Founder Interview - Elias Veris

Welcome to the Founder Post series!
In this 3-part series, we sit down with the three co-founders of The Pack, to hear about their journey of founding the company, their relationship with music and how it is to be a start-up founder.
In this first blog post of this series, we would like to introduce you to Elias: a guy with 10 years of experience at Google, metalhead and immigrant to Madrid.

What is your relation to music?

Elias: Like many people, I am deeply in love with music. I mainly listen to bands in genres such as Punk, Metal, Metal Core, Hardcore and Progressive. In other words, music with loud guitars, drums and screaming voices, at various levels of technicality.

Give us some examples of bands you listen to, please!

Elias: Allright, so bands like H2o, Ignite, Rise Against, Parkway Drive, Machine Head, All That Remains, but also Iron Maiden are some examples of bands I listen to regularly. Furthermore, I also have an affinity for bands that started in this genre/subculture that make different music now. Think The Beastie Boys, or Frank Turner, both great examples of that. Even though the recent songs and albums might be a bit softer, or in a completely different style, you can still feel their ‘roots’ in this music.

Why are you into this genre specifically?

Elias: It’s hard to explain why something ‘clicks’ with you, but I think the main reason I like this kind of music is because of the deep meaning behind many songs - politically, emotionally, poetically. Also, the technicality of having a band coming together at all those levels is just mind-blowing to me.

To business! Let's talk about The Pack.

Why did you start The Pack?

Elias: I started The Pack together with Hans and Jonathan because we believe there is a more efficient way for the teams surrounding live artists to manage their business.

The more efficient we can make live music tours, the more artists we can help be financially successful. And that hopefully means a world with more great live shows to attend!

And it’s never been more relevant either - we’re hearing that with rising costs, it’s much more difficult to make a tour that’s financially successful. This causes ticket prices to go up etc - so everything we can do to help avoid that, will help the fans as well.

What’s the impact The Pack can make on the music industry?

Elias: So first, I believe that The Pack will help artists and the teams surrounding them (tour managers, freelance staff, management,...) get a clearer view of their tour finances, which means ideally, they can become more financially successful with their tours.

Secondly, I’m convinced that with the platform’s existing and upcoming features, artists and tour managers will spend less time on budgeting and administrative tasks, so they get part of their time back that can be invested in making the live experience better.

Thirdly, we hope this can be a way to reduce the threshold and make it easier for people to become involved in the music industry. A lot of tour managers for example end up in this industry by accident. If we succeed in standardizing some of the processes, we could show more aspiring tour managers how to do this job effectively - and increase the talent pool. Which is especially relevant right now, because there actually is a talent shortage in this industry post-covid.

Why are you the right person to found The Pack?

Elias: I have had the privilege of having worked at Google for 10 years and have learnt a lot of really interesting things about running different parts of a business at scale.

I ran sales teams, improved processes in a fully global context, and have been closely involved in product roadmaps for various tools and platforms. On top of that, I’ve had the honor of meeting and learning from tons of startup founders in my role at Google for Startups.

I’m excited to bring all that I’ve learnt including that global viewpoint into The Pack, building a global company from day one and making sure we’re ready to scale whenever we need to.

What is your role at The Pack?

Elias: It’s early days, so it’s kind of hard to pinpoint my role into something specific. I’ll do what needs to be done.

But, since it’s essential to get crystal clear what kind of platform we need to build, I currently spend most time on going really deep on our understanding of our user base.

By doing lots of interviews with tour managers, tour accountants, suppliers and managers, I try to figure out what the friction points are in their lives, and what features the platform needs in order to solve these frictions.

Combining Hans’ viewpoint from his experience in the industry, Jonathan’s technical abilities and the info I get from those interviews is what will hopefully allow us to create a winning platform to solve all of the live music industry’s business problems :)

Since starting The Pack, what has been the...

... funniest anecdote?

Elias: Our first-ever in-person founders happened over a weekend in Madrid, where I have lived for a couple of years now. We spent 2 days holed up in a room to get to know one another better, how to best collaborate, and make our plans. We poured our heart and soul out for 2 straight days, and when we ended the meeting on Sunday one of us snapped a selfie. I've never seen 3 dudes look so tired and happy at the same time - it's a pic I'll cherish for a long time for sure :)

... biggest challenge?

Elias: Finding the balance between having a big vision and wanting to go fast on the one hand, and being realistic about the product roadmap and resources we have on the other hand. We’re currently only 3 founders, so we can’t do it all - no matter how hard we try!
But, at the same time this ‘resource crunch’ is an opportunity; it forces us to focus on only doing the things that deliver value to our users.

... biggest lesson learnt?

Elias: The ‘meta-lesson’ is: spend more time with (prospective) users. We realized that in order to build a great product, we need to be working hand-in-hand with those that will use it. We even wrote a separate blogpost about it recently (to be found here).
Every conversation we have with for example tour managers yields so many lessons - too many to talk about right now - it’s truly incredible.

Thank you! Any last words?

Elias: Yes! If you are in the live music industry (or know anyone who is) and are interested in sharing your experience regarding planning and managing a tour, I’d be delighted to talk to you! Please reach out to elias@partofthepack.com.

Do you want to learn more about the other co-founders of The Pack, Hans and Jonathan? Then definitely keep an eye out, because very soon we will drop their interviews on our blog.
Keep up to date with our journey, new product features and latest behind-the-scenes updates by subscribing to The Pack Newsletter.
And if you know anyone we should definitely talk to for more insights, drop us a line at hello@partofthepack.com.
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