According to Just Jose, EasyTicket is a ticketing company which is currently doing both "physical" and online ticketing. It has been in existence for now 5 years and they believe now is the perfect time to be in existence because they offer convenience to the young and burgeoning young Ugandan population that's both tech savvy and outgoing.
We spoke to Just Jose aka Joseph Mwima about the ins and outs of their venture. In case you're wondering who Just Jose is, he is one of the most prominent Ugandan audio producers. If you remember hits like Ability (Radio, Weasel and Rabadabda), the Whistle Song (All Stars), How we do it (Keko) and many more. He was the man behind them.
The team
EasyTicket was founded by John Masembe, Jasi Kassami, Kevin Lubega, Mahmoud AbdulRahman and Just Jose aka Joseph Mwima. They currently employ 2 people permanently and around 30 as part-time staff.
Just Jose, and the team of several co-founders, decided to venture into the ticketing business and thinks he's in the right business when he looks at the networks and contacts he's built. He has formerly managed the bookings for Radio & Weasel as well as other prominent artists abroad as well as locally. This, he believes, is invaluable to EasyTicket.
Clients
It is also no doubt that most of the clients that EasyTicket has surround Just Jose's networks. He points out House of DJs, Talent Africa as well as Bobi Wine as some of them. To these he was very thankful for the opportunity and support they have given them even as just an early stage startup.
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Quicket is a technology partner with EasyTicket[/caption]
Making Money
Given that EasyTicket sells tickets both online and offline, they implore a hybrid model of making money. They take a commission off each ticket they sell through their website as well as charge for tickets they print for clients who decide not to use the online ticketing route.
Figures
From handling 2 events a year, just few years ago, EasyTicket - last year - handled over 60 events which brought the number of tickets sold to over 40,000. Of these, over 10,000 were sold online and the rest were physical. He however notes that they started selling physical tickets in August with the Uganda Entertainment Awards being the first.
Busabala, Bobi Wine's Boxing Day event, contributed over half of the offline tickets last year. They proposed "physical" tickets to Bobi Wine after understanding that his crowd wasn't tech savvy, which turned out to be a success.
Expansion
So far they have expanded to Rwanda. This happened early in 2017 and they are also looking at expanding to Kenya. Currently, the Rwanda business is being managed remotely from Uganda but as business grows, they're looking to set up shop there permanently.
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EasyTicket was contracted to handle the ticketing for Morgan Heritage in Uganda[/caption]
Partnerships
The team has been able to secure various partnerships to enable them penetrate the tough terrain. One of them is KCCA FC. They currently manage all games for the team. He also points out the fact that FUFA president Magogo thanked them for bringing sanity to sporting events. Surprisingly, Jose says that the sports events need ticketing experts more than any other.
They have also secured a partnership with Quicket, one of the leading ticketing companies in South Africa. This one is particularly for the ticketing technology. Another crucial partnership is with AC Group which has operation in India, Cameroon and Rwanda. This was setup particularly to aid in their new plan of venturing into transport ticketing. Jose confirmed that they're in talks with one of the biggest local bus companies to handle their ticketing.
Another crucial partnership they've struck is with White Sand beach (former Spenah Beach) and they'll be handling their ticketing for Saturdays and Sundays.
Market Dynamics
Jose cites a particular scenario of a fraudster who setup a Morgan Heritage Event, which was officially managed by EasyTicket, on Eventbrite and sold a couple of tickets to people. These were left stranded at the gate.
These are some of the dynamics in the market that one needs to take note of. He also stresses that this is where EasyTicket has an upper hand over foreign ticketing sites like Eventbrite - the ability to offer a local solution to a local problem.
Future Plans
At the end of our conversation, Jose promised that they are launching a new platform to make the user interface more appealing. He also hinted on an App that was developed to entirely help event organizers monitor the performance of their events.
We asked, since sports events need more of the services, why they haven't approached FUFA to handle ticketing for the entire league as well as Uganda Cranes games. Jose revealed that they have tried to move the card before but with no success.
He thinks this is because majority of the fake ticketing is done by internal staff and they do not want a solution to this given they currently earn an extra dubious income this way.
He also believes there's still a gap in the railway and the entire transportation business. He cited the recently launched SGR in Kenya. They are trying to venture into ticketing for transportation.
Challenges
Though EasyTicket has been able to start and take off with no external financing, Jose still cites finance as one of the biggest hurdles to their expansion and growth. He however didn't show any signs of seeking for external support.
International Trend
There's been a growing trend of rappers in the US funding or running startups. Some example include Chamilionaire, Jay-z, Snoop Dogg and many more. In Nigeria, we saw Don Jazzy teamed up with Dele Odufuye to launch Flobyte that offers free Wifi in public.