We recently connected with Gary Peterson and have shared our conversation below.

Gary, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

While I owned my previous company, gap intelligence, we purchased season tickets to the Padres and Gulls and shared those tickets with employees, clients, and service partners to stay engaged and celebrate great work. Managing those tickets was always a time consuming mess. The home schedule was copy / pasted into a spreadsheet that was then sent out to everyone I wanted to share the tickets with and the task for them to pick two games. The second I did that, the problems started. First, if the person was not at their desk the second I sent that email out, they missed out on the game they wanted to go to. Secondly, during the course of the season life happens – a vacation, work obligation, or sick kid and suddenly the person can’t go to the game and had no effective way to communicate it. Ultimately , we wasted a lot of time and over a third of our tickets went unused – colossal waste of money.

Back in 2014, we built AllSeater for ourselves to manage our own tickets and our ticket waste went from sixty unused tickets to just a single ticket. We kept the idea to ourselves for four years and then I showed AllSeater to friends at the Padres and Gulls and they absolutely loved it. Fast forward through a pandemic and AllSeater is a standalone company.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

AllSeater is my second start-up, the first being a 20-year old market reserach company called gap intelligence. gap intelligence was a unique company in that we truly operated as a “Values Led” business that put our people and community first, which results in better results for our clients. We were a many times over finalist for Best Places to Work in San Diego.

I am most proud of the Heilbron Award, a one-time award given by the San Diego Rotary Club to the business that made the biggest impact in San Diego. gap intelligence is still the reigning champion of the Heilbron Award.

gap intelligence’s unique culture is what fueled the creation of AllSeater and I want to instill the same style of corporate activism in my second venture.

On the surface, AllSeater is a organizer and notification platform that efficiently manages season tickets. Deep down in our core though, we’re not just organizing tickets. but enabling business to engage with its employees, clients, and partners through meaningful events. We are rewarding and celebrating high performers with experiences. We are bringing in more revenues for professional sports teams. We are building fanbases of both a team and a company. We’re going to have fun along the way. We will put butts in seats.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Everybody has a pandemic story to share and mine is no different. In the very early days of the pandemic we were facing a long list of “firsts” for the business. First time retailers were shuttered, first time supply chains were critically strained, and it was the first time we all worked from home.

During those first critical months, I was immensely proud of how our core values held the team together. Core values are more than inspirational posters in the conference room. For us, our core values were a “How to” guide to operate in our isolation and boy did they work. Faced with such uncertainty, we grew during the pandemic, we had zero lay offs, and we stuck together as a team.

Core values are the calluses that make a team tough and will also be instilled at AllSeater.

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

I sold gap intelligence in 2023 and the experience earned me another MBA / PHD in business and life. Looking back on the experience, there are two things that I would have done differently.

1. I would have established a concrete exit strategy. As business owners, we tend to shy away from exit strategies because we love what we do and can’t imagine a life after our companies. However, by visualizing an exit strategy – even if its not achieved – you are forced to think about the business differently. What metrics would potential buyers value most? Are my service providers experienced in transactions? Are my contracts strong? Are my corporate documents organized?

There are countless items that pop up in the due diligence process that I could have been better prepared for if I proactively thought through an exit strategy.

2. Gross Profit – gross profit was a number for me to look at, but was not nearly as important as EBITA. I learned pretty quickly that strategic buyers really value gross profit as it speaks to the businesses potential to scale. By focusing more on gross profit, the company would have been leaner, focused on efficiency, and constantly thinking of ways to better scale.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.allseater.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garypeterson/

Image Credits

Me. Gary.