Small Business, Big Lessons is a monthly newsletter authored by Eventbrite Co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz, designed to amplify the entrepreneurial stories shaping today’s live experiences. At a time when headlines often spotlight billion-dollar tours and celebrity-driven events, this series flips the narrative, spotlighting the independent venues, pop-up curators, underground dance party organizers, and community-builders operating at the grassroots level.
Each edition features a different independent creator, like the team behind a haunted cocktail experience now touring 380 cities, or the DJ who turned a side hustle into a career with the San Francisco Giants. We dive deep into their “aha” moments, pivots, creative instincts, and failures. It's not just storytelling, it’s tactical, founder-to-founder insight for the modern experience economy.
The goal: elevate the voices of independent creators and small business owners who are shaping culture in real time. Through Julia’s direct and personal tone, we set out to:
These stories aren’t just inspirational, they equip tens of thousands of readers each month with practical ideas they can apply to their own creative businesses.
People are eager to connect, but many of the entrepreneurs and organizers making that possible are doing it without access to the resources that larger businesses rely on. They’re building brands, cultivating audiences, and producing standout experiences, all while wearing every hat—from marketer to customer support to logistics lead. These are modern small business owners: savvy, mission-driven, and often operating without teams, budgets, or institutional playbooks.
For nearly 20 years, Eventbrite has supported this powerful but under-resourced community, helping organizers reach new audiences and grow their impact through tools for discovery, marketing, ticketing, and data. As demand for in-person experiences continues to grow—95% of Gen Z and Millennials say they seek out “Fourth Spaces” that bring digital communities to life—so does the need for platforms that elevate the people behind those gatherings.
To meet that need, Eventbrite Co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz launched Small Business, Big Lessons, a LinkedIn newsletter that puts creators at the center. From the start, the vision was clear: combine Julia’s platform and voice with the real stories and insights of organizers shaping culture offline. Our team collaborated across comms, community, and research to identify standout creators, shape authentic conversations, and translate those into human-first, highly shareable narratives.
Each edition focuses on how organizers have turned passion into livelihood—from local breweries hosting yoga classes to side projects that evolve into successful event series. The newsletter also creates space for issues that matter to Julia and the broader industry. In one edition, she interviewed NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker to spotlight independent venues and their role in shaping meaningful legislation like the Fans First Act and coalitions like Fix the Tix, co-led by NIVA and Eventbrite.
We faced the challenge of speaking to a deeply entrepreneurial, time-strapped audience while still surfacing universal insights. To overcome that, we leaned into storytelling over promotion, choosing candor over polish and letting each organizer’s journey lead. The result is a format that feels personal, actionable, and community-driven.
Recognizing the universal relevance of small business and creator insights, the newsletter's storytelling approach has expanded cross-functionally, with featured stories now amplified on the global Eventbrite blog and through organizer-specific content on Eventbrite's Instagram channels to reach creators across multiple touchpoints.
What makes Small Business, Big Lessons unique is its lens: a founder-to-founder dialogue that elevates not just the work, but the wisdom of the people powering live experiences. It’s rare for a tech CEO to use their platform to champion creators in such a direct, human way—and in doing so, Julia has created a space where the stories behind the business become lessons that others can learn from, build on, and be inspired by.
In 2024 alone, Eventbrite powered nearly 5 million events and distributed over 83 million paid tickets. This massive scale of human connection is supported by our growing community of organizers who benefit from resources like "Small Business, Big Lessons."
Since launching less than a year ago, this newsletter has demonstrated its growing cultural impact among Eventbrite's global organizer community. The numbers show strong momentum: follower count has increased nearly 300% in the past 90 days, with an average of 300,000 monthly impressions and high engagement rates on LinkedIn. This success contributed to Julia Hartz being recognized as a "LinkedIn Top Voice." This community-focused content has contributed to a significant increase in new organizers joining Eventbrite year-over-year, demonstrating how valuable resources and authentic connection drive platform growth.
But the influence of Eventbrite's "Small Business, Big Lessons" newsletter goes beyond metrics. By democratizing access to robust event technology, Eventbrite empowers creators to turn passions into livelihoods and local moments into lasting impact.
Every event represents a dream realized—whether it's a nonprofit rallying for change, a first-time workshop host building community, or a venue launching a new cultural series. In enabling these experiences, Eventbrite helps strengthen the social fabric and enrich how people come together in meaningful ways, and "Small Business, Big Lessons" further elevates those incredible stories.
Together, these numbers represent more than statistics—they reflect a thriving ecosystem where event organizers find both the tools and community support they need to create meaningful experiences that bring people together.
