Seat Jumper: the post-mortem.
Seat Jumper was going to let you jump into better seats at live events for cheap-seat money. Here's the whole hand, start to fold.
The idea
You pick the seats you'd love to sit in at a game or a concert. Add more seats to the pool and the price drops; narrow it to your top picks and it goes up. Then you jump, and you might land in one of them. Front row for a nosebleed price, if it hits.
What I built
More than I probably should have before anyone asked for it:
- Real inventory. I got the TicketNetwork API set up, so the site pulls live tickets: 10,000+ events, 500+ venues, searchable by city and date.
- The jump. Pick-your-pool pricing, a live "Jump Alerts" ticker, Jump Coins, $20 free for new users.
- Personal picks. Connect Spotify and it shows you concerts from artists you actually listen to.
- The paperwork. I set it up as its own company in September 2025, and wrote the terms and the sweepstakes rules that October.
It's still live at seatjumper.com if you want to see it.
What it cost
- About $1,000 for the TicketNetwork API
- A pile of Replit credits on top of that
- All in: well over $1,000
What I tried
Instagram. Twitter. That's it, and neither one moved.
Why it's in the muck
Apparently no one's interested in gambling their seats at a football game. I built the whole table first, then went looking for players, and they never showed.
Could it still work?
Maybe, for someone with a different angle. The live inventory works; you can see it on the site right now. What didn't work: nobody wanted to gamble a sure seat for a maybe-better one.
If you see the angle I missed, say it in the comments. I'm listening.
— Art