Today I sat down with DJ and co-founder of POSH, Avante Price. Join us as we discuss how and why he and his co-founder Eli Taylor-Lemire started their company, advice for future entrepreneurs, and, of course, his favorite song recommendations! If you’re looking to enter the events space, I urge you to check out POSH, arguably the most accessible and convenient platform out there.
Niki Winston: For those of us who don’t know you, can you please introduce yourself?
Avante Price: Hey, I’m Avante! I grew up in between Chicago, Seattle, Oregon, and Japan, but eventually moved to New York in 2018 to go to NYU. I’m super passionate about startups, house music, and yummy food.
NW: Can you tell us about your journey with POSH?
AP: We started POSH in November 2019 as an events brand with the goal to host upscale social events for students in the NYC college community. By February 2020, we got fed up with using unsatisfactory products like Eventbrite to sell tickets, so my co-founder Eli built us an in-house solution. After just two events on our own platform, we grew our events from approximately 200 attendees to over 500 attendees each week!
As luck would have it, the COVID-19 pandemic struck just weeks after we launched this product. The pandemic made us take a step back and speak with our fellow event producer friends. Everyone was just as unsatisfied with ticketing platforms as we were, so we decided to ditch our events and spend the next months building an MVP of POSH for the public. After launching in October 2020, we worked closely with countless event brands to help them successfully emerge from the pandemic. Now, we’ve built the online ecosystem for live experiences, with over $15 million processed from over 5000 events worldwide.
NW: What does the POSH team look like?
AP: We’re a team of nine, all working in person at our office in SoHo, NYC. Our Co-Founder Eli leads a team of four software engineers while I work alongside our VP of Growth and two Customer Success reps to scale the user base.
NW: What makes POSH unique and how have you or do you plan to disrupt the events industry? GEN-ZiNE caters to an audience of creators, some of whom have thrown or will throw their own events. I’ve used POSH before so I know it’s extremely accessible, but for anyone who has not, can you briefly walk us through why we should use POSH when throwing events?
AP: Before explaining what I do to anyone new I meet, I always ask if they’ve used a product like Eventbrite to purchase tickets before. They usually say yes. Then I ask if they enjoyed that experience. They usually say no. Overall, event management platforms have failed to provide attendees with an engaging purchase experience, all while leaving event organizers with subpar tools to manage and communicate with their audience.
On the contrary, POSH provides event organizers with a seamless way to upload images, videos, music, and other engaging elements onto our design-driven event pages. To add to the excitement, POSH gives attendees the ability to see who else is going and interact with one another post-purchase. In turn, this drives more sales for the event organizer while providing attendees with an extended pre and post-event social experience. Our goal is not only to help event organizers create a beautiful purchase process for their audience, but also to help them grow their brand over time with our robust suite of marketing tools.
NW: What would you say is your most memorable experience that has come about through POSH?
AP: Inherently, people just want to feel like their work is valued. After working on so many side projects and a past startup that never received the traction I felt it deserved, getting to where we are today feels very surreal. That’s why the beginning months of our transformation into a tech startup are so memorable for me. We launched the original POSH MVP in October 2020, secured our first check for $100 thousand a month later, then moved to Miami for six months to onboard users because it was the only place where events were happening at the time. Even though this time encompasses an eight-month period, the accomplishments we made over that time were defining moments of our lives. We secured our first investment, broke $1 million in processed tickets, and made our first hires. It’s these experiences that make you realize you’re no longer working on a side project. But, no matter how memorable or large the accomplishment, there’s always one more to achieve. Onto the next one!
NW: I’m so curious… how did you come up with the name?
AP: POSH began with a group of college kids who were fed up with the lack of class and professionalism our peers showed at events. We decided to create an event brand that catered to college students with a mature work-hard-play-hard attitude. When pondering how we could encompass this idea in one word, POSH came to mind! Eventually, our local event brand became a software company, but our desire to bring the world professionally curated, meaningful, and POSH experiences still guides our company direction to this day.
NW: I have a few short questions for you before we finish up! Who’s your favorite DJ?
AP: John Summit
NW: What are three must-listen-to songs right now?
AP: Escape (John Summit Remix), Big Love (David Penn Remix), Chris Lorenzo - MAMI
NW: What’s the best live music performance you’ve ever seen?
AP: Porter Robinson at Lollapalooza 2018. Not the type of music I listen to anymore, but there’s something different about being 17 at your first festival ever, drenched in the rain, and listening to chill-inducing EDM.
NW: What advice do you have for anyone interested in starting their own business? There’s a lot we can learn from you!
AP: Don’t create a product, create a solution. Any great business solves a problem that affects many people in a meaningful way. Usually, the problem being solved affects the founder of the company in a more meaningful way than most. Think about the top three to five problems you experience on a daily basis. This could be as simple as not having time for breakfast or as specific as an activity you have to do every day at work that could be automated with software.
Once you’ve nailed down a problem you’re passionate about solving for yourself, go find other people who are experiencing that problem and get their feedback on how they go about solving said problem now. Once you know as much as possible about the problem, you can get to work on a solution. Then it’s company-building time!
I always suggest Giff Constable’s book Talking to Humans: Success starts with understanding your customers which speaks about understanding what potential customers want in a product before spending time on building it.
NW: Thank you so much for your time, Avante. For our readers who did not know you or POSH already, I’m sure you’ve sparked some interest! Where can we find more information about POSH, yourself, and your music?