Ticketing Hub

Carl Peel's journey to Ticketing Hub began a decade earlier with Lost in London, a social platform for language schools that sold tickets to events and attractions. The business seemed simple enough—they'd print tickets in their office and distribute them to schools. But reality proved messy: schools never had the right quantity, management was chaotic, and when Carl tried to integrate with a major ticketing company, they demanded a $20,000 setup fee plus a $200,000 annual minimum. The vendor tried to sue when the economics didn't work out.

Then came the breaking point. After buying Mini Cards (an advertising platform in hotels and hostels for roughly $15,000-$20,000 around 2010) to expand distribution, Carl discovered students were photocopying the tickets. Attractions didn't validate third-party tickets, so the scam nearly bankrupted the company. That's when Carl realized the fundamental problem: there was no way to connect ticket distribution and supplier validation. The market had a massive gap.

Carl's solution started simple: a scanner app that connected to platforms like Expedia and TripAdvisor, allowing museums and attractions to validate tickets in real-time. The genius was removing friction—instead of requiring expensive hardware, venues could use an iPhone or Android device paired with off-the-shelf payment hardware like Sum-up or iZettle, plus any printer they wanted. Everything worked out of the box.

The platform was built around a percentage-based model (3% of ticket sales, negotiable down to 1.5% for enterprise), positioning Ticketing Hub as "Shopify for tickets." With 250-300 customers, the average account paying $200/month, Carl had discovered a sustainable unit economics model.

The early customer base came organically from Lost in London's existing relationships with language schools and universities like SOAS and Kings. But the real growth inflection came during the pandemic, when Carl learned SEO and signed the largest zoo in the UK. Since UK zoos remained open with outdoor access during lockdown, they thrived while most tourism shut down. That single contract kept the three-person team alive through 2020-2021, generating the $15,000 MRR that sustained the business.

By the time tourism recovered in 2023, Ticketing Hub had established itself with marquee clients like Secret Food Tours (operating in 67 cities, the world's largest food tour company) and Immersive Game Box (the largest VR company with 15 locations, featuring Squid Game and Angry Birds licenses).

The biggest obstacle wasn't market fit—it was internal. Carl had a 50/50 co-founder who became competitive and eventually sabotaged the platform. The co-founder set up a competing business, hacked the Ticketing Hub system, and tried to poach the major City Sightseeing Worldwide contract. For years, Carl couldn't remove him; the co-founder refused to sell without an NDA preventing Carl from discussing the crimes. In October 2019, the co-founder's lawyer made a critical mistake—Carl received the NDA but never signed it, giving him legal freedom to act. He bought out the co-founder's 50% stake for $15,000 (exploiting the lawyer's error) and regained full control.

That October 2019 buyout marked the real inflection point. With full ownership and a stable team, Carl could finally execute. He built a team of five full-time developers, refactored the codebase for scalability, and implemented proper security protocols to prevent future hacks.

Ticketing Hub is now doing $50,000 MRR ($600,000 ARR) with 250 customers, nine team members (five developers), and $90,000 in net profit over the last six months. Carl is 100% bootstrapped with cash in the bank and profiting $10,000/month. He rejected a hypothetical $2M offer, citing the $254 billion tourism and activities market opportunity and his competitive advantage: a system easier to use and half the price of larger incumbents.

The company is in a refactoring phase, building auxiliary services that can plug into other reservation systems while making the core platform independent enough to scale hiring. Carl plans to reach $1-1.5M ARR before raising capital, if ever. At 39, with full ownership and profitability, he's playing the long game in a massive market where there's room for multiple winners.