Max Truluck

I never thought I'd be building a startup. Honestly, the plan was pretty straightforward: graduate from the Royal Academy of Music, perform as much as possible, maybe teach on the side, and live the life of a working musician.

But somewhere between student recitals and professional gigs in London, I kept running into the same problem: incredible performances happening in half-empty halls because people didn't know they existed.

The Problem Was Obvious

If you wanted to see a chamber music concert, you had to already know it was happening. There was no easy way to discover what was on this weekend. No central place to browse performances. No personalized recommendations based on what you liked.

You'd stumble across an event on Instagram, click through to a venue's clunky website, create yet another account, and hope the checkout process didn't break halfway through. By the time you actually bought tickets, you'd spent 20 minutes and used three different platforms.

It was ridiculous. And it wasn't just annoying for audiences—it was killing artists and venues. Amazing musicians were playing to rows of empty seats, not because there wasn't demand, but because the discovery and ticketing experience was fundamentally broken.

Why Me?

I'm not a developer. I didn't go to business school. I'm a violinist who spent years practicing scales and learning how to interpret Brahms.

But I understood the problem deeply. I knew what it felt like to perform to an audience that should have been twice as large. I knew the frustration of trying to find events as a music lover. And I knew that the existing solutions weren't built for the arts—they were clunky enterprise tools or generic platforms that didn't understand the space.

So I started asking: what if there was a platform designed specifically for this? What if buying tickets to a chamber music concert felt as easy as booking a flight?

That's how CultureTicks started. Not with a grand vision, but with a specific frustration and a belief that it could be better.

What I'm Learning

Building a company is nothing like playing the violin. But in some ways, the disciplines overlap.

Both require showing up every day even when progress feels invisible. Both require accepting that you'll be bad at it for a long time before you get good. Both require obsessive attention to detail and a willingness to iterate endlessly.

The biggest lesson so far: building something people actually want is harder than it sounds. It's easy to assume you know what users need. It's much harder to ship something, watch people use it, and realize you got half of it wrong.

What's Next

We're live in Seattle and working with a handful of venues and arts organizations. The product is rough around the edges, but it works. People are discovering events they didn't know existed. Artists are selling more tickets. Venues are reaching new audiences.

There's a long way to go. But for the first time, I feel like we're solving a real problem in a way that actually helps people.

If you're an arts organization looking for better tools, or an artist who wants to get in front of more people, I'd love to talk. Reach out at max@cultureticks.com.

And if you're in Seattle, check out CultureTicks and see what's on this weekend. I promise the ticketing experience won't make you want to throw your laptop.