Byline: Mark Scheffler
Mike Domek's 5-year-old online ticket selling service, TicketsNow.com, has shot up the charts: It sold $35 million worth of tickets last year and is on track to reach $40 million in sales in 2004.
And it was all inspired by heavy metal and lite rock: "Metallica one night and Neil Diamond the next. I just enjoy a good concert."
Mr. Domek's company works by aggregating the ticket inventories of companies, agencies, individuals and other dealers nationwide into one huge online marketplace. Visitors purchase a ticket from Tickets-
Now, which in turn buys that ticket from the listing seller, collecting a 10% commission in the process.
Mr. Domek also sells his company's massive database of ticket brokers, five years in the making, to other firms through a second enterprise, EventInventory.com. The retail value of tickets sold through this database each year is over $200 million (including $35 million that TicketsNow brokers). Mr. Domek's company collects 3% of the gross sale of any transaction made using the database.
When he started out, it was him, a hundred bucks and a two-line phone in a one-bedroom apartment. After he advanced from combing the classifieds to using the Internet, he began TicketsNow in June 1999 with a staff of seven. That has since grown to 110.
"While most of our friends were enjoying the carefree lifestyle that . . . people in their early 20s do, Mike was focused on building his business," says Nick Bucci, a high-school friend who is now vice-president of sales.
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