Ian Hogarth
I co-founded Songkick in London when I was 25. Over my time I shifted from writing the first lines of code to identifying our first scalable growth channels to negotiating global distribution deals with companies like YouTube and Spotify. I raised over $20m in venture capital and was lucky to be part of the second British team to be backed by Y Combinator. Songkick scaled to 12m monthly unique visitors but over time faced increasing challenges dealing with anticompetitive behaviour from TicketMaster. Songkick was forced to sue TicketMaster for anticompetitive behaviour. TicketMaster wound up settling two weeks before trial for $130m, and additionally agreed to pay a $10m criminal penalty to the US Department of Justice to resolve 5 counts of computer intrusion and fraud offences against Songkick.
Spend a disproportionate amount of time recruiting extraordinary people.
I am particularly motivated by new general purpose technologies that can transform a wide range of industries. Machine Learning, Quantum Computing and Material Science are examples of sectors that I have been drawn to as a result. I also am motivated to support founders tackling some of the greatest challenges of our era, from climate change to making the internet safer for children.
