120 percent of the original price. On which TicketSwap charges a fee of 5 percent to the buyer and seller.

dodgy, shady business of second-hand cards. The company, which he founded with Ruud Kamphuis and Frank Roor, is now active in forty countries with more than fifty employees.

TicketSwap has about two million registered users – a doubling compared to last year – and a turnover development that keeps pace with that. Without external funding. “For us, expansion means conducting campaigns that immediately sell more tickets.”

Back to the beginning, how did you come up with the idea?
“I had a ticket for Lowlands that I wanted to sell. Facebook was the most logical place to do that at the time. But I soon got into discussions about the settlement with people who said they were interested.

Ticketswap can be found here:

ticketswap.fr

ticketswap.es

ticketswap.de

ticketswap.it

Finally, after much hassle, a girl came by to pick it up. She knew everything about me, but I didn’t really know about her, I thought. And she also wanted to transfer the money later. Of course I wasn’t interested in that. We solved it at that time with internet banking, but that was far from ideal. So that had to be done smarter.”

Did you get started right away?
“Indeed. Although I didn’t know much about the market, I realized two things: secondary ticketing was very bad, but there was a need to sell. Because people did offer their tickets. At the same time, I got a new roommate who had experience building sites and who was interested in my plans. Together with his partner, we then started building the first version of the platform very lean & mean.”