This founder built an AI tool for ticket resales

^{A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.}

If you’ve ever bought or resold a ticket to an event, you’ve transacted in the secondary market. This week’s founder built a platform (with an AI feature) to make this smoother and safer for both sides. 

Give it a read if you’re releasing an AI feature.

Subscribe | Past essays | Let’s collaborate | Insane Media

🤝 This edition is kindly brought to you by SurveyMonkey

AI builders move fast, your feedback loop should too. SurveyMonkey gives technical teams a way to capture structured user insights in minutes, not days. Along with AI-assisted survey creation, 500+ templates, and real-time analysis built for teams that need signal, not noise. From concept to launch and beyond. SurveyMonkey is used by teams at Google, Zoom, Expedia and more.

Get started today

Galin Ananiev started learning programming languages when he was in primary school, and he’s been building software ever since. He tinkered with buying and selling tickets through secondary marketplaces, teaching himself how ticket resale works. Then Covid happened. 

When live events stopped, Ananiev started offering web and mobile dev services, as brands were hurrying to establish their online presence. He built a team and bought back some time, and found himself returning to the resale idea. But to formalize it this time. 

After buying and selling tickets through other marketplaces, Ananiev saw the opportunity to build his own platform, as IRL was about to blow up. As a fan himself, he understood the hesitation of buying tickets through the secondary market. Some customers need help accepting a transfer or locating their tickets, so it was more than a transaction. 

So, he started Seatpin to solve this.

Seatpin is a verified peer-to-peer resale marketplace, making it easier and safer for fans to hunt down tickets to popular and even sold-out shows. 

PinAI is the AI assistant that customers use to find tickets on Seatpin. It works like that buddy who always knows how to find the right seats to the biggest gigs, sports games, and theater shows. Fans can ask about any ticket or sold-out event through text or audio, and the assistant guides them through verified options in the chat.

The idea for PinAI came from their live chat and WhatsApp conversations, with customers constantly asking the team to help them find tickets. 

“PinAI asks for information one step at a time and helps people understand the ticket options without having to work through the website’s filters themselves. Visual seating information is part of that, because customers want to see where they will be sitting,” Ananiev said. 

“Soon, users will also be able to create and manage listings through conversation. We are working on letting people do these tasks by voice and bringing the functions available in PinAI’s text chat into messaging apps.”

Seatpin is iterating on the customer experience as they go. 

Users can report an unhelpful or irrelevant answer through a feedback button. Everything goes into the same dashboard, which their operational team normally monitors. They review issues with the technical team and decide together what needs changing.

Seatpin’s customers buy and sell tickets for sports, concerts, theater, and other live events, mainly in Europe and the wider EMEA region. 

“We earn commission on transactions. Sellers set their asking prices, which can be above or below face value depending on demand and availability. PinAI hasn’t changed that business model. It gives customers another way to find tickets on Seatpin.” 

They’re yet to run a comparison on how much revenue PinAI is bringing in, but the chat is generating sales. 

PinAI was launched in November 2025, but the rollout was limited while they tested it. Ananiev said they knew their customers needed help finding tickets, but the big question was how well PinAI could handle that in real-time. 

Some users prefer searching by conversation; others prefer to navigate listings and filters. They want to get the tooling right before they invest in marketing. 

Right now, Seatpin’s focus is on reaching people who are already interested in a particular event, artist or team. They use paid search, organic search, event content, affiliate partnerships, and PR to support. 

“We try to make the next step useful for the customer. If someone searches for a particular sports team or music concert, they should reach a page with relevant ticket options and clear information.” 

For PinAI, they’re still learning how to approach acquisition as they haven’t measured its performance against the usual buying journey. 

“As we grow, we also need to keep up with delivery and customer support. That means developing our team, bringing in specialists where needed and making sure people have time to manage the work properly,” he added. 

Rolling out an AI product or feature is a skillset in and of itself. Ananiev advises watching what your customers actually do and ask for, allocating enough time for testing and ensuring feedback is actioned. Seatpin’s operational and technical teams review feedback together because they bring different viewpoints to the problem. 

He also suggests being careful about the results you claim and not neglecting what happens after the purchase. In ticket resale, for example, some customers still need help, so the Seatpin service has been built to stay with them until they’ve accepted, accessed or used the ticket.

If one of these stories stuck with you, I’d love to hear which one.

Speak soon,
Amanda

P.S. If you want to get a founder feature about your own story, reply to this email. If you’d like to reach our newsletter audience (founders, creators, and marketers), click the button below.

If you’re new here, I’m over the moon you’ve joined us! To help me craft content that’s actually useful (and not just noise in your inbox), I’d love it if you took 1 minute to answer this quick survey below. Your insights help shape everything I write.

Dive into our other newsletters - where psychology meets the creator economy, e-commerce marketing, and Human resources.