Joshua Dziabiak (born in 1987) is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He is co-founder and chief operating officer of The Zebra, the car insurance comparison marketplace.
He founded Catch Media, a web design and hosting company, at the age of 14, and sold the company three years later, making him a millionaire before the age of 18. Dziabiak is also the founder of ShowClix, a ticketing distribution company he started while running his own online record label. He served as CEO of the company until 2012 when he stepped down to join The Zebra. His work as an entrepreneur also includes mentoring with AlphaLab, a seed-accelerator program for startups.
Dziabiak began his business career at the age of 14. He used a dial-up connection to browse the internet and designed his own personal website. This was during a time when most businesses didn’t have an online presence, and Dziabiak began designing websites for local businesses. Dziabiak charged a few hundred dollars for each design, also selling companies hosting services. He turned the business into a company, Catch Media, with 14 full-time employees before turning 16. He sold the company the following year to an executive in Canada, making Dziabiak a millionaire before the age of 18.
Dziabiak used the proceeds from the sale of Catch Media to launch Next In Line Records, an online record label. His plan was to distribute music online, but the company did not succeed. Dziabiak had a roster of recording artists who played small and mid-sized venues. He realized how expensive it was for these artists to manage ticket sales for these venues without having to pay high Ticketmaster fees.
In 2006, he launched ShowClix, a company that helped artists and event organizers with online ticket sales, on-site event operations and promotions, as well as box office management. Dziabiak was CEO of the company, growing it to 60 employees and $100 million in annual sales within seven years. The company was recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in Pittsburgh” by the Pittsburgh Business Times.
Dziabiak stepped down as CEO of ShowClix in 2012 to take on the role of co-founder and COO of The Zebra, an insurance comparison website based in Austin. He helped raise over $21 million in funding from investors including Simon Nixon, Mike Maples Jr., and Mark Cuban. The company initially offered quotes from 33 different insurers (about 90 percent of the market), requiring only a ZIP code and vehicle information to get a quote. Dziabiak led the company to be available in all 50 states in its first year of operation, including a 120 percent month-over-month revenue increase in its first three months.