Every great rock ’n’ roll story starts with a man living in his parents’ basement.
For Dustin Trauernicht, the founder of the online platform COMP’D, his journey into the music industry began selling t-shirts out of his parents basement for a music blog based in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I started out marketing for a t-shirt company, and instead of marketing locally, I marketed to all these music blogs across the country,” said Trauernicht. “One music blog out of Nashville, called Camelback Music, really wanted some merchandise, but they didn’t want to run their own store, so I decided I would run it for them.”
That relationship between Trauernicht and Camelback Music would lead to hundreds of t-shirt sales and eventually led to him becoming a regular blogger for the site. Blogging turned into event promoting and that led to helping managers book tours. All along the way Trauernicht slowly became aware of a problem.
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“Through booking and promoting, I was contributing to the problem, to the twenty billion dollars in tickets that go unsold every year,” said Trauernicht. “If a venue doesn’t sell 50 tickets that are worth $15.00, they’re losing out on $750.00 they could be making.”
From Startup Weekend to startup accelerator
With this problem in mind Trauernicht went into this year’s Nebraska Startup Weekend, and out of it came COMP’D. Trauernicht submitted his application to the NMotion Accelerator right before submissions closed.
“Brian [Ardinger] was at Startup Weekend, and he reminded me of the deadline,” said Trauernicht. “But I wasn’t sure if I would enter. But I did, and got in, so here I am.”
COMP’D was one of 7 companies selected into this year’s NMotion cohort based in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Unlimited tickets to local events
For a monthly membership fee, COMP’D allows its members to get tickets that would normally go unsold for events. Memberships cost $25/month for unlimited tickets to events. From premiere acts to lesser known local events, COMP’D can help you get into them all.
“How many people use Spotify? How many people use Netflix? You can get unlimited cups of coffee per month for one monthly price. The way that people are paying for things is changing, and COMP’D is bringing that to the way people go to events,” said Trauernicht.
Currently, COMP’D is only available in Lincoln and Omaha, NE, but Trauernicht plans to roll out to other cities very soon after the NMotion Demo Day on July 28th.
“I’ve been apart of the problem, so that’s why I feel confident in this solution,” said Trauernicht.
