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Marketplace • UK • Startup

Online marketplace - B2B & B2C platform

Seat Unique - Case Study

A disruptive marketplace platform built with Ruby on Rails and Elixir

Grzegorz Hajdukiewicz Chief Delivery Officer

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The Company and Product

Seat Unique is an innovative marketplace platform founded in 2018 in the UK to fill the gap in online access to premium tickets and hospitality packages for sports, music, and cultural events.

The product was aimed at improving live event experiences both for venues and their customers. After a series of Covid-19 lockdowns, it has more users than ever before and it’s steadily growing the range of events offered via the platform.

We love the fact that at every stage of project development, we’re perfectly aware of what’s going on. We see the achieved milestones, keep track of the budget and stay updated on the timeline. That transparency gives us a sense of security. Phillipa Hicks Sales & Marketing Director & Co-Founder, SEAT UNIQUE

Scope and Highlights

RUBY ON RAILS AND ELIXIR
MVP DEVELOPMENT
DISCOVERY WORKSHOPS

9TEAM MEMBERS
1.5YEARS OF COOPERATION
4MEETINGS ON SITE

The Challenge

With a brand new idea for an app, they wanted to reshape the outdated, lengthy, and complicated buyer journey that dominated the market.

The client needed to receive the basic product as fast as possible to be the first company to introduce such a product to the market.

From the developer's perspective, the biggest challenge was to build an MVP on short order and make sure that even large volumes of traffic get handled gracefully.

Key challenges included:

Meeting a tight deadline for MVP release to help the company get to market
Supporting huge traffic volumes, especially during periods of peak ticket sales
Implementing a bevy of B2C and B2B selling tools

The Process

Over the course of an intensive three-day workshop, we evaluated some of the client’s initial assumptions and established the project scope.

A marketplace app like Seat Unique required some battle-tested frameworks, so we went with Ruby on Rails, React, and PostgreSQL. We decided to marry them to Elixir Phoenix for the ticket-selling part to ensure quick and efficient traffic management.

This tech stack enabled the smooth implementation of one of the most important milestones — the seller tool (written entirely using Ruby): the B2B portion of the platform allowing rights holders to sell premium ticket and hospitality packages directly.

The process involved daily project standups, regular check-ins, one visit to London, and four visits to Wrocław.

This is how we made it happen:

Selecting Ruby on Rails, React, PostgreSQL, and Redis for development
Adding Elixir Phoenix to the stack for the ticket-selling portion of the platform
Embracing constant communication and fostering a collaborative relationship between Monterail and Seat Unique

What helped us build the MVP so quickly was good prioritizing, knowing where to take a shortcut, what we can deliver, and what value certain features will bring to the users. Mateusz Karbowiak TECH LEAD

The Outcome

By releasing the MVP in October 2018, the client achieved their objective of getting the product to market as quickly as possible.

The seller tool was introduced shortly thereafter, significantly enhancing the B2B aspect of the platform.

At this point, Seat Unique is capable of providing fans of live events with premium ticket and hospitality packages from official vendors, at good prices, and available for purchase instantly online.

The platform currently handles traffic of around 7,000 users per month, but the number of users is expected to grow rapidly in the upcoming months.

Further development plans include improving the conversion rate as well as the UX and UI of the platform, gradually reaching more users, and expanding the inventory.

Seat Unique is already transforming the marketplace and their efforts were recognized–the company won in "the Disruptor of the Year" category at TheTicketingBusiness Awards 2021.

The success of this project hinged on the following factors:

Successfully launching the MVP within a very short timeframe
Building a Seller Tool for suppliers, which allows them to manage their own events and packages
Gradually and consistently adding features and improving the product

I'm here to gather your requirements, answer all your questions, and push your idea into development as fast as possible.

Jan Solecki