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BookMyShow's Epic Comeback

BookMyShow's story is more than just selling tickets. It's about beating the odds and innovating in a tough market. Read on to see how they did it and became a leader in entertainment.

Author

Karthik Sridharan
December 11, 2023

Hey there,

22 years ago in South Africa, a man quit his job to sell tickets via phone calls.

He later convinced 2 friends to join him, creating today's BookMyShow.

Despite nearly shutting down during COVID-19, they hit ₹1000+ cr in revenue in FY23.

How?

This success stems from two key factors:

  • An increase in people going out post-COVID.

  • Evolving into a hub for discovering events, not just booking them.

Their journey, however, is the real highlight. How did they get here?

  1. Adaptability and Resilience:

    BookMyShow has seen it all. They've seen the dot com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Each time, they evolved.


    In the 2000s, when dot com companies lost investor interest, BookMyShow lost its funding. They survived by selling backend software to multiplexes. Many would have given up, but not them.

  2. Ahead of Their Time:


    BookMyShow had a fleet of delivery executives in the 2000s. This was before Swiggy mainstreamed it in 2015-16.

    They introduced cash on delivery in the 2000s, a concept Flipkart popularized in 2010.

    They were way ahead of their time, even when tech in startups was minimal.

  3. Always Ahead of Competition:

    BookMyShow led the ticketing business with little competition for over a decade. But, when PayTM entered the scene, BookMyShow started losing some market share.


    But they were ready. They diversified into high-ticket event bookings like IPL, seeing a significant increase in revenue from 10% to ~30% from 2010 to 2014.

In short, BookMyShow's 1026 Crore revenue is an 'overnight success' 22 years in the making. As entertainment interest grows, they expect to see this growth annually.

✍️ Jargon of the day

Dot com crash:

The dot com crash, around 2000, was a big market crash. It involved internet companies, known as "dot coms." These companies were initially very successful and their values skyrocketed.

However, they were spending more money than they were making. Eventually, investors realized many of these companies weren’t as valuable as they thought. This caused a huge sell-off in the stock market, leading to many of these companies failing and stock prices plummeting.

Loved this edition? Or have some thoughts to share? We'd love to hear from you

Cheers,
Karthik