Summary:
Welcome to another great episode of Startup Junkies!
On this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Caleb Talley, Jeff Amerine, and Davis McEntire sit down with Andrea Harding, the founder of Zipgig, an all-in-one booking platform and online marketplace for independent performance venues to book gigs with musicians and bands instantly. Andrea is a passionate entrepreneur driven to improve the lives of others through technology and software automation. Throughout the episode, Jeff, Matthew, Davis, and Andrea discuss Zipgig’s business model, the challenges Andrea experienced launching Zipgig, and the automation services Zipgig provides.
Shownotes:
(1:10) Introduction to Andrea Harding and Zipgig
(3:26) Andrea’s Career Before Zipgig
(5:24) Business Model of Zipgig
(6:42) Why Northwest Arkansas?
(11:27) Zipgig’s Target Audience
(15:08) Challenges Launching Zipgig
(18:10) Potentially Funding Zipgig
(21:22) The Automation Process Zipgig Provides
(28:03) Advice to Younger Self
(29:56) Closing Thoughts
Links:
Quotes:
“This is a really green space. There’s lots of ways that venues and bands need help and so there’s an opportunity for various subscription services, which I’m kind of testing a little bit, but definitely opportunities to monetize.” – Andrea Harding, (6:21)
“They don’t have any of that information. They’ve never even booked events. And so that’s the ideal customer because they really could benefit from a platform like Zipgig.” – Andrea Harding, (12:12)
“We really just wanna grow and we want to bring live music to places and make it easy where you might have a hard time booking.” – Andrea Harding, (25:35)
Zipgig: A Modern Booking Marketplace
On this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Caleb Talley, Jeff Amerine, and Davis McEntire sit down with Andrea Harding, the founder of Zipgig, an all-in-one booking platform and online marketplace for independent performance venues to book gigs with musicians and bands instantly. Andrea is a passionate entrepreneur driven to improve the lives of others through technology and software automation. Throughout the episode, Jeff, Matthew, Davis, and Andrea discuss Zipgig’s business model, the challenges Andrea experienced launching Zipgig, and the automation services Zipgig provides.
The Future of Zipgig
Zipgig takes all the manual tasks that independent venues and bands do to book gigs and places them all together on one platform. Currently, venues might use email or social media to receive requests from bands to play there, or the venues might be reaching out using multiple different communication channels. With Zipgig, all the information both sides need to book gigs is built into the platform, which makes booking gigs monumentally easier.
At the moment, Zipgig is free, but in the future, a transaction fee will be adopted because the platform cannot subsist forever being free. It’s free right now in order to get early feedback from users, which helps Andrea create new features and deliver more value. Zipgig is targeting venues like breweries, wineries, cafes, and restaurants where music is an afterthought or background noise. Places like breweries know they want to have live music, but they don’t know where to start because they don’t have a network. Zipgig benefits them with its built-in booking agreement and booking checklist to help them prepare for their event.
“They don’t have any of that information. They’ve never even booked events. And so that’s the ideal customer because they really could benefit from a platform like Zipgig.” – Andrea Harding, (12:12)
Zipgig’s Startup Principle
When Andrea started working on the animation process for Zipgig, she asked herself what steps a band takes to get themselves booked and what steps the venues take in order to get bands booked. From the venue’s perspective, they look for marketability. They want to know if the band has a following, if their sound fits the environment of their venue, and if you can bring people in the door. If a band can’t bring people in the door and expose them to the venue, then the venue most likely will not book that band.
Furthermore, speaking about marketability from a band’s perspective, they have to figure out how to market themselves so that they have a solid portfolio to showcase when they contact venues. Therefore, Andrea created a profile system where both venues and bands can create separate profiles that include all the necessary elements that both sides are interested in. There is a chat window where both sides can communicate, and then once a deal is communicated, the band can book the venue, or the venue can book the band through the platform.
“We really just wanna grow and we want to bring live music to places and make it easy where you might have a hard time booking.” – Andrea Harding, (25:35)
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