USC alumnus Ryan Wilson took the Trojan concept of "depth with breadth" seriously.

Although he graduated with a degree in fine arts, Wilson and his former teacher Brian Olson came up with a business idea that didn't remotely involve sculpture, painting or the like.

The two decided to sell tickets.

This idea blossomed into www.stubstub.com, a Web site dedicated to providing all kinds of tickets, specializing in the hard-to-find variety. The site sells tickets to just about anything one can imagine, ranging from movies to planes and athletic events.

The junction seems like an odd collaboration for a fine arts student and teacher, but Olson and Wilson worked to provoke a creative epiphany to get a business idea that would help them not fall into the "starving artist" category.

After numerous student-teacher meetings, Wilson and Olson developed a friendly relationship, in part because of the nature of the questions fine arts teachers are inclined to ask their students.

"In the art field, we ask about our students' lives and try to help them incorporate that into their work," USC fine arts adjunct professor Olson said.

Olson's probing questions give him an insight to students' lives, as well as giving them an insight into his; Wilson learned that Olson had a side job as a creator of Internet-based communities, forums for users who share a common interest to go and accomplish that. With this in mind, Wilson figured that the two could harness their creative energies and think of a Web-based business.

"We had always jokingly talked about Web sites in the past, and since finishing school, my gears sort of shifted," Wilson said. "I knew he'd be a good source for input and ideas."

With their thinking caps securely in place, Olson and Wilson began volleying around ideas. Olson, who, aside from his job at USC, does Internet-based work, creating online forums for interested parties, told Wilson that he was asked by a company to create an Internet venue for ticket sales. More>>>

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