Deon McCormick, who played football for Duke University and coached there after he graduated in 2007, always noticed the same thing as he traveled from stadium to stadium: the number of scalpers selling tickets to the games. McCormick, who prefers calling them “professional sellers,” says at one big game “I saw 100-plus outside that stadium. I thought, ‘wow,’ there is a huge market here.”

McCormick, founder and CEO of ChopTix, one of three startups from Durham’s American Underground@Main accelerator headed to Silicon Valley for a special “Galvanize” exchange program (https://wraltechwire.com/american-underground-sending-the-most-startups-to-silicon-valley-tech-campus/14989790/) in November, started his company to tap into that market. ChopTix is the first mobile marketplace for legitimate sports and event ticket sales that lets last minute buyers and sellers connect using geo-location technology.

Buyers and sellers can pinpoint each other’s exact locations, use a built-in chat feature to communicate directly, and view a ratings-profile system before committing to a ticket sale. ChopTix says it captures the online potential of the person-to-person, last-minute resale ticket market, helping fill stadiums, avoid waste, and manage prices through fair, transparent online competition for available tickets.

It raised $75,000 in funding from individual angel investors and is privately Beta testing.

McCormick tells WRAL TechWire he founded the company officially in August 2014 but was working on the product and business side prior to that.“Basically, my vision is to create an open market and give people a better option for obtaining or selling last minute tickets.” If a ticket holder has an emergency and can’t go to a game or event, “This empowers them to sell their own ticket without giving it to a scalper,” he says.

Should lower prices

McCormick, who notes he has done some “professional selling” of tickets himself, says some scalpers in the area make close to $80,000 a year. They buy tickets in bulk at a discount and sell them at a 50 percent or greater mark-up over face value.

An open market such as ChopTix “Should drive down prices closer to face value,” he suggests, although he points out, “The business is not about eliminating scalpers.” Using the ChopTix platform they would probably make less for each sale, but on the other hand, “Reach a market they couldn’t before.”

McCormick says he hopes to release the product in late to mid-January after completion of beta testing and in time for the basketball season.

The two-person firm is looking for additional funding.

He says that when he goes to Silicon Valley next month, he has a lot to learn as a first time entrepreneur and “They have a lot to offer.” He says he wants to talk to other entrepreneurs about the mistakes they made, the things that helped them out, about pitching to potential funders and “the technique of those who raised millions.”

On the web: http://www.choptix.com/