Robert Davari is the CEO and co-founder of Tixr, a live event commerce marketplace he launched in 2013 with fellow UCLA graduate Patrick Stavro. Their goal? Modernize the ticketing industry (i.e., make it less annoying and painful for everyone involved).
Over the last 13 years, Tixr has grown into a platform that powers 700+ partners across sports, music festivals, venues and nightlife, travel, attractions, comedy, and fandom conventions in 60 countries. They just announced new partnerships with the San Jose Earthquakes and Houston Dynamo FC. Here, Davari shares how it started and how entrepreneurs can find success going up against the big dogs in any industry.
Please introduce yourself and give the elevator pitch of your business.
I’m Robert Davari, founder and CEO of Tixr, a modern ticketing and commerce platform built for large-scale global entertainment brands. We power everything from ticketing to hospitality and fan commerce in a way that’s designed to be intuitive for fans and more profitable for organizers. We help event organizers create better buying journeys and unlock new revenue streams with the control to package, price, and sell their events on their own terms and full ownership over their data. We also give fans more freedom to manage their purchases with self-service transfers, resale, upgrades, and even returns for credit, without adding work for the organizer.
What inspired you to create this business?
I’ve always been passionate about live entertainment as a fan, and I kept seeing the same pain points around ticketing, issues that still exist today. The turning point came when I spoke with people inside the industry and realized no one actually loved the products they were using, which is rare in any successful category.
My co-founder and I both came from technical backgrounds, so we saw those problems as solvable. That’s when we decided to build something people would genuinely want to use, not just something that worked. As industry outsiders, we had the advantage of starting from scratch, creating a modern platform built for today’s behavior, not constrained by legacy systems from a different era.
What is your advice to those who see massive corporations in the space they want to operate in?
You can absolutely compete, but you have to be clear on where the gaps are. In most industries, it comes down to three things: product, service, and speed. If the incumbent’s product is outdated, build something better. If the experience is lacking, out-serve them. And if they move slowly, outpace them.
Large companies tend to optimize for what already exists, which often slows real innovation. That creates an opportunity for focused, nimble teams to build something better and win.
Tell us about your first big partnership. How did you open that door and what closed the deal?
Our first major partnerships, including Wynn Nightlife, came through relationships. Early on, credibility is borrowed, so building a strong network in your target industry is critical to getting in the room. What ultimately closed the deal was the product. We were offering something meaningfully better, and once partners saw it firsthand, the value was clear. Many of those early partners are still with us today, which speaks to both the relationships and the durability of the platform.
Tell us about your revenue growth. How big is the business today and where are you projected to go?
Tixr has continued to scale every year since its inception and now processes over a billion dollars in annual transaction volume. We’re continuing to move upmarket by expanding our capabilities and taking on more complex use cases, particularly across professional sports and stadium-scale events, while broadening our international footprint. Sustaining that growth comes down to constant product innovation and building technology to support larger, more sophisticated partners at scale.
What’s something small — a daily routine or mindset shift — that changed the way you lead or perform?
Two things have had an outsized impact on how I operate: prioritizing physical health and learning to delegate effectively. Lifting weights and working with a trainer has made me sharper, more focused, and more resilient, which directly impacts how I make decisions. On the professional side, I made a shift from doing the work to setting direction and reviewing outcomes. That move from execution to accountability is what allows you to scale both the business and yourself as a leader.
What is a surprising aspect of running your own business that you didn’t see coming?
One of the more surreal parts of building Tixr is how it’s come full circle. We now work closely with artists, brands, and organizations I grew up following. In some cases, they’ve even become collaborators and investors in the company. When you build something valuable, it brings you into the inner circle of the experiences you once admired from the outside. That shift from fan to partner never really gets old.
Robert Davari is the CEO and co-founder of Tixr, a live event commerce marketplace he launched in 2013 with fellow UCLA graduate Patrick Stavro. Their goal? Modernize the ticketing industry (i.e., make it less annoying and painful for everyone involved).
Over the last 13 years, Tixr has grown into a platform that powers 700+ partners across sports, music festivals, venues and nightlife, travel, attractions, comedy, and fandom conventions in 60 countries. They just announced new partnerships with the San Jose Earthquakes and Houston Dynamo FC. Here, Davari shares how it started and how entrepreneurs can find success going up against the big dogs in any industry.
Please introduce yourself and give the elevator pitch of your business.
I’m Robert Davari, founder and CEO of Tixr, a modern ticketing and commerce platform built for large-scale global entertainment brands. We power everything from ticketing to hospitality and fan commerce in a way that’s designed to be intuitive for fans and more profitable for organizers. We help event organizers create better buying journeys and unlock new revenue streams with the control to package, price, and sell their events on their own terms and full ownership over their data. We also give fans more freedom to manage their purchases with self-service transfers, resale, upgrades, and even returns for credit, without adding work for the organizer.
