HOLLAND, Mich. — One of the fastest growing private companies in the nation decided to move its headquarters to Grand Rapids — beating out many other major cities, including Austin, Texas and Chicago, Illinois.
The move is, in part, thanks to The Right Place and a state grant.
Zachary Collins and his partner, Kevin Schneider, started Ludus back in 2016 to help Holland High School sell event tickets.
"So, I reached out to Zachary who had just graduated, and I said, 'hey, I've got this project for you. I want to create a ticketing vendor, and here are seven things I want in it,'" Schneider told FOX 17.
"So, I just built it as a side project since I knew web development. And he sold $40,000 worth of tickets to Phantom of the Opera," Collins added. "We saw a business opportunity and then started building Ludus for everyone."
Then, Ludus took off. It had more than 3,000 organizations around the country using it for events by 2023, and had $50 million in ticket sales.
"When Ludus originally started, most schools were still doing cash. What we find is that if you switch to online ticketing, you're actually going to increase your sales because you make it easier for patrons to actually secure their ticket ahead of time, and they like to buy tickets online," Collins explained.
The ticket-selling website continued to take off, so Collins and Schneider decided they needed bigger headquarters.
The Right Place helped convince them to move Ludus to Grand Rapids by securing the company a $310,000 state economic development grant.
"We see that West Michigan and Grand Rapids [have] so much potential, from a technology standpoint and startups, that we really just want to be part of that community and part of that growth," Collins added.
Ludus plans to add 37 new jobs once it moves to Grand Rapids. Additionally, the company will offer a $10,000 moving bonus to help attract talent to the area.
"Before, finding talent was very, like, centrally located, just, you know, your local areas. Now, you're competing, really on a global scale, with other companies," Collins said. "When we have those signing bonuses, when we have things to incentivize employees to move to Grand Rapids to work with us in person, that's just going to help us build our culture and really build our company over time."
"I love anything in West Michigan, and I think that the best thing about West Michigan is it is so art-centric. They're so supportive of the arts everywhere in West Michigan, so Grand Rapids is the main hub," Schneider said.
"Ultimately, we're just really excited to be part of, you know, the Grand Rapids and the West Michigan technology scene," Collins added.
