Our visionary of the day is one of those who triggers the “Cocorico”! 🇫🇷🐔

Since he was a little boy, Renaud Visage always wanted to go to the US, it was an obsession. That’s how he arrived there to study civil engineering. As you can see, before being a digital builder, Renaud was a physical builder, on the construction sites, for 4 years.

At the same time, the Internet is emerging, and Renaud is fascinated by this new technology. In 2000, he decided that programming and building in the virtual world is more interesting than physical construction surrounded by bulldozers. He joined a photo sharing company, which combines these two passions: digital and photography. You probably don’t know it yet, but Renaud is a passionate and very talented photographer, check by yourself here!

Six years later, in 2006, Renaud created Eventbrite, a startup that revolutionized event management and online ticketing, that has notably shaken up the event industry, and that has made its IPO. Yes! He belongs to the one who rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. “You feel a bit special this day”, Renaud confessed to us! We guess yes…

Despite all this success, Renaud and his team experienced crises that they managed to pass. During the 2008 financial crisis when all VCs at that time decided not to invest while Eventbrite needed to raise money, they managed to stay alive. In the latest podcast we recorded with him, Renaud recommends to take a look at the famous deck RIP Good Times by Sequoia, which advises to focus on the business and cut costs in such a crisis.

Time passes and 2020 is already here with the covid-19 virus and the event industry very affected. But as every entrepreneur, Renaud is a positive one and will not give up. He strongly believed that physical events would come back as quickly as they went away. “We will have a golden period” Renaud told us! And we can’t wait for it like everyone else! And the whole Eventbrite’s team sincerely believe too that the need to meet in person, to socialize, is much more important than the satisfaction we get today from purely online. We do agreed again!!! So, Eventbrite did not pivot but created tools to combine the ticketing part of the event with tools that allow streaming such as Zoom, Vimeo, etc.

Ok folks, we just realized we said too much and spoiled you hard. We suggest you keep discovering Renaud, who is back in France now, by listening to his episode. We promise you won’t be disappointed! We have also a short & funny video to get to know Renaud here 👇🏻. Enjoy!