Stephen: The Around The Coin podcast. There's everything that's happening with Jay-Z coming back in concerts, the World Cup fever continuing on into the finals. It's all about ticketing in this episode, and what does ticketing look like on the blockchain, and how these huge organizations doing the ticketing are essentially acting like banks.

We talked to David Berk, who's the CTO and co-founder of KYD Labs. They have this TIX solution out, and he's diving deep into where blockchain integrates into the ticketing system, how people like us and the venues and everyone can save money by using blockchain. And he goes into exactly what's happening now, what are the biggest challenges when it comes to ticketing, and what happened to the NFT ticketing that we were expecting four years ago.

This is a really fun podcast with David. Check it out and let me know what you think. This is your host, Stephen Sargeant, the Around The Coin podcast. We're gonna get into a spice-- I think it's a spicy topic, like ticketing onchain. We're talking to KYD Labs' David Barrick. David, you're the co-founder and CTO, and you guys have released TIX, which is gonna be-- we're gonna get deep into what TIX is and what you see, and where you see the industry going when it comes to ticketing services and capital, which is not two things you usually hear in the same sentence.

So maybe just give a light introduction of who you are, then we're gonna jump into a little bit of your background.

David: Yeah, it's great to meet you, Stephen. Um, great to be on the pod. You know, uh, I've been building startups for the-- for over a decade now, um, across four different companies in ad tech, education tech, crypto, uh, so I've kind of seen it all. Um, my first company was actually in entertainment. Uh, it was one of those companies that came around when the iPad had first come out and we kind of merged it with like a lighting controller for stage lights on stage, uh, and tried to sell that to venues and, and really like hit a lot of walls.

And I vowed never to go back into entertainment unless I could partner with someone who actually built or bring what I build to market, you know? Uh, and so that's how I, I met my current co-founder and then came full circle back into entertainment, company number four. Uh, and so, uh, this is a really fun industry to build in.

Uh, and so yeah, that's a little bit of history about, about me. Um, been building for a while

Stephen: You've been da- yeah, it looks like you've been dabbling in a number, like very tech related, very like, you know, cutting edge technology and thought process. What was your intention like maybe a decade ago? What were you like hoping like, "Hey, this is what I'm gonna build. This is how I'm gonna be, you know, make my first million."

Like, what was your, your entry point into this space? What were you thinking about from a career point of view?

David: Yeah. I think everyone who starts a company thinks that they have some, like, unique market insight to act on. Uh, and so that's kind of the, the impetus of like, okay, I'm gonna move out of what I'm currently doing, my safety net, and go into some risk-taking. Um, and so yeah, I, I, I had been, um, a lighting designer, uh, all throughout, you know, high school.

That was one of, one of the ways I made income. And so I'd seen like a really gap in the market of like, you know, there's-- you don't need a $50,000 lighting controller for, uh, a small venue. You can just, you know, use a $500 app and you're good to go. You get all the same features. So, um, yeah, just kind of those unique insights, um, was the impetus of, of all these, uh, companies that I started.

Stephen: I'm surprised after, you know, people watched the movie Hitch and all he did off with his tablet in his house that people were like, "Yeah, let's do this for, for venues." There you go can you share a little bit about Project Congress? That was the most interesting thing on your resume, where you built this app, I think, tracking, like, everything that's happening in Congress, and obviously politics has been top of mind for a lot of people, especially in the US, over the last eight years.

So I'm curious, like, what you saw and why you built this, and what were some of the interesting trends you saw across Congress or maybe some of the, the myths people think about Congress of what they can and can't do?

David: Yeah, great question. Um, you know, Project Congress came around in a time in my life, um, just after a company called FlipMass and right before BuildSpace. And so, um, I had this period of time where I was trying to figure out what was next. Uh, and I just wanted to, like, get back into, like, hacking and building, like, for stuff that I was, you know, passionate in myself.

Um, and so this is like pre-AI, pre-ChatGPT, all this stuff hasn't been released yet. And so it was really hard to, like, just ask a question on the internet, what's going on in Congress? Um, and, and what I had found is, like, the Library of Congress does have a structured data set where you can pull, and it updates very frequently, uh, of all the actions that happen in Congress.

Uh, and so I basically narrowed it down to, to what's only relevant to you as an individual, as, as, um, as a citizen of the US. And so really the only thing that matters is what your representative is doing in Congress, in the House, and what your two senators are doing in the Senate. You know, tho-those are the-- 'Cause, 'cause you voted for those people.

Those are the only three people you voted for in Congress. Uh, and so really keeping them accountable of what they're doing and making sure that they're doing what you voted for them to do, uh, was just impossible. It, it's still really hard. Um, yeah, I just wanted to build a tool that you basically just put in your zip code, and it takes care of all the rest.

It, it's basically like a Twitter feed, X feed for, for what's happening in Congress with only the people that represent you, yourself in Congress.

Stephen: That's super interesting. I feel like with American politics, I'm in Canada, but very similar pol- political situation up here. But I feel like people in politics don't wanna, they're not concerned about their zip code. They're concerned about what every other state and what every other person's doing outside of their own neighborhood, which might be the, the, the problem with politics Yeah. But yeah, that's the thing. Like, it, it goes back to what you can affect as an individual in your country. Like, those are the people-- Those three people are the people that you affect. You, you decide whether or not they stay or go. Uh, and so i-if you can make that decision and be informed, uh, be an informed voter, that was kind of the whole goal of the, the whole app

I wanna get deep into the brain of David. So let me set the stage here. It's 2022, you know, we're a few months out of what has been a global pandemic where barely any in real life events are happening. We just had the chaotic breakdown of the crypto industry. DeFi summer is no longer, and you decide, let me take those two things and merge them together and build KYD Labs, which I'm assuming you had the idea probably months prior, so probably right in the middle or just on the outer edge of the pandemic.

Can you walk me through what your thought process is and what made you think that, "Hey, like, I can merge these two things together. This is the right time to do it"?

David: Yeah, I think, you know, pre-KYD Labs, I was at a company called Buildspace, and, and we had basically built, you know, the world's largest Web3 engineering community at the time, um, when Web3 was still a term and not crypto, you know? It's, it's, it's back then. Uh, and so that was kinda my first foray into crypto, and I realized like, okay, this technology is awesome.

This is obviously the future. Um, and I wanna be more on like the product side of crypto, not on the education side of crypto. And so around that same time, I had met my current co-founder, uh, Ahmed Namali, who's ex-ticket master at Live Nation Vivid Seats, and he came to me and he's like: "Hey, I think we could build this.

Um, I know how to get it to market. Uh, are you in?" And I was like, "Yes, absolutely." You know, I'd already had my entertainment background, merged that back into, into KYD Labs, and we started the company in 2022. Uh, and it was a lot of like trial and error to figure out what works, figure out the gap in the market, uh, but eventually we got there

Stephen: And did you think the pendulum was gonna switch, like swing back because there was all this pent-up demand of meeting in person? Did you think that that pendulum was gonna switch back where, hey, in real life is gonna be the thing to do again, we just have to kind of wait out some, you know, some of the uncertainty, uh, going from 2020 to about late 2022?

David: Yeah. I mean, definitely one for sure. But we're also like the-- We built this company with, with the mindset of like, this is gonna take 10 years at least to get any traction. It's like I don't really care what's happening right now. I care what's happening in like year eight or 10. Uh, and so, um, yeah, we, we are in New York, so we're in the epicenter of like entertainment.

We, we can get a good pulse of like how this market's doing. And so yeah, it was already coming back at that time. And, and, um, it was a really fun time to build in, in 2022.

Stephen: I'm curious, you know, before we jump into TIX and what you're building there, what is the current ticketing infrastructure? I know today, just before this call, I just, you know, checked quickly to see, you know, how much Canada World Cup tickets would cost in Houston. Um, and you know, part of the, what you're paying for is really not to do anything with the price of the tickets.

It's the fees that take up 10, 20% and completely change whether you're gonna go to an event or not it seems like. What's the current infrastructure when it comes to ticketing? And then may-maybe we'll walk through, like, how are these ticketing systems, what you're describing as, like, basically banking entities, the way they're holding capital and, you know, maintaining some of that leverage over the venues.

David: Yeah. Great question. So I wanna take a step back and separate what's called secondary versus primary ticketing. So what you saw on the World Cup tickets is all the secondary pricing, the fan resale, the broker resale, the professionals reselling tickets. Maybe on StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, all that kind of stuff.

Um, those fees are outrageous, and those fees are basically the marketing fees that these secondary players have paid to acquire you as a customer. You're, you're paying the marketing costs, essentially. That is not the case, though, in primary ticketing. So the primary guys like Ticketmaster or Dice or, uh, Eventbrite.

Um, those fees come from that banking relationship that the venue has with the ticketing company. And so, uh, to go a level deeply here, you know, ticketing companies are banks. Venues are just a gigantic cash flow problem. Venues are the ones that, that book the artist, but they also have to pay the artist before a single ticket is even sold, right?

So, like, imagine just having to pay, you know, a big artist 50K and you don't-- you haven't sold tickets yet to pay them 50K. So that's kinda where the ticketing company comes in, 'cause the ticketing company is the, is the merchant of record for those venue. We, we can underwrite that venue pretty well, much better than a bank can, and we ac- we get the money first too.

Uh, and so it's, it's kind of the perfect fit for, for a ticketing company to be like the bank for a venue, uh, 'cause we have the most data. We can underwrite them the most, most accurately. Um, and so the way that ticketing companies recoup their cost are via service fees charged to fans, right? The fans pay the interest rate for, for live entertainment.

That, that's basically how I would think about that. Now, there, there are a lot of companies abusing that. You know, their, their, the interest rates are insane. The service fees are insane. Um, you definitely don't need to charge that much to, to make your money back on that initial investment in the venue, uh, on that side.

Stephen: I'm curious, was there ever an elephant in the room? I don't know if it was just rumors. I remember, you know, those initial ticket, those primary ticketing things were pretty much like putting things for sale, but like right away were turning them into the secondary market that they also had control of.

Um, and then basically, like just r- you know, riding the fees from the primary to the secondary. Is that a thing in the industry or is that kind of like maybe misconstrued by the media and the public?

David: So you're talking about like primary, primary players issuing their tickets on secondary straightaway and not ever going for sale?

Stephen: Or they h- they had them on sale for what they say was a short period of time, and then they went right away the ticket, like to the point where people couldn't get them

David: Right. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's-- In the past, these ticketing companies, the primary ticketing companies would kind of-- It wasn't really even the ticketing company, it was mainly the venues. They would go release their, like, distressed inventory on secondary at a lower price just to get rid of the inventory, right?

So any unsold tickets they couldn't sell at 40 bucks, they'd ship it to secondary for 20 bucks. So they wouldn't have to lower the price on their side, but they still get the money in the end.

Stephen: Right

David: Um, now that's kind of shifting from what we've seen in the past, like, five years to what people are calling open distribution.

And the idea is I can ship my inventory to these secondary platforms, um, and the secondary platforms pay me for the face value of the ticket. Uh, and so I'm not lowering my prices at all. I'm just getting these different customer acquisition channels for the same ticket.

Stephen: Right. You're getting access to a wider audience because a lot of times I don't even look at Ticketmaster 'cause I'm just assuming that I'm gonna get a better deal sometimes on StubHub for whatever reason, or I'm gonna get better availability or better seats

David: Or StubHub just paid to be at the top of Google search.

Stephen: That's true. That's, yeah, that's, that's true too.

David: Uh, you know, they spent $800 million last year just on Google Ads getting to the top of the search. Um, and so if that's the case, if open distribution does take off, it's a cool concept, but at the end of the day, you're still limited by the tech of these platforms.

So you can imagine all these secondary players as their own isolated databases that they all have to like talk to each other somehow. And there's money involved too, so like now it's even more important because the secondary player has to pay the primary player now. And so everyone has to have like some way to audit these, these systems.

And so what my prediction is if, if, if people don't adopt TIX, which we can get to in the future, TIX kind of solves all this. Um, but it's gonna be impossible to reconcile anything because they're all these like antiquated distributed systems that, that don't talk to each other at all.

Stephen: And when you built TIX, who were you trying to save first? Like, who's, with the existing model that you saw out there, who was this detrimental to? Was it the fans? Was it the venues? Was the artist? Who was getting, was, you know, l- like, who was getting the worst part of the existing infrastructure before you built TIX?

David: Well, before we built TIX, we didn't go to the market on 2022 and say, "Hey, crypto's gonna solve all your problems. Sign up for us." Right? It's not-- It would never work. What we actually had to go back and figure out was like, okay, where the actual gap in the market was, and we had to build like an actual ticketing company first, which is KYD Labs.

So we had to s- it, it took us literally four years to build KYD Labs into like a fully featured, um, enterprise venue ticketing platform that actually is the best ticketing platform on the planet. All of our customers will tell you that. Uh, and it's, and it's best because of a few things, but the main thing is that it's the best marketing tool on the planet.

You can literally launch like a meta ads campaign on Instagram and Facebook in like two clicks versus like going into the ads manager and like clicking a thousand different buttons that change every two seconds 'cause, 'cause Facebook just changes it all the time. Uh, and so it is literally the b- the best marketing tool all in one product and a ticketing platform.

And so that was how we got our first venue, was like, we're the best marketing tool on the planet for live events, and we're a ticketing platform. So just wanna set the stage. We didn't go to market with TIX. We went to market with KYD Labs first 'cause we knew we needed some distribution channel to like Trojan horse, uh, crypto in the end.

But to answer your question By building the ticketing platform first, like crypto is kind of the obvious solution to fix ticketing, right? Like everyone's like, "Oh yeah, NFT tickets, actually that's gonna solve all the problem, uh, all the problems of entertainment." Um, which like, yeah, I agree, maybe NFTs aren't the right primitive for that.

That's why we built our own protocol. Um, but by building this protocol and having distribution ourselves, we actually fixed the venue problem, the fan problem. Like everyone's problem is just a side effect of what we've been doing. Like it's kind of the, uh, like we didn't intentionally try to, you know, fix fraud.

It's just fraud was something we got for free by using crypto. You know? Uh, the, the fraud fixes at least. Um, royalties, something we just get for free by just running on crypto rails now. So it's not something we tried to like independently solve. It's just like we can solve everything by just switching the underlying rails of how tickets move and what a canonical ticket is, uh, to these, uh, secondary players.

Stephen: Why do you think the NFT ticketing thing didn't last? 'Cause that was gonna be one of my questions is I remember that point. It made a lot of sense, especially you get artists, they can create this cool NFT, so not only do you get a ticket to enter, you also get, you know, this keepsake just like the, you know, the physical tickets used to have.

Why do you think that didn't-- Was it 'cause it was all wrapped up under the NFT umbrella, and then once that market went down, everything kinda underlying it went with it?

David: I don't think it was because like the NFT market in general. Um, you know, there was dozens of people that, that tried to do like NFT ticketing, and every single one of them failed to understand that in order to make ticketing work, you have to be a bank. Ticketing-- The ticketing business is a banking business, full stop.

If you don't understand that, you will not succeed in this world. Uh, and so you can't just go to the venue saying, "I have cool tech." You have to go to the venue and say like, "I have financing for your venue, and I have tech that's actually gonna make you more money in the end. I'm not gonna pay you more money up front.

I'm gonna help you make more money over the life of the contract."

Stephen: Is there a reason why well-capitalized businesses couldn't go? Like, hey, if you're saying, "Hey," like it, it's really if you're a well-capitalized business, you go in there and say, "Hey, we'll, we'll front more of the money than any other ticketing system, plus we have this really cool technology that could benefit your fans."

Is, is there a reason why capital wasn't enough to kind of solve this pro- problem versus bringing everything on-chain to do it?

David: Yeah, I mean, the-- you need the expertise in how to underwrite a venue also. Um, you know, there's, there are companies before us that we've displaced in New York that made extremely irrational deals with venues, gave them a sh- a lot of money and, and, you know, they had to do a fire sale because of it, 'cause they weren't able to pay back the debt.

And so, um, it's, it's-- there's a level of discipline required that doesn't usually exist in the industry in order to underwrite a lot of venues at once and, and grow fast, um, that just hasn't existed in like the zero interest rate environment that we were in before

Stephen: And who's the target market for TIX? Like, obviously you're probably going B2B here. Is it directly to the venues? Is it working with artists? 'Cause I know you, you've worked with artists like Travis Scott. Like, you mentioned Trojan horses. Like, who's your target market in regards to what you're building out with TIX?

David: Yeah, so we only sell to venues. Um, we don't, we don't, you know, sell to fans. Our, our venues sell to their customers, which are the fans. We just give them the tech to do, do that well. Um, as far as like, you know, our value prop to venues on what TIX is, they don't really even care. All they want to do-- Like everyone in this industry just wants to make more money 'cause everyone feels like they're getting ripped off.

The artist feels like they're getting ripped off, the venue feels like they're getting ripped off, the fan feels like they're getting ripped off. And so someone's like sucking all the value out of the ecosystem, uh, and we're just trying to like push that money back down into the ecosystem and remove that middleman

Stephen: I'm curious, when you see, you know, like the World Cup, does your ticketing mind turn on when you're like, there's millions of fans walking to games, marching to games in Toronto, Mexico, US? Does your ticketing mind be like, "Hey, if we can just set up a little POS system and some gates right now, we'd be able to really, like, benefit the a- actual city, create more, you know, maybe organization and structure."

What are your thoughts when you see that? Or are you just like, "Hey, that's pretty cool. Uh, we can hope next time they funnel them into some type of venue where everyone can benefit from it"?

David: Yeah, I think, uh, I think our dream is, you know, at the next World Cup, you know, FIFA issues their tickets on TIX, and it kinda just fixes all these problems that we're seeing on X that, you know, people are getting fraudulent tickets. Um, resale rates are, are egregious. You know, the-- If, if FIFA had issued their, their tickets on TIX, um, they would have the ability to do resale caps.

You know, we wouldn't see insane prices for, for nosebleed tickets, you know. I think the, the next US game is, like, three grand in Seattle for, for the very top seat. You know, that's just-- It's kind of outrageous. And, and, and FIFA doesn't see any of that. You know, the soccer players don't see any of that.

It's just the, the brokers, the resellers that, that see all the value from that.

Stephen: Trust me, I just figured out that there, a section 700 exists in the Houston stadium, 'cause that's, that's the price range that we could even look at.

David: So yeah

Stephen: and y- talk to me about that secondary market cap, because in Ontario, I live in Canada, we introduced new legislation, I think it was actually right before the World Cup, to kind of, like, cap some of this, you know, secondary market upselling, because it was getting to the point where, you know, it was really just the scalpers, you know, sell- it was really just the scalpers monopolizing how live e- events.

I think it was when Taylor Swift came to Canada is when that really exposed that. Can you kind of talk to me about, like, what is the process? What's happening? How are scalpers able to get tickets before everyone else? Can you kind of walk me through that case study and where TIX would fit in to kind of at least manage a lot of what was happening right now?

David: Yeah. So I'll kind of put my like Project Congress hat back on now. Uh Those are cool laws, right? I think we've seen it work in Australia pretty well. Um, w- TBD on whether or not it's gonna work on Canada. It just got, you know, knocked down in, in the UK, uh, because of some lobbying efforts. Um, so we're, we're starting to see these resale cap laws go into effect.

But the problem is, like, you have to be able to enforce this. You know? Uh, it-- We'll see if it works, but I, I actually don't think it will. I think it's gonna actually require some fundamental, like, uproot of the rails of ticketing so that the primary issuer of the ticket, whether that's like FIFA for soccer or, um, the venue for like, you know, a Taylor Swift concert, the people who issue the primary ticket have control over that ticket wherever it's sold. That, that's like the, that's the actual true fix I think here, because like, again, this requires a lot of accountability and oversight that I don't think governments are equipped to handle right now, uh, because of like how niche this problem is and how hard it is to root out, um, these issues. And so, uh, you have basically this resale caps problem, but you also have what's called a speculative ticket problem.

Like if someone bought a ticket on a secondary site for the World Cup and said, "Oh yeah, we'll deliver it to you maybe three days before the event." And then three days before the event comes around and StubHub's like, "Actually, no, we can't do it. Uh, we don't actually have the ticket." The, they allowed a listing to happen without a ticket ever being owned by, by the seller.

And so I think those, those two things would be really cool if, uh, you know, Congress would come in a-and fix, but I'm not holding my breath on that. But we, we more than enough like have the technol- technical ability to solve this with crypto. Uh, and like it, it's, it's... You know, crypto, I hate when crypto is like, "Oh yeah, crypto fixes all this."

Like it doesn't work in most industries. It does work here though. Uh, if we're able to just run on a shared set of rails, all these problems just go away

Stephen: Is that because of the feature of like programmable money? Is that kind of like why you think it'll be-- it-- this ticketing system specifically works for the ticketing use case

David: Yeah. I mean, most tickets in the world are like PDF tickets still, which is just like insane to me that like we give people-- It's like issuing your private key to your wallet, uh, on like a PDF piece of paper that like you show to everyone saying like, "Hey, look, here, here's my, here's my balance. Don't take it, but like here, here's my balance."

Uh, and it's just like a weird thing that we're still doing as a so-society, and we have the tools to fix that. Uh, and so like kinda ripping out those rails and, and... 'Cause like you can't put rules on PDFs, right? I, I can just send you a PDF, you're good to go. Uh, I can take a picture of it, and whoever gets to the venue first is the one that gets the, the ticket.

The next person gets the

Stephen: save. Right-click save, right?

David: Exactly, yeah. And so, um, I just think this, this whole thing is just ripe for disruption. Uh, and the only way to truly fix this is if we kinda reinvent what a ticket is, uh, to these people.

Stephen: What is your thought about the imp- the approach at all? Like, w- w- you know, usually higher regulation also opens up underground markets when things like, "Hey, it's capped," but now there's not that many tickets or not the good ones I want are available. But hey, I do

see them available on, like, Facebook Marketplace. I just have to meet somebody, and they'll set the pricing when I get there. Do you think it opened-- over-regulation could open up these, like, underground hawalas of ticket sales that could eventually... That should be solved, as you said, by using the blockchain and being able to keep control of your tickets through the whole life cycle of the process

David: You know, it's definitely a, I think it's a valid concern, um, these, these black markets popping up. I think they already exist, one. Uh, but like I don't think our goal is to solve, you know, illicit ticket sales. It's really to give-- Like it, it's more of a marketing problem on our side. Like once we get this technology live to every single secondary platform, it's our responsibility as TIX to go make this protocol known.

And we're not gonna pitch it as like, "Oh yeah, this is a crypto protocol, and then you should trust us here." Like, um, it's more of like the application of like once you see this online, you can actually verify yourself that this is real. You don't have to go to these sketchy sites anymore to buy a ticket.

You can do this yourself and verify this. We'll give you the tools to go verify any ticket you see on the internet. Uh, and so it's, it's our responsibility to go hit the pavement, run campaigns to, to tell the world like this is what TIX is, this is how it changes things, this is how it gives you this confidence, uh, in like these once in a lifetime events for you, uh, to go buy tickets safely.

Stephen: And how do you approach that marketing? 'Cause you're going directly to the venues with, you know, selling your technology. But I think if you could convince enough fans like me that are like, "Hey, like, I would love a safer, cheaper, easier way to get ahold of my tickets. Now I'm only gonna want to patronize or patron, you know, places or venues that do have TIX or where I know I'm safe."

Uh, h- how does that work for marketing? 'Cause you're not really marketing to fans, but those are what might drive the ultimate demand to these venues to wanna use TIX.

David: Yeah. It's, it's something that we're actually like actively figuring out right now, you know? Um, I think our primary goal right now is, is to get integrated to all these secondary platforms so that when we do start this campaign for, for, for global recognition of TIX, we're already ready to go on all these platforms.

Uh, so that's like our first priority is the partnership side. Um, because like the secondary players, they want this too, right? They, they, they're getting chargebacks, uh, massively right now because, you know, they charged people for something that doesn't exist, and they weren't able to verify that it exists right now.

Uh, and so, um, everyone's kinda hammering for like this, this new protocol that will kinda like make this whole industry a lot safer

Stephen: And to your point, I'm assuming that a lot of those secondary markets are underwriting the tickets anyway, 'cause they're guaranteeing that, hey, when you do show up, you know, first or when you do show up second, there is a ticket there for you. And if they're not, they're kind of having to guarantee, or to your point, there's a chargeback that's gonna be waiting for them if they can't guarantee that that ticket is legitimate

David: Right. Definitely. And you know, part of that service fee that you see on secondary sites is, you know, an insurance against chargebacks, right? You're having to pay for everyone else's chargebacks 'cause they're just tacking those fees on top of you. So if we could just fix fraud, I think service fees will go down across the board, uh, 'cause we don't have to charge as much

Stephen: Can you tell me how TIX... I know the fraud prevention was on your website. Maybe-- And you said that was kind of like a byproduct of just doing things on-chain. Can you tell me how you're able to at least reduce or mitigate fraud u- using TIX?

David: Yeah. So the, the way a ticket gets listed right now by a broker on these secondary sites is a broker says to the s- to the site, "Hey, I have these tickets. Trust me." That's it. That, that's the whole listing process. Uh, and, and you can say any quantity, you can set any event. Um, there's no verification at all.

crypto does solve this. Like, I can go verify onchain that you sign a message that say, "I do actually have these tickets. I have them in my possession and I'm in control of them." Um, that's the first step. The second step is like, how does TIX solve the settlement side of the business? So let's say the secondary platform makes a sale, right?

It buys a $50 ticket. How does that original primary issuer, the venue, get a royalty from that, right? 'Cause the venue sold it for 10 bucks, secondary sold it for 50 bucks, venue needs to see some upside from that too. And so the protocol actually handles all the royalty settlement, um, in order for that ticket to move from the, from the seller to the buyer.

So it handles all funds automatically onchain through the protocol atomically at the transaction level and at the ticket level

Stephen: Is royalties common? Like in, without, let's just say remove ticks or on-chain, is royalties common? 'Cause we saw that kind of breakdown with NFTs, like, uh, you know, that was gonna be the thing, you know. If you're an artist and you sell your painting and it's sold, you're gonna get all these royalties, and we saw that break down fairly quickly over a few months.

And new entrants in the space are like, "Hey, we're not doing any royalties." Uh, talk to me about royalties and is this commonplace? Is it in certain scenarios depending on how big of a celebrity or artist you are?

David: Yeah, I mean, that, that revenue stream just straight up does not exist today in live entertainment. Um, the artist is expected to, to go on sale with tickets at a face value price, and that's what they get. That's it. Um, regardless of what they sell on, on secondary. But to answer your question earlier about, you know, how royalties were bypassed in the past on NFTs, it's kinda why we decided to take a step back and, like, build this protocol from first principles to really be a purpose-built protocol for ticketing.

Uh, and so it's a lot harder for, um, these tickets to be, I guess, the royalty to be bypassed because the actual royalty payment is embedded with the transfer of a ticket too. Um, they're not two separate instructions that you put onchain to say, like, "Okay, transfer the ticket and then send me the money."

We can just bypass that second instruction of send me the money. Um, and so that, that's kinda how we rebuilt this. But also, you know, these, these secondary platforms are not crypto native companies, and they probably never will be, and that's okay. Uh, and that's why we built something called the TIX Developer Platform.

So the TIX Developer Platform is basically like Stripe for credit cards and, and what we are for, like, TIX. So, like, they have TDP for short, issues them an API key. So, so all these secondary platforms interact with the blockchain with just an API key. They don't have to do custody. They don't have to do private key management.

It's literally just how they interact with Stripe in their backend. And then TDP is the one that enforces all those rules on another layer of enforcement on that side. So, we're really confident in this whole process that, that everyone's gonna get paid, uh, in this whole, like, settlement flow.

Stephen: That was gonna be one of my questions is, like, I can't imagine, like, a venue being tech-savvy enough to integrate something like TIX or, or-- And, like, being sold on it, right? That's the whole point. Like, even if TIX sounds amazing, it's like, well, who's gonna implement this? What happens if something changes?

And, you know, does that layer, that TDP layer, does that solve for a lot of the, you know, maybe non-crypto native people that are trying to integrate this technology into their venue?

David: Definitely, yeah. Like the-- at, at no point in time do we, will we ever expect anyone in this industry to manage private keys. Um, that's just an insane ask and, and we would be met with like a room full of laughter, I think, if we went to a venue like that. And so, um, that's why we built this tech developer platform to really obfuscate all the crypto away towards literally a single API key.

Uh, and, and they have a wall on their side that they can, they can, um, off-ramp via Stripe and it goes straight to their bank account. They never see crypto

Stephen: Can you tell me a little bit about, you know, you said you had a 10-year plan, but you're also VC-backed by a16z crypto. Uh, that usually doesn't go hand in hand, a 10-year plan and a VC that's looking to get maybe their returns out, uh, in six to seven years. A- and not saying that's what a16z does, but I'm just like, on average, they may not have that same long-term thinking when investing dollars.

What sold them on what you were building, do you think, that made them also believe in a long-term plan and, and a long-term evolution of what the TikZ and KYD Labs would be?

David: Yeah, great question. what sold them is we were the first ticketing company with a crypto vision that actually had a venue, right? So if, if you look at all these other chains and they have like their own ticketing platforms that they've invested in, you'll see they're not actually venues. Like no one has an actual venue relationship, right?

They'll, they'll maybe do like one festival. They'll maybe for like commemorative tickets. They're not the canonical ticket. They're like, you know, collectible tickets. But like you, you will not find a single one that has a venue relationship, much less a venue relationship in the world's biggest ticketing market in New York City.

Uh, and so, um, we were able to do that before we even like Trojan horse crypto to all these people. Uh, and so that, that was the thing that convinced everyone that like, "Okay, these, these people actually know what they're doing. They can actually get a venue." 'Cause that was the biggest, um, that was the biggest, uh, feedback from investors when we were first raising in 2022 is like, "Cool, great idea, but you'll never get a venue," right?

"You'll never convince a venue to use crypto." Uh, and we're like, "Yeah, I, I know. We're not trying to convince them to use crypto. We're just trying to be, you know, a better ticketing platform first, and then we, we, uh, make them more money via crypto." So, um, does that kinda answer your question there about the, the investor

Stephen: No, it, it definitely does. It's funny, you're like, "Yeah, you're absolutely right. Can you still invest?" "You're absolutely right. We will not get a venue to use crypto, but we also need your money in order to get venues to use crypto." That was actually leading into my next question is, like, what kind of venues is TIX working with?

Are we talking about, like, MSG? Are we talking about, like, hey, you know, a 1,500-person special pop-up by Drake? Like, what is the ideal venue that should be utilizing TIX? Is there a certain amount of seats that has to be sold in order to- for it to really make sense for a venue?

David: Yeah. I mean, so obviously MSG is a dream. Uh, would love to be there one of these days. Uh, but no, we work with, um, mid-cap venues in, in New York City, um, and a few other spots around the nation. Um, yeah, our, our sweet spot right now is 1,000 capacity venues. So think Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village. It's a very historical venue.

Jimi Hendrix used to play there. Uh, Sounds of Brazil in, in-- on the West Side too. Monarch is also a 1,000-cap venue in Brooklyn. Um, these are the kind of venues that, that we work with right now, um, to really, like refine the ticketing side of the business. So like I said, it took us four years to get here. Uh, and, and really we couldn't have gotten to where we are without those venue partners to really build with and discover, "Hey, we're missing this, we're missing that.

Um, make your settlement reports better here." Uh, and so we really learned how to build a great ticketing platform with them. Uh, and now it's the opportunity to go scale up to more like theater size arenas, um, stadium levels in the future. Um, that's our goal for the next few years.

Stephen: And are these, what I would call smaller venues maybe, are they more, um, prone to using technologies? Like, does this mo- are they more technology savvy and native? Is it hard? Because as you said, like, Jimi Hendrix played there. They're still using, like, paper tickets. People still have to line up to get their paper ticket.

Uh, what is their appetite for technology, much less crypto?

David: Yeah. I, I think first and foremost, you know, over the, over the past decade and especially the past, you know, three years, um, everyone's margins have compressed in this industry. So everyone's margin sensitive. Everyone's trying to squeeze out more pennies on the dollar, uh, to do this. So if you can prove to a venue that you can make them more money, um, especially, uh, the venues our size, 'cause volume is everything.

Uh, at, at a thousand cap venue, you have, you have basically, you know, two to 300 shows a year, to make money. And if you can squeeze out a few pennies on every show, like you, you, you really increase your margins for the year. Um, and so if you can prove to them you can make them more money, um, you're good to go.

Now, every, every ticketing platform's pitch is like, "Hey, we'll make you more money." But no one can actually do it. They'll just pay you more money on the front, but not make you more money over the life of the contract. Uh, 'cause it's just... And like we've all used ticketing platforms today. They're all bad.

They're all horrible. Uh, they're, they all look like they built in 1990. Uh, and so, um, this marketing solution that we built, this automated ads platform with email integrations too, it kinda does everything for them. It truly does make their own money. You know, with our first venue, um, we actually saw a 30% increase in sales after the first year.

We're doing way better now 'cause we kind of fine-tuned it, but that was just like, that was just doing the basics well, like just caring, um, which is like very, very hard to find, uh, in this industry from ticketing platforms.

Stephen: Is there a concern for a lot of these venues because you have these low price ticket, you know, technology companies, they come in, they lowball, and then as you said, fire sale a year later, and now the venue has to start from scratch and, you know, go to another. Is there that kind of, like, worrisome about when you come in there and, like, "Hey," like, "we can make you more money."

Um, like, is there that concern from them? Like, "Oh, here comes another one, uh, about to lowball us. We'll get, we'll save some money up front or make extra money up front, but they're not gonna be around in 12 months, and we'll have to do this all over again."

David: Yeah, and it should be a legitimate concern, uh, to venues, I think. There's been a lot of people that have tried this that have just, you know, burned out bright in 12 months, like you said. Um, but yeah, I think we've been able to prove that we have a really good investor backing. We've got some name brands behind us, and that really helps in, in venue conversation and sales conversations, uh, that we've got the runway to, to build what they need throughout the life of the contract.

Stephen: Can you share a little bit about why Solana? Especially, maybe not as much now, but before, especially when you maybe you were building, Solana was known to sh- you know, power down and, you know, be offline sometimes. And I'm assuming in a market like ticketing, being online 100% of the time is, you know, a main, a, a main selling feature for a lot of the venues.

What was your, you know, determination whether going to Solana versus maybe some of these other, other blockchains?

David: Yeah. So I mean, we did evaluate downtime a-as a factor, but we consider downtime to be anything that's, that makes our business too expensive to operate, right? So like when, when Solana did have those, those few instances of downtime, you also had Ethereum doing gas fees of like $100 to transfer a $1 token, right?

That, that's essentially downtime to us 'cause we can't do anything onchain at that point. We just have to wait. Uh, and so we, we kinda evaluated them all on this, on this level playing field, and Solana was consistently the fastest and cheapest chain, uh, that actually had like an ecosystem around it, you know, that wasn't fake, wasn't incentivized.

Like people were actually excited to build on Solana and they, they weren't getting paid by, by the foundation to, to do this. and so I think that they had the most forward-looking tech team. They even like reduced rent by, by a ton, which makes our business way easier to operate 'cause that's just straight margin for us at that point.

Uh, and so yeah, they've been really good partners. They've listened to all of our feedback and they've im-implemented some really cool stuff for us to use as a business. Uh, so yeah, we're, we're Solana maxis. I think, I think all L1s, we should just drop it and just focus on Solana, uh, to, to build this into the world's best chain.

Stephen: You know, I'm not a very big chain max-- I'm not a big chain person or knowing the differences between a lot of chains, but what I've noticed with clients in my m-marketing agency is the, the ones that were part of the Solana Foundation, the Solana Foundation was very supportive of what they were working on, and that close connection, conversations were happening.

I'm like, oh, I can't imagine this happening on any other chain. I can't imagine them, you know, retweeting the projects and having great discourse when it comes to conferences. Uh, I feel like that is a lot what's missing in crypto is like this ac-active chains or active participation with the actual applications that are building on their L1.

David: Right. Foundation support is really, really critical. And not just money, like, like technical resources, questions, um, yeah, partner support. Yeah. Yep.

Stephen: You know, you're a builder by nature, it seems. What are your thoughts? What's your approach with something like TIX? Is it-- 'Cause you talked about integrating with some of these secondary markets. Is there a long-term hope that Ticketmaster's like, "We do not wanna compete with this. We definitely don't wanna do it ourselves.

Why don't we just use this? Why don't we just acquire this, and now we can change the way we do ticketing from here on out?" What are your thoughts as a founder?

David: Yeah, I think our, our dream is to have Ticketmaster issuing tickets on TIX. That's, that's the ideal goal. That, that's, that's the win for us. We'll go retire, uh, and, and we'll be good to go. Like that's, that's our ultimate goal. 'Cause if we could convince someone as big as Ticketmaster to go issue the tickets on, on TIX, we've really solved like a huge industry problem.

We kinda solved it all, right? May-maybe there's new problems that pop up after that, that, that will be fun to solve once we fix like fraud and resell and everything else maybe we're not seeing right now. Um, but yeah, that's, that's the dream, is to have every single ticket on planet Earth issued on TIX

Stephen: You know, your, some of your website said you're turning tickets into capital. I think it's like a punchline that you have. W- and when I hear capital, I'm like, "Oh, what are your reg-" especially capital when you're talking about on-chain. What are your regulatory or compliance requirements, and how do you adhere and navigate a space that's always emerging with regulation?

Especially what we saw in the US with Genius Act, Clarity Act is in the process. And what we're seeing around the world, MiCA in EU, that only 200 crypto asset service providers were able to get their license out of, like, 3,000. What are your thoughts about regulations and where you have to abide by them?

David: Yeah, it's a great question. you know, I think we're, we're, we are the technology at the end of the day. We're not like the broker. We're not the, we're not the exchange platform. We're not the Coinbase. Uh, and so we just wanna make the tools to, to make Coinbase more effective as an exchange, make Venues more effective as a marketplace.

Uh, so that's kinda how we look at that regulation. Um, but when it comes to like the traditional credit side of the business, it, it's no different than what banks have to do, uh, for, for lending, you know? Um, there's a state-by-state process. Uh, it really depends on what state the venue is in. Um, but that's kinda separate from like the crypto side of the business, uh, and like the ticketing side even.

Stephen: Is there a certain genre or type of, you know, venue or type of artist that you feel fits TIXx better than others? Or is it like, "Hey, anyone that has 1,000 seats, uh, they have someone that is interesting on stage, uh, we definitely wanna help support them"? Or if you're like, "Hey, music-wise, this is perfect. You know, New York, these, you know, these hot, uh, speakeasies, these are even better."

Like, is there any, uh, emerging trends that you're seeing for the type of venues that you're able to reach out to?

David: Yeah, I mean, TIX is built for the primary issuer that wants control over their tickets, full stop. Uh, that could be literally any, anyone that issues tickets for anything. If they need control when that ticket leaves their ecosystem, um, that's our ideal customer

Stephen: Is there any emerging, you know, genres, whether it's music or anything else where you're like, "Hey, it's, it's not quite there yet at scale, but we can see them needing control over their ticket issuing and distribution in the future"?

David: I mean, I think there's like a new music genre that pops up every day. Uh, and so it's really cool to be a part of that. But at the end of the day, all those new genres have to go to a venue at some point. And so if we just have those venue relationships and, and we have, you know-- Yeah, basically venue relationships, then I think we've got our bases covered on, on whatever genre pops up in the future.

TIX is gonna be the underlying ticketing, um, technology for, for that, uh, event.

Stephen: I'm curious, you know, we've ha- we've produced podcasts with Socios and other, like, fan NFT token platforms or social fan token companies. It seems like that's quieted down along with the NFT craze. What are your thoughts about fan tokens and how can you, you know, transition or, uh, you know, amplify what TIX is doing to really, you know, integrate into that fan culture?

David: Yeah, I mean, now people issuing fan tokens can actually see who their true fans are, right? I don't have to trust a secondary platform to, or like an outside third-party platform to tell me who my fans are. I can actually see who, who's owned my tickets, what wallets have owned my tickets. And so if I wanna go do a fan club allocation or, or a token like you said, um, now I have the data myself to go do that without asking for permission from anyone else

Stephen: I'm curious, what do you think the future of ticketing is gonna look like, especially with the emergence of all these new sports, pickleball and paddle and, you know, golf indoors, you know, where they're not even leaving an indoor venue. What i- what does the future of ticketing look like, especially onchain?

David: It looks like control. At the end of the day, it's control. That's what all these platforms are trying to figure out how to do. and control is that, like, last missing piece that everyone's trying to figure out, but no one's been successful at yet. and so whether that's control over how this ticket moves, who it moves to, control over, um, you know, the price of a ticket wherever it's resold, um, the control over, like, I wanna get a cut when that ticket 10X's on the market somewhere.

that is just literally not possible today, cause no one has control over the ticket, the canonical ticket that lives onchain. and so that's what I think this industry looks like in 10 years is, the value creators having control over the value they created. That, that, that's the ultimate dream for us.

Stephen: Are you surprised about that? Like, are you surprised that when you see something like Taylor Swift and they're selling tickets for $99 and, you know, the venues, that's the most a venue's seeing, but they're going for $3,000 on a secondary market, and it's really the secondary platforms that are receiving a lot, and the scalpers, right?

The whole-- There's a whole business around scalping that's receiving the majority of the benefit, more than the artist, more than the primary ticket sale. Are you surprised that they haven't spent a lot more time focusing on control and implementing things like TIX?

David: I don't think control is possible without some sort of crypto solution. Like, if you're not all working on the same database, it's, it's gonna be impossible to audit all of this. You don't have any control. Um, and so I think everyone's just been scared to, to dip their toes into, you know, the C word, the crypto word.

Uh, but it's, it's, it's kinda the only thing that we see a-as the fix for this. And, and believe me, I would not be using crypto if I didn't absolutely have to, right? 'Cause it is, it is the world's worst technology to interface with as a developer. It is so hard. It is so expensive. Um, but I do think it's the only way to, to make this work

Stephen: Talk to me a little bit about AI. You're a dabbler, you've been in tech for a long time, and then something like AI comes along. Where do you see it being integrated into TIX or in your workflows, and do you think AI will have a huge impact on the future of TIX?

David: I think AI will have a huge impact on the future of live events in general and, and by consequence, ticks. Um, I think people are gonna be drawn to, to real-life experiences as AI gets more deeper ingrained in our societies. you know, we're gonna create that human connection again, and I, I think that, that live events are gonna just explode, uh, more, more than they already are right now, uh, because people are gonna yearn for that in-person connection.

They yearn for, like, authenticity of, like, actual real talent onchain-- on, on stage that isn't like a computer, you know, playing music. Uh, and so yeah, we're really excited for, for AI, but we're really excited about how AI will drive the live experiences, uh, of tomorrow.

Stephen: What was that shift like when you really saw, like, hey, in real life is here? Like, Coachella is bigger than it's ever been before. People are showing up to every event, every venue. What was that moment like? 'Cause I'm sure you still had some people that joined your team and your company that are like, "Uh, not really sure if this is gonna work out, but hey, I'm taking a chance."

And now you can kinda show them evidence of like, "Hey, this is the bet we've made. We're here now. Let's grow this even more."

David: Yeah, it just reaffirms the, the belief that like live events are, are crucial to, to our human nature, right? It's, it's kind of the oldest celebration that we have as a species, is gathering together and, and doing a performance. Um, this is, this is fundamental to our DNA, so it's never gonna go away. It's only gonna get bigger as, as we have, you know, less and less opportunity to interact in person and, and with people.

Stephen: I'm curious, you've been building, you know, at KYD Labs and TIX for about four years. Where are some things that went wrong, and what skill set did you use to fix those things? Was it like, "Hey, I have access to a lot of engineers through my last employment that know Web3," or, "I got the sales chops," or, "I've been able to, you know, be the visionary for the company"?

Like, maybe give me s- a, a light thing of somewhere, somewhere where it went wrong and how you were able to fill that gap with a certain skill set.

David: Yeah, I mean, the-- we've learned a lot of lessons. You know, the four years is a lot of time to make mistakes. Uh, and so, you know, one, one good example is like we were not good at underwriting opportunities early on. We lost a lot of money, underwriting opportunities. Now, luckily we did that at a scale that, you know, didn't really hurt us in the long run, um, 'cause if we made those same mistakes now, it'd be, it'd be a huge problem.

Uh, and so looking back, that's probably one of the biggest Ls we've taken, uh, is just underwriting both venues and like independent promoters really successfully and conservatively is really important to, to making, uh, a longstanding business. And when I say underwriting, I mean like, you know, giving them the, the ticketing advance they need to go book the artist.

Um, really estimating that is crucial to a business like ours.

Stephen: And how much of that is science, luck, external forces that you have no control of? Like, how much of that is like, is there a person that's like the underwriter that comes in that you have to hire these, you know, these sharks that, you know, that they're using mathematics and like it's relationship based.

Like h- can you give us a little bit of a lay of the land as we end the episode of like what this underwriting process is and how many different, you know, stakeholders have to be involved to make it successful?

David: Yeah. It's like we, we're grateful to have some external capital partners. Uh, and because we have external capital funding these deals, it is a lot of numbers, right? We can't just go on vibes. Like we have to have a solid story and a solid financial plan to, to make money on these deals, um, as a ticketing company.

And so, uh, luckily we have a lot of other like sides of this business, like the email marketing tools, even TIX, uh, can help subsidize this, uh, on, on the financing side. But yeah, it's, it's a big numbers game. If you don't have past history, we really can't underwrite you. So you have to have past history as a venue, in order for us to start the underwriting process.

But a lot of it is like vibes. Like we'll go inspect all the venues. We make sure they have their licenses, make sure they have all the insurance stuff, uh, uh, figured out. And so, largely numbers, small bit of vibes. That's, that's kind of, uh, our philosophy on that.

Stephen: No Vibe ticketing here. I'm curious,

have you seen a lot of AI startups enter this space just based on, you know, the ability to now create a plat-- tell Claude to create a platform that's able to handle ticketing? Have you seen a lot of AI startups in this space or not quite yet? 'Cause there's such a huge element when it comes to underwriting and capital that's a little bit of a moat for these AI-first companies

David: Right. Yeah, there's, there's definitely a capital moat, but I think we see AI as more of like a feature set, not a platform in and of itself. Uh, and so I think we've done a really good job at implementing some AI into our software. Uh, but it's not something that's like-- there's not some AI platform that's gonna take over ticketing.

It's gonna be the AI that's integrated into these backends that make venues pro-promoters' lives easier, uh, at the end of the day.

Stephen: You know, I, I'm curious, you know, has there been a colossal m- like underwriting error? Maybe not for your company, but something where you're like, "Okay, the person, MSG, sold out everything," like in their eyes, and like they had to cancel the tour or cancel the tickets or the person didn't show up. Like, has there been a colossal underwriting error or like an FTX in the ticketing industry?

And maybe give me a little insight of what happened there.

David: yeah, I mean, I don't wanna, don't wanna name names, but yeah, there's, there's been a few fire sales because some deals went south, uh, especially in New York, and, um, no one made their money back, and they had no option but to do a fire sale to, to the next ticketing company essentially to assume that debt.

Um, but yeah, that's a consequence of like bad underwriting, uh, and bad, bad understanding of, of this business. And, and you really can't grow too quick here or you'll be prone to make those, um, bad decisions when it comes to underwriting new venues

Stephen: When you were looking at a co-founder, I know they kind of came to you for your technical chops, it seems like. What is something that they brought to the table? Obviously, you have the technical aspects. What is something that they brought to the table that you feel really advanced the business?

David: Yeah. The, the cool thing about this business and what my co-founder is able to do is he's able to get us into rooms that we do not belong in in our stage. Uh, I, I, I can recount many, many conversations we've had, many rooms we've been in where it's like, "Why are you even talking to us right now? This is awesome.

I love it, but like what, why?" Uh, and so that we've, we've had a lot of instances like that in the business, and that's something he's like uniquely capable at, and I saw that early on. Uh, and so that's, that's really like the, the game of startups and early-stage startups is like how many doors can you open?

Uh, how do you increase your chance of getting lucky? That's it

Stephen: How has it been having a16z crypto back you? And, you know, maybe same question around like how many doors has that opened up, and is there a lot less explanation you have to do when you have them constantly like maybe promoting what jobs you have available in their newsletter, et cetera?

David: Yeah, I mean, luckily we're, we're a really lean team. Uh, and so we-we're able to, to do a lot with little people. Um, but the, the thing that a- Andreessen's really helped on is, is just figuring out the crypto side of the business. Um, you know, we toyed around with the token, we toyed around with a lot of different ideas, and they helped us kinda flesh that out, uh, and see like how this actually works, do some market comparisons.

Um, literally s- like I just remember sitting in the room many times with them and I have like the smartest people in the world helping me figure out like a tokenomics thing. Uh, it's just, it's just a cool feeling to see, um, and that they're just a huge help on just the, the whole crypto side of things, um, and also the recruiting side of things.

It definitely helps, uh, on that side.

Stephen: I'm curious, usually when I talk to founders in Silicon Valley, I always ask them, like, what are some of the nerdy things their friends are playing with? Because that usually enters the mainstream, whether it's like ayahuasca or some, some-- Like AI used to be probably nerdy a few years ago. Uh, what are some of the nerdy things that you and the people around you are doing, what you would consider nerdy and maybe not mainstream yet?

David: Hmm. That's a good question. I mean, I feel like the-- even I feel constantly behind on like the latest AI trends. Like I, I just feel like I need to take like a month off and just go like do an AI ayahuasca, you know? I need a, I need a shaman to go teach me, uh, and, and figure out, you know, what's going on. Um, so either that or like robotics too, AI and robotics.

I think there's gonna be a lot of cool stuff that comes out over the next five years, um, that are-- seem like toys now, but, um, can really make all of our lives better, uh, in the future.

Stephen: Has there been a trend in New York around, like, healthy, bio health, like running clubs? Have you noticed a trend in New York, especially 'cause you're at a lot of these live events maybe introducing people, fashion. Is there something that, a trend that you see that you're like, "Hey, this is kind of interesting," like corduroy hats are back?

Like, anything that you're seeing that maybe some of us that aren't in the industry wouldn't notice?

David: Um I can't think of anything right now. I think New York is like this bubble in and of itself. Um Yeah, like, uh, I'm, I'm out at the river every sunset and yeah, there's, there's a ton of runners every single time. but yeah, I haven't seen anything that's like the world already doesn't know about, I guess in New York, other than like the lines are insane here now.

Uh, it's just the social media has blown up every single thing that ever exists in New York now, and it's not-- it's just not worth standing in a three-hour line to get gelato. Uh, so

Stephen: Can't get pizza anymore

David: yeah, I wouldn't say things have gotten better. Things have gotten worse around like the popular things here, uh, 'cause it's like, it's just not worth, it's not worth the line.

Stephen: And everyone's a food influencer, so they have no shortage of food influencers. David, where's the best place to find you? This has been a fun conversation, and I think it's really interesting what you're building, and it's very relatable. Everyone's experienced ticketing somehow, and I don't think anyone's walked away from a ticketing experience being like, "Oh, that was so great.

I just spent 30% more than I thought I was going to because they didn't add the fees until I got to the next landing page."

David: Right. Yeah. So, uh, people can find me on, on X, D-A-V Barrick, @davbarrick, uh, or @KYDlabs too, uh, if you wanna follow, um, KYD Labs or @tixprotocol. That's another protocol, uh, handle that we have going on, uh, on X. So, um, enjoy the chat, Stephen. Thank you so much

Stephen: Is there any other announcements that are coming up or any, anything that's on the ro- I know people don't like to ask about the roadmap obviously 'cause it hasn't been released yet, but is there anything that you're excited about internally as we go into the summer?

David: Yeah, I mean, stay tuned. We'll have some cool announcements in the next few months, uh, before the, uh, the-- before breakpoint in November and so on

Stephen: I love that. I love that. Hope to see you there.

David: Awesome.

Stephen: Talk soon

David: See ya.

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