Joe Kustelski’s story is the quintessential tech boomerang tale.
His passions include the user experience, the written word and the merger of marketing and ticketing.
That sums up Joe Kustelski, CEO, Etix, who went from writer at CitySearch to founder of Rockhouse Partners to his current role of building the 15-year-old ticketing company’s profile and user base.
He believes technology should be more inclusive. “The more people who have access to the internet, it will help level the playing field,” Kustelski said. He sees a generation of kids with smart phones, but he also remembers the barriers to entry pre-2000. “Building software people will use is a passion of mine – the user experience is a passion,” he said.
The journey had a somewhat unlikely start for Kustelski. After graduating from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, he played semipro soccer and then went to work as Nashville Writer for CitySearch in 1995-96. Ticketmaster and City Search merged in 1997, and Ticketmaster went public in 1998.
The world of ticketing is rife with mergers, acquisitions, startups and failures. Kustelski rode the waves, accepting a job coding for Ticketmaster when that was the need to join Media News Group in San Francisco to build their online marketing division, which he built to a $3-million book of business.
After being in start-up mode work for 7-8 years, Kustelski suffered burnout and moved to Asia, where he eventually worked with the Thai Ministry of Health after the big tsunami “to deliver culturally appropriate care to the indigenous populations affected by the tsunami.” Helping people who may never have seen a doctor before reconnect with their boats and the water that had betrayed them taught Kustelski about building trust. That is a preeminent business skill.
He was back in the race after returning to Nashville and joining echomusic, which (and this will sound familiar) was acquired by Ticketmaster. His last big project with echomusic, which managed fan clubs for artists, was to explore merging TicketWeb’s ticketing with echomusic’s marketing.
When Kustelski formed Rockhouse Partners with Tawn Albright and Kevin Brown in 2009, he continued with the idea of merging marketing and ticketing. “We were far ahead of the curve,” he said.
“At Rockhouse, we help you manage web, email, social, mobile and measurement,” Kustelski said. It’s a merger of all his skillsets.
Now the Rockhouse team works with almost 100 venues, festivals and entertainment properties and helps them with digital strategy and driving demand for tickets.
In 2011, acquisition again confronted Kustelski, but, this time, he was in control. Etix acquired Rockhouse. “We realized if we plugged into a ticketing company we could grow faster, so we plugged into Etix. They made me CEO two years ago.”
Etix has been in ticketing for 15 years; Rockhouse Partners has done digital marketing for five. It’s Kustelski’s dream of 2008 come true — the merger of marketing and ticketing.