A Hillsdale alumnus founded a multi-million dollar company which ranked as one of fastest growing companies in America.
In 2014, Hillsdale alumni Alex Linebrink founded Passage, a ticketing company designed for medium-sized events. After eight years of hard work, the company sold its six millionth ticket this past summer and landed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the country.
At the time of its founding, Passage primarily focused on ticket sales for haunted houses, which played a big role in Linebrink’s childhood.
“My father’s birthday is on Halloween, so when I was growing up, instead of cake and ice cream, every year we would build a haunted yard,” Linebrink said. “It became pretty popular. We were on the front page of the Hillsdale Daily News almost every year, and by the end of it, we would have around 1,500 people show up just on Halloween night.”
Prior to starting Passage, Linebrink was the CEO and co-founder of Core Merchant, a payment technology company based in Detroit. After selling the company in 2014, Linebrink noticed someone attempting to sell haunted house tickets on Eventbrite, and realized how limited the platform was for events that were not one day, one time, and one price.
“My thesis with our Chief Technology Officer when we started this was that we can’t just make a business for haunted houses,” Linebrink said, “but if we can prove this works for haunted houses, then we can repeat this for all different types of event categories.”
Linebrink’s idea took off. Five years after its founding, Passage had $800,000 in revenue from $11.6 million of ticket sales. In 2022, the company expects to earn $4.5 million in revenue.
In addition to live events and attractions, Passage has made headway in the sports world. The company has become the official ticketing partner of League Two of the United Soccer League and the National Premium Soccer League.
According to Linebrink, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Passage to excel. He and his business partners took advantage of live events being canceled by creating virtual event platforms.
“2020 was a time for us to really take advantage and excel instead of pulling back,” Linebrink said. “We built out ways for smaller to mid-sized event organizers and businesses to continue to connect with their audiences during a tough time, and we began working on a virtual events platform.”
During the pandemic, Passage allowed venues to have time slots for their tickets in order to keep their customers socially distanced.
In January 2020, Linebrink hired Shane Smith as senior event expert, who worked in ticket sales for the Tennessee Titans and Detroit Red Wings prior to Passage.
“When the pandemic began, the soccer teams we were partnered with stopped playing, so I began reaching out to different bands and performance venues pitching our virtual event system, which was able to keep many of these places afloat while they were unable to host live, in-person events,” Smith said.
Passage’s Head of Marketing Kat Rembacki called Passage a “disruptor” in a “stale and old” industry.
“The biggest differentiator for smaller to mid-sized events is that we are one solution for everything,” Rembacki said. “You can do all of your payments through one platform, whether that’s online ticket sales, in-person ticket sales, or concessions—you have it all on one system.”
Passage was one of Michigan Celebrates Small Business’ “50 Michigan Companies to Watch” earlier this year, and nearly tripled its revenue growth in the past three years, putting it at 2,055 on the Inc. 5000 list.
“I think that the six millionth ticket milestone is super exciting because we’re showing the world what Michigan is capable of,” Rembacki said. “The innovation, the growth, and vision we’ve had is direct proof that it’s possible to build something huge right here in Michigan.”