Event site transactions sells 5 million ticket Goldstar, adds function automatically place you and your friends

RIP Empson-writer at TechCrunch. He did not find friends here, he is here to win and you don't forget it. You can contact him at rip [at] techcrunch [dot] com ? more

Ticket sales for enterprises, nothing beats, "sold". But whether the flight is selling all their tickets or sports team fills their Stadium, the show must go on. Enterprises with perishable inventory can benefit from daily transactions model and those that you can make money on additional goods (purchase, which make up for revenues lost in offering discount) you can often break even — Take movie theaters and sports venues, for example.

This occurs when a company called Goldstar enters into the field. Gold Star-based membership site live entertainment half price tickets that allows sites to unload their additional tickets, make some extra income and generate word of mouth marketing.

GoldStar, which currently has relationships with more than 5000 place partners (from Cirque du Soleil and Ticketmaster in San Francisco) and paragraphs Matt coffin, Emmy award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris and former Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty as members of the Advisory Board wants not just become a "Groupon entertainment tickets.

To differentiate their models from the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial, Goldstar avoids revenue sharing with merchants and monetizes, instead taking a fee for each ticket ($ 4.50 in average), allowing entertainment — or show themselves — to take home the full cost of each ticket sold.

So far this model works for the ticket site entertainment as Goldstar recently announced that it sold its five millionth ticket and now has more than 2 million members in more than 20 major markets in the United States. The site currently offers 1200-1500 half price tickets every day.

Of course, as anyone who has used ticket discounts knows — so far so good, just satisfaction of scoring a deal on tickets, we want to be able to go in a movie or show and sit with our friends. Unseat. Me, for example, the attack is a friend, allowing subscription owners to offer their tickets with friends until their sale of anonymous people at StubHub.

Today, gold star announces its own solutions to ticket buyers and suppliers to address this problem with its characteristic "Sit with friends". GoldStar in new patent allows Goldstar members who purchase tickets for personal reference, then they can share with friends via email or social network of choice. Users can use this link to buy tickets in the same event and automatically get seated with their friends.

With five million tickets sold, the Goldstar has come a long way since he sold his first party tickts horse Ballet in Pasadena back in 2003 year. The company never accepted outside investment, however, managed to stay profitable — with only a dozen staff. GoldStar CEO Jim Mccarthy said that the key to the armed forces of resistance to large sales La Groupon was to cultivate its existing relationships with the places and shows instead focus on closing new merchants who can never use the site again.

From the perspective of the future road map, Mccarthy said that Goldstar is looking to expand into new cities in the United States and to improve its core technologies of construction of the new features, such as sit with friends that encourage people to get out to see live entertainment — in spite of the tough economy.

Founded by former GeoCities, Warner Bros., eToys, Overture, Morgan Stanley and Noah's bagels staff in 2002, the Golden Star is a website that is dedicated to helping its users to go to ...

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YC-funded PicPlum: beautiful prints, automatically mailed to you

PicPlum — a new start sharing photos, which is designed to make conducting, printing and mailing the physical photos easier than before. Service, founded by Paul Stamatiou and Akshay Dodeja, aimed at parents who wish to send printed photos of their children for friends and family. However, in contrast to the photo printing locomotive, Shutterfly and Snapfish, the idea is not to be cheaper to print all your digital photos. With PicPlum we are talking about improving the overall experience of sending and receiving photos by mail.

PicPlum offers its users to select only your best photos, which are then printed using a chemical process, high quality and packed in attractive envelopes before sending. The end result is something more beautiful and more interesting than anything you will get from traditional typography.

Subscription service for printing photographs

This service is another key advantage, too – this is automated. Each month, a new batch of photos sent to you via the service, without any effort on your part.

Although there is a pay-as-you-go option for those who don't care for subscription services, monthly option a better deal. For $ 7 per month you can choose from 15 photo to one address. For another $ 7 you can select the second recipient. And if you want to add additional photos to a package, it's $ 0.50 each.

Current users, meanwhile, to pay $ 0.50 for photo plus shipping ($ 1.50 in the United States and the rates may vary for international orders).

PicPlum offers a special TechCrunch readers who gives you 2-recipient free of charge, in addition to the one-month free trial.  Click here to use the promo code TechCrunch.

To be fair, this service is 5 times more expensive than large companies, such as Shutterfly, or Snapfish, who usually charge 9 cents per photo. Either of these companies can easily start something similar and undermine the PicPlum price.

But what sets PicPlum from each other now is Automation. Throughout the month you selectively in your best photos via email or upload them directly on the site. You don't have to remember to do something else — which, as any parent will tell you is a huge plus.

Curation is key

There is also something to this idea of conservation. Thanks to the ubiquity of digital cameras and camera phones, easy to accumulate large collections of photos containing hundreds of images, if not thousands. Family and friends (how much they love your kid!), do not have the time to sift through these online photos to select those they would like to print. So instead, you select the best photos and the rest is handled for you.

In a sense, PicPlum, as analog counterpart to my current favorite photo sharing application Photogram, which prompts you to select 4 photographs sent out an email with a subject.  In PicPlum, in the case of "theme" is an attractive envelope and digital photography are physical prints.  (But if you still prefer e-mail PicPlum also supports unlimited e-mail recipients free of charge).

About company & founders

Company founders have experience launch. Stamatiou co co-founded mobile alert platform Notifo and Dodja was one of the founders of the startup Mugasha music. PicPlum acquired the assets of the previous Y Combinator company PicWing and assumed his printer and an initial user base. The company currently has $ 150.000 in funding proposed SV Angel and Yuri Miller all startups Y Combinator earlier this year. The founders say they start their fundraising now and will be looking to hire soon.

Paul Stamatiou is a 24-year-old Web Designer, originally from Houston, Texas. He moved to Atlanta to obtain his BS in computational media from Georgia Tech after graduation ...

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