Uniiverse Releases Direct Payments So Anyone Can Sell Tickets to Anything

Article from Venture Beat by Rebecca Grant

Uniiverse wants to make it easier for people to make money doing what they love.

The startup released a Direct Payments feature today which sets up peer-to-peer payments for activities and services on a personal website or blog. A yoga teacher can sell Saturday classes in a park, or a food blogger can sell tickets to a cooking class. You can customize the date of the event, type of tickets, and pricing as well as send customized invites, manage bookings, and collect information about attendees.

Uniiverse says it connects people in the real world over shared experiences. The goal is to encourage people to engage with others while also providing people with a channel to make money doing what they love.

“Uniiverse was founded on the belief that human interactions are getting too virtual,” said cofounder and CEO Craig Follett to VentureBeat. “We want to remedy this by enabling people to discover unique things to do. Small businesses and individuals who offer any kind of activity or service can use Direct Payments to integrate payments forms and booking directly on their site or blog. Direct Payments decentralizes the sharing economy, by moving it beyond centralized marketplaces.”

The sharing economy has erupted over the past few years to connect people who need something to people who have it. Also referred to as “collaborative consumption,” the idea is to make the most of underused resources by offering them in an online marketplace. AirBnB changed how travel accommodations work by offering other people’s homes rather than hotels. Ridesharing companies like Zipcar, Lyft, and Sidecar are doing this with transportation.

Read entire article at Venture Beat.