The weekly How I Got Here podcast talks to those behind the success stories in travel and transportation, hosted by PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak at Mozio.
There are not many startups that manage to sign a partnership agreement with a big brand before they even launch.And there are perhaps even fewer new businesses that get details written into the same deal that include how an exit via an acquisition might look.But that's what happened to Boston, U.S.-based FlipKey, when it secured a partnership with Tripadvisor to help get the vacation rental marketplace off the ground in 2007.This wasn't because it was the wild west of private accommodation at the time (although for many other reasons, this was the state of the rental nation during that period), but because the then-senior vice president of corporate development at Expedia Group, Mark Okerstrom, structured the agreement and understood what might emerge.Jeremy Gall, a former lawyer, was one of the co-founders of FlipKey and knows how important that first signing was for the company.Tripadvisor eventually separated from Expedia Group (Okerstrom went on to become CEO from 2017 to 2019) and made good on the terms of the deal to buy FlipKey in 2012.Gall, like his fellow co-founders, stayed on for around a year after the deal and has since launched and heads another startup in the shape of rental tech and services platform Breezeway.He joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Dean Donovan has one foot in the past and, without doubt, one foot in the future.After a five-year career at the Bain consultancy, Donovan and his business partner (Brian Flynn) played central roles in 2004 to the creation and backing of Volaris, Mexico's first low-cost carrier.DiamondStream Partners, the investment house that they created the year before, has since go on to become an important player in the development of companies and technology in the mobility sector.Transforming "rough diamonds into fully cut gems" is not an easy task, especially when it comes to the aviation business, with high costs attached to the creation of next-generation technology that will lower costs of operations and do so in a more sustainable way.Investments have included those in electric propulsion systems, autonomous aircraft, software platforms and global distribution services for private air carriers.Dean joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Stepping into the hot seat of a family-run business that has been operating since the 1920s must be a fairly daunting task.That's what Brett Tollman in 2000 when he became CEO of The Travel Corporation - one of the oldest groups of companies in the travel industry.The business remains privately-owned and now operates in over 70 countries, with over 40 offices and more than 10,000 employees.The Travel Corporation operates 29 brands including specialists in guided holidays, luxury river-cruising, youth travel and sightseeing specialists, as well as the luxury boutique chain, Red Carnation Hotel Collection.Tollman is also vice-chairman of the World Travel and Tourism Council and creator and director of The Treadright Foundation, a non-profit organization that looks to bring about sustainable initiatives in the industry.He joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The unconventional stories of a company's founding are often the most interesting - rather than the fairly formulaic idea-when-traveling-Y-Combinator-seed-investment-route.After studies overseas, Richard Valtr was back in his home country of the Czech Republic and helping with a family project to renovate and build a hotel, when the concept of Mews was formed.Now powering 2,000 hospitality brands around the world, Mews is a platform to automate and simplify operations for hotels and their guests.Payments, front- and back-office functions, guest apps and business intel - Mews has come a long since its foundation in 2012.Valtr and team have not trodden the typical path favored by other startups in travel, tourism and hospitality, having not taken on any external funding until 2016 or built out a sales team until solid revenue was coming in the front door.Valtr joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
HolidayPirates was born in 2012 - essentially as a travel hack for people to find cheap air tickets.This came about after co-founder Sebastian Kaatz (now the companys vice president of special products and projects) got increasingly frustrated about the lack of information online for travelers to get secure decent fares.The content site, based in Germany, quickly morphed into a listings service for discounted air tickets and the company has been growing ever since.With a need to add some business muscle to the business, David Armstrong was brought in to the company in 2014 as its chief operating officer and eventually becoming CEO in July 2016.HolidayPirates has taken a unique (in some respects) approach to customer ascquisition, having never bought traffic from Google and relying on some smart social media activity.They join us as the latest guests on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief Kevin May and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Alex Cruz admits that his career has been centered around people "betting on me" as a leader of businesses.During the course of over 30 years, Cruz worked for American Airlines and Sabre in the 1990s before a brief stint in the world of management consultancy at Accenture.But it was the lure of creating a brand new airline in the guise of low-cost carrier Clickair in 2006 that brought it back to aviation.It was this frenetic period running what was essentially a startup that raised his profile to the extent that he came CEO of fellow Spanish airline Vueling when the pair merged in July 2009.By April 2016 he was chairman and CEO of British Airways, the flagship brand in the International Airlines Group portfolio that included Vueling and Iberia.The next five or so years were marked with the introduction of some major strategic developments but also industrial disputes with staff unions and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.Cruz left his role as CEO and chairman in October last and remained as chairman of the board until March 2021.He joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by our editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
John Guscic is one of the increasingly rare breeds in the travel industry these days.He's an unusually straight-talking company executive who has been in the sector for many years, from the world of global distribution systems to, now, online travel agencies and hotel accommodation wholesaling.The path to the top of Australia-headquartered Webjet is a different one to those that many leaders have taken, having sat on its board of directors since the early 2000s before becoming managing director of the business in 2011.Since his management tenure began, Guscic has overseen a string of acquisitions - some more successful than others - and expansion to new territories outside of its traditional markets of Australia and New Zealand.Guscic joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The formation of Travel + Leisure Co. in January this year marked an important milestone in the career trajectory of its president Noah Brodsky.The new organization, which came about after Wyndham Destinations acquired the Travel + Leisure brand for $100 million, is now a multi-purpose group with a media arm (Travel + Leisure), membership club, timeshare and new online travel agency in the guise of BookTandL.It's 20 years on from when Brodsky talked his way into a restaurant manager job in Hawaii for Four Seasons Hotels - the start of a succession of positions at Starwood and then Wyndham Hotel Group.He even had a short, eight-month stint in 2013 at a then-still fairly new WeWork.Brodsky's experience, from the operational to the strategic elements of a business, is helping form the new strategy for Travel + Leisure, as he explains when appearing as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
A common thread in Joah Searman's origin story is one of countering adversity.Localeur was born in 2013 with a mission to help people discover and share the best local places to "eat, drink and play" in destinations around the world.A tough market to crack (there have been many brands that have tried and failed along the way), Spearman's commitment to the cause along the way has seen the company survive and evolve over the intervening eight years.The company has raised (only) a modest $6 million in funding - in part due to a strategy to grow on its own terms but equally, as he explains, when the time has come to seek investment he has faced the same reaction from the financial world as other black tech founders.He joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Ride-hailing services such as Grab, Uber and Lyft have captured a disproportionate amount of attention since their respective launches.It's easy to say this because Spain-based Cabify has fairly quietly gone about its business and created a widely-used service in its home market and successfully expanded to Latin America.The company was formed in 2011 by Juan de Antonio and has since gone on to raise close to €500 million in capital support.Cabify has achieved this by attempting to do things differently from its peers in the sector and making a number of strategic moves that have ensured it remains a popular platform for both investment funds and users. De Antonio joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Apple Leisure Group is a major seller of tickets, packages and hotels across multiple brands.The company was formed by way of a number of mergers and acquisitions, including most recently a deal to combine with the Mark Travel Corporation.The history of the organization is one marked with taking opportunities when they arise, guesswork and luck, plus making some crucial strategic decisions.Alex Zozaya was CEO of the group until 2019, when he moved aside to become executive chairman and hand over the reins to Alejandro Reynal.His period at the helm has included sales to private equity and purchases of many brands that are now subsidiaries of the wider group, as well as the crucial leadership role required to oversee so many acquisitions.  Zozaya joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by our editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Rolf Schromgens was broke and scarred from the experience of a previous startup when he finally sat down with his co-founders and created Trivago.The company, which is now one of the leading hotel metasearch sites in the market, was built on the learnings from those earlier ventures and a desire to grow on revenue rather than take large sums of capital from investors (it raised just $55 million before a $632 million backing from Expedia Group in 2013).Schromgens admits that the initial proposition was sometimes confusing (metasearch or reviews?) but a dogged determination to only make decisions based on data and technical capability saw the company establish a strong presence in Europe.Trivago later took a significant aim at the U.S. with its infamous "Trivago Guy" advertising campaign and eventually listed on the public markets in 2016. Schromgens, who left as CEO in 2019, joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Rami Zeidan is a founder on a mission.After working in the finance and real estate worlds for the early part of his career, including overseeing such activities for Starwood, Zeidan took the plunge into the operational part of the equation and launched his own hospitality brand.Life House was created in 2017 and has since grown to include a portfolio of its own properties and dozens more under management.The lifestyle-type hotel brand has since gone on to raise around $40 million in investment capital and focused on providing both upmarket hotel experiences and development of its tech for use elsewhere.Most recently, Life House has struck a deal with travel search engine Kayak (announced after our interview with Zeidan was recorded) for a rebranding exercise on a property in Miami.Zeidan joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Greg O'Hara has become an influential player on the travel scene since he joined Sabre in the 1990s.He admits to quitting roles after falling out with management - or getting fired - on a number of occasions in the intervening years before creating the Certares private equity vehicle in 2012.But that experience at Sabre, Worldspan and JPMorgan has created an astute and outspoken financial operator, with interests and investments through Certares at Liberty Tripadvisor, AmaWaterways, G Adventures, Getaway, LATAM Airlines and, perhaps most high-profile, Amex Global Business Travel.O'Hara joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Duffel has generated a fair amount of buzz since it came on the scene in 2017.In part, this was due to a strategy to try and keep "stealthy" during its early phase of building a next-generation airline distribution platform.It eventually emerged into the public eye with a sizeable investment round (it has since raised over $56 million in capital) and a number of important partners, including American Airlines and British Airways.Steve Domin and the founding team used the quiet period to learn as much about the complex world of airline ticketing and retailing - a process that involved a lot of conversations and head-scratching over why previous attempts had failed to overhaul a process that has taken decades to develop. Domin joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
There are not too many two childhood friends who ventured into different worlds of work and then came back to form a startup in the travel industry.But Julian Stiefel and Julian Weselek of Tourlane did exactly that and now, half a decade on, Tourlane is one of the leading multi-day tours and activities platforms in the market.The Germany-based company has raised over $100 million in investment capital and curates trips in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East.Weselek and Stiefel join us at the latest guests on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Avi Brosh was a successful real estate executive before he became passionate about hospitality.But that shift into the hotel sector was not driven by a desire to create identikit properties at the budget end of the market or, indeed, identikit properties for the upscale market.Palisociety was formed with design at the heart of everything it does, from the location and architecture to ancillaries and furnishings.In short, Brosh is obsessed with the design aspects of his portfolio of hotels - whether they are owned outright or part of a management agreement.He's not your typical hotel executive nor a startup entrepreneur of the Silicon Valley variety.Brosh joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Atle Skalleberg's career so far has been a combination of being in the right place at the right time, smart decisions and perseverance.After arriving in the U.S. from Norway, he eventually took a job at StudentUniverse, prepared to do anything in order to learn the basics of business and, just as importantly, secure a visa.Within a few years, he was running the company - an online travel agency for youth and student travel - and setting it on a period of growth, an acquisition and its eventual sale to Flight Centre Group.He is a strong believer in mentoring, being honest about what's possible and taking your time when it comes to finding the right partner (and acquirer).He joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
It's not the most well-trodden path in online travel - a producer on the hit The Daily Show With John Stewart to CEO of a tours and activities business.But it's one that Jamie Wong took when she launched Vayable, pivoting from the world of television in 2010.The U.S.-based platform connected tourists with locals providing experiences in their cities, starting in San Francisco where Wong headquartered the company.Getting a nascent business off the ground, in what was then still an emerging category in the industry, wasn't easy.A number of co-founders came and went, competitors arrived and disappeared, too.Wong stayed with the business until 2017. She has since gone on to form the Narrative.Fund investment vehicle alongside Erik Blachford of Expedia and Technology Crossover Ventures fame. She joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The concept of upmarket hostel accommodation was, some argue, fairly alien in the youth travel sector until fairly recently.Generator Hostels was a single-property brand in London, launched in the mid-1990s, but was considered the perfect place to try out a new approach to the sector when Josh Wyatt came onboard in 2007 with a pile of venture money.The hostel was overhauled and reopened with, as he puts it, "design and experience" at the center.Within a few years, the brand had expanded quickly to launch a string of facilities in a number of countries, indicating that the youth travel market had evolved and become more aware of the aesthetics of a stay, triggered in part by the self-conscious world of social media.Wyatt continued with Generator until 2016, when he left to eventually launch the NeueHouse brand, where he is now CEO.He joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here, as we launch the third season of our podcast.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
In one respect, ToursByLocals is a classic startup story.It was the brainchild of CEO Paul Melhus and chief technology officer Dave Vincent, with them having observed how the tour guide scene was handled during a trip to China in the mid-2000s.They launched the business - a platform to find and reserve tour guides in numerous countries around the world - in 2008.But there the typical linear nature of a startup tale ends.ToursByLocals, based in Vancouver, Canada, expanded quickly for the next ten years but never took a dollar in funding.This period of bootstrapping ended in January 2020, when it signed a Series A investment deal for $33 million.Melhus joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
As digitalization of the airline sector has increased exponentially over the last decade, a number of new business have emerged to compete alongside the existing giants.One such brand is Flyr, based in the U.S. and founded by Alex Mans.The company is focused on revenue management, distribution and e-commerce for carriers and partners, allowing them to do a better job of selling seats and ancillary products with real-time dynamic pricing.Mans started our as chief technology officer of the business in 2013, before switching to the CEO role in 2020.He joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The modern story of HRS (Hotel Reservation Service) is one of geographic growth, expansion into new business areas and a handing over of the baton from father to son.But the company has its roots going back to 1972, when it was created in Cologne, Germany, as a travel agency that concentrated on booking accommodation for exhibitions.Robert Ragge ran the business until 2008, when his son Tobias (already an employee) took over the reins.The transfer of power, after the retirement of a brand's founder, is always going to throw up some complexity and issues but on this occasion, there was the family angle to contend with as well.Since then, HRS has developed into an international business with offices in 16 countries around the world.Ragge joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
It takes a lot to change a mindset that has prevailed for decades. Bikes (and scooters) are, for many people, mostly a thing of enjoyment.But Lime had other ideas, driven by a desire to rethink the bike as something that can be used for both leisure and commuting, at the same time as doing something positive for urban environments.The company was in development for a few years before it launched but it seems extraordinary that it has now only really been in existence for nearly four years, such is the strength of the brand and the speed in which it has expanded around the world.There have been many ups and downs along the way, but co-founders Toby Sun and Brad Bao have stuck to their principles as best as they can. Bao joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Lastminute.com Group's name didn't start out that way.BravoFly Rumbo switched its corporate identity after an acquisition of the former European darling of the online travel world in 2015.Spearheading the business since 2004 is Fabio Cannavale, a former founder at Spanish online travel agency eDreams, who pushed BravoFly through a string of acquisitions and growth programs in the intervening 11 years.The company now sits in the mid-tier of European OTAs, headquartered in Switzerland, with websites operating in 40 countries and 17 languages.Cannavale joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
FlixBus is a travel startup that was created not specifically out of personal experiences of its founders but from gutsy opportunism.Daniel Krauss, Jochen Engert and André Schwämmlein realized that the deregulation of the German bus market would open up the market to competition, both at the operator and booking platform level.It combined the two elements with a smart leasing system that aggregated and branded smaller operators across Germany, connecting dozens of cities.The business has since expanded into numerous countries around Europe and, more recently, in the U.S.It has also taken on the domestic rail sector, going up against a giant in the shape of Deutsche Bahn.Engert joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Volantio launched into the aviation market in 2014, bidding to capitalize on a burgeoning need by airlines to embrace the digital world behind the scenes.The U.S.-based company, co-founded by Azim Barodawala and Fenn Baily, helps carriers automate their marketing, improve the passenger experience and, generally, bring their systems up to the level of other digital businesses.It has captured the attention of JetBlue Technology Ventures, Amadeus Ventures, Qantas and IAG.Customers include some of the most high-profile airlines on the planet, including Emirates, Iberia, Jetstar and Volaris.Baradowala joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Varun Khona's story about the creation of Headout is a classic startup tale.His first startup, Trippy, lasted a mere three years before he found himself with a big idea in 2014 to get in on what was then a burgeoning tours and activities sector.Hunkering down in New York City with a nascent business had a variety of challenges (he lived with a family relative for some time) but it was the relocation to India that allowed the company to focus and grow.Throw in an appearance on TV reality show The Pitch and it has the makings of a story to dine out on for decades to come.Khona joins us at the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
How do you launch and grow a business that is attempting to overhaul one of the aviation sector's most complicated processes?The airline part supply chain is complex, has hundreds of customers and suppliers, and has to operate efficiently and without delays.Ben Frank, an ex-MIT graduate in aerospace engineering, created a startup to revolutionize that process with a platform that connects suppliers of parts to airline customers.The result is Rotabull, a New York, U.S.-based company that wants to build the next generation of software that underpins the aviation sector.Frank joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
BlaBlaCar is a lot more than a carpooling platform with a quirky name.Since its creators - Frédéric Mazzella, Francis Nappez and Nicolas Brusson - thrust the brand onto the scene in the late-2000s, many companies have sought to mimic the idea but have failed to unseat the clear market leader.Regulatory issues, launches in new markets around the world, modest levels of funding (compared to, say, Uber) and expansive of the brand into new product lines, such as bus and coach transport, are all part of the France-based BlaBlaCar story (including where the name comes from).Brusson, who became CEO in 2016 after initially taking the chief operating officer role in 2007, is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Brent Handler is credited by many as one of the pioneers of the "destination club" sector in the travel industry.The idea is that upmarket travelers get access to exclusive private homes or hotel units on resort properties, organized under a membership program that includes services and other luxury elements of a trip.He launched Exclusive Resorts with his brother Brad in 2002, before selling a majority of the business to AOL's Steve Case in 2004.After quitting that business in 2009, they launched Inspirato in 2011 and embarked on a new version of the destination club model whereby they rent the properties and lease them back to travelers for the period of a trip.The company has since gone on to raise almost $80 million in funding.Handler joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Roberto Souviron, Alejandro Tamer, MartÃn Rastellino, Cristian Vilate and Mariano Fiori were five friends from business school who had an idea.They wanted to create Latin America's first regional online travel agency, taking inspiration from the likes of Travelocity, which had burst onto the scene in the U.S. in the late-1990s.Despegar was launched in 1999 and established itself quickly as the premier OTA in its home country of Argentina and, quickly, in other markets throughout the continent.All five members of the co-founding team would eventually leave the business after steering Despegar through a massive funding round from Expedia Group and an eventual listing on the public markets in 2017.Rastellino joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Travis Katz launched Gogobot at the height of the "social trip planning" wave in online travel.The ex-MySpace exec knew for the company to succeed after the buzz of that 2010 period that it would take a lot more than a fancy user experience and PR to propel it into a phase of genuine growth.Gogobot's focus on data and mobile was the key element in its push towards establishing itself as a worthy player in the ecosystem.A name change to Trip.com in 2016 set the wheels in motion for what would become a sale to Chinese online travel giant Ctrip in late-2017 (Ctrip later rebranded to Trip.com Group).Katz joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
MakeMyTrip was not one of those online travel brands that exploded onto the scene.Although it has since go on to become India's biggest OTA, Deep Kalra and his co-founders (including Rajesh Magow) experienced very modest growth in the brand's initial years after its launch.A full-blown focus on its home market in the mid-2000s saw the brand accelerate to establish itself as the country's premier digital travel service.Like other brands that tried to ride an early wave of digitalization in the region, MakeMyTrip faced numerous challenges but stuck to its strategy throughout.The company eventually listed on the U.S. public markets in 2010 and has since gone to make a number of acquisitions of its own and form strategic partnerships (including taking investment) with the likes of the Trip.com Group giant in China. Magow, now group CEO of the company joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Klook has come a long way in six years. The Hong Kong-based booking site for tours and activities was one of a number of similar brands attempting to muscle in on the sector.But then came a string of increasingly large investment rounds and many outside of its Asia Pacific region (i.e. the West) started taking notice.European ambitions, Softbank-backed and an ongoing rivalry with GetYourGuide (also funded by Softbank), Klook has positioned itself as one of the high-profile brands in the tours and activities wing of the industry.Eric Gnock Fah launched Klook alongside his co-founders Ethan Lin (CEO) and Bernie Xiong and is generally the public face of the company.He is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
You can probably count on one hand the number of entertainment executives who've switched their careers to enter the world of travel startups.Rob Wiesenthal is one such entrepreneur.He left a career with Sony and later Warner Bros to launch Blade, a platform for booking helicopter commutes.The New York, U.S.-based company was created in 2014 and has got the financial support of some of the biggest names American business (Google's Eric Schmidt, IAC's Barry Diller and AOL's Bob Pittman).Blade has become of the leading arrangers of helicopter flights between downtown New York City and its associated airports (JFK, La Guardia and Newark) and it also operates in other states on both coasts of the U.S. His experience in the corporate world often puts him at odds with some of the thinking that emerges in the startup world from Silicon Valley, thus why his story about building a business and his views on the market are so interesting.Wiestenthal is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Free-spirited and never afraid to speak his mind, Bobby Healy is a well-known figure in the travel and transportation sectors.The former-gaming coder spent a few years at SITA and Amadeus before, eager to get out from under the confines of the corporate machine, he joined in 2005 the fledgling Irish car rental startup, CarTrawler.His story is one of making the right decisions at the right time, a fair dose of luck and a lot more.Later years have seen Healy become a thorn in the side of the likes of Google (his views on the search giant are about as vocal from an industry exec as you can get on the record) and now he's moved into the business of drone-based deliveries.Healy is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Porter & Sail hit the sweet spot of mobile, personalization, ancillary revenue and hospitality in the mid-2010s.The company launched in 2014 with a vision to provide hotels with a service that could act as a concierge service for guests on their devices.Since creating the business, CEO Caitlin Zaino von During has had to navigate challenges and take opportunities - most recently, at the onset of the coronavirus, pivoting the company to something different entirely.Her story and that of the company is one of seizing chances when they come and not being afraid to move fast when the need arises. Zaino von During joins is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The so-called "Brat Pack of Aviation" - under the guidance of Bob Crandall from American Airlines in the late-1980s - have all gone on to become important figures in the U.S. airline industry.But perhaps one of the quartet which also included Tom Horton, David Cush and Doug Parker who emerged as a true innovator is Ben Baldanza.After leaving American Airlines in 1991, he had a string of executive positions at Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and Avianca and U.S. Airways before landing the stewardship of Spirit Airlines.Spirit's new private equity owner gave Baldanza the freedom to put in place some of the most dramatic changes ever seen in U.S. aviation (mirroring many of those at Ryanair in Europe), giving him a reputation as an innovator with an edge.He left Spirit in 2016 and now has a number of board positions, an academic role at George Mason University and his own aviation podcast, called Airlines Confidential. Baldanza joins us as the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
It takes a lot of effort to be recognized by the mainstream media for your skills and influence within 12 months of creating something.Or does it?A year after creating FlyerTalk, Randy Petersen was being hailed in the press for his expertise on all things related to frequent flying, loyalty programs and the passenger experience.He was a frequent visitor to the headquarters of airlines around the world and had the ear of numerous CEOs in the business.Such access and such influence is hard to come by but the larger-than-life Petersen remains extremely modest about his achievements.Now retired from the day-to-day work of understanding and analyzing the aviation business, Petersen joins us as our latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
The Hipmunk story is one of idea versus reality, Silicon Valley versus the status quo, big challenges and an eventual sale to an unlikely suitor.The company's co-founder, Adam Goldstein, is now candid about what happened to the company from its creation in 2010 until the SAP Concur acquisition in 2016.From the original vision and how it evolved under the glare of an adoring West Coast tech press and curious travel media, to appearing at The Phocuswright Conference for the first time and facing the snark of a vocal rival CEO - Hipmunk had quite a ride.Goldstein joins us as the latest guest on the How I Got Here podcast. HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
After a timely break of a few months after completing the first 28-stretch of episodes, How I Got Here returns for its second season.Nowadays, Rod Cuthbert is a recognizable figure on the conference circuit, an investor and a valuable critic of new businesses and ideas as they come through the Launch and Summit programs at Phocuswright's events.But he's best known as the co-founder of Viator, Australia's pioneering online booking platform for tours and activities that he created in the 1990s and was involved with until just before its sale to TripAdvisor in 2014.Pundits still often label the tours and activities the "Wild West" sector in 2020 but in Viator's early days it was almost pre-humanoid.Cuthbert shares the back story to the creation of the company and its heady growth period in the 2000s as our first guest of season two on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by our editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Operto was created in order to make life better for property managers - both those in private accommodation and others in the hotel sector.The Canada-based company is a property automation system for managing short-term vacation rentals, hotels and other types of guest accommodation.Co-founded by Michael Driedger in 2016, originally under the name SlickSpaces, the software is a combination of smart home devices to offer property managers real-time visibility and control over their units, as well as providing keyless entry, energy savings, noise and occupancy monitoring.Driedger, who had no experience in the travel industry (coming from a structural engineering background), is the latest guest on How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Paul Metselaar knows a thing or two about corporate travel. He also knows how to steer his business through difficult times.Created in 1984, Ovation Travel Group remains an independently owned company with 700 employees and over 200 travel advisors.It currently works with 700 businesses on plans for over 300,000 travelers a year.Metselaar has managed to operate the company alongside the so-called giants of the travel management world and push through major downturns following the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 and the global economic crisis.He joins us for the latest episode of How I Got Here. HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.It's hosted by PhocusWire's editor in chief, Kevin May, and Mozio co-founder and CEO David Litwak.
Microsoft might be considered a very different type of large corporation from a major online travel agency such as Expedia Group.But, as most people know, travel's global web giant was created as a unit within the Microsoft empire in the mid-1990s, before being spun out via a public listing in 1999.There are many similarities between the two brands.Over two decades on Expedia's formation in the U.S., Ariane Gorin is one of very few executives at the OTA that also had a successful career at the IT company.The president of Expedia Business Services joined Expedia in 2013 after a decade with Microsoft and has since been involved in a number of big initiatives around the business.She joins us as our latest guest on High I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.
NexTravel is, in many respects, a classic travel startup in that it started out with one idea and then quickly pivoted to another.The U.S.-based company, launched in 2015, as a consumer-facing leisure trip platform but realised that it could switch fairly easily to a service that focused on the needs of business travelers.At that point, a few years into its history, business travel was still a reasonably quiet sector on the startup front.This relative head start allowed co-founder and CEO, Wen-Wen Lam, to build a brand (and its associated technology behind the scenes) that has since gone on to capture a decent amount of share in a market that has, in recent years, mushroomed in terms of investment and profile for new businesses. NexTravel now stands alongside a number of peers in the startup wing of business travel that are giving the incumbents - the large travel management companies - plenty to think about.Lam is this week's guest on How I Got Here. HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.
When the definitive history of online travel is written in the decades to come, Steve Hafner will be remembered for many things.It may well be for his signature and extremely direct style of commenting on the industry ("Hipmunk - road kill" being one of his most infamous) during countless appearances at travel events.But hopefully the pivotal role he played alongside Paul English in the creation of Kayak will be his legacy.After learning the travel business at Orbitz, Hafner met English and the company was formed in 2004 with a mission to get the widest array of air tickets as possible in front of users.The rest is history (an IPO and then a sale to Booking Holdings for $1.8 billion in 2012), as the saying goes, but it's a fascinating example of determination and smart thinking that brought Kayak to where it is today.Hafner is the latest guest on the How I Got Here podcast. HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.
Stephan Ekbergh is known for his risk-taking (moving a business to another continent) and open views on the sector's developments and issues.The Travelstart Group is where this Swedish entrepreneur's passion for the business still rests after two decades in the job.But he is involved in a number of initiatives in and outside of the industry and is a regular on the conference circuit, not least because he is not afraid to call out problems and speak his mind.Perhaps unusually for the leader of a business, Ekbergh is also not afraid to admit his own failings (of which, he'll concede, there have been many) but always knowing that an individual and a business can learn from them.Ekbergh joins us for the latest episode of How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.Other episodes: on PhocusWire and Mozio.
Bus travel is a huge part of the transportation ecosystem in Latin America, especially in Mexico where Reservamos was born in 2013.The business was co-founded by Sebastian Gomez, an MIT Sloan alum, who saw an opportunity in the market to bring the complex world of bus ticketing in Mexico into the digital sphere.Reservamos is now a large and established business in the region, but the journey has been far from easy.The company and its exec team faced challenges from traditional operators and other local difficulties, as well as pivoting the company a few years into its history into a tech provider.Gomez tells the story of Reservamos in this week's episode of How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.Other episodes: on PhocusWire and Mozio.
Hitlist went from being an idea to help friends find air tickets when visiting its CEO in Turkey to a favorite in the app stores.Gillian Morris and her team managed to achieve the growth of the product with little money on the marketing front and almost next to no investment funds coming in.The story behind Hitlist is testament to what hard work, some luck along the way and an ability to retain an acute sense of what the product should be at all times (a way of alerting users via an app to cheap fares based on their personal preferences).Her pathway to 2020 has not been without its pitfalls, including countless unsuccessful investor meetings along the way.Morris has also been at sharp end of seeing the bias that exists in the industry and investment community when startups are, unlike Hitlist, fronted my men.She joins us as the latest guest on the How I Got Here podcast.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.Other episodes: on PhocusWire and Mozio.
One of the genuine pioneers of the online travel world actually started his business, alongside business partner David Litman, as a call center operation.The Hotels Reservation Network, as it was then known, was born in 1991 and used a game-changing process that became the merchant model now favored by countless online travel agencies.Lawyer Bob Diener and Litman spent time persuading the hotel community that their idea of taking the reservation funds from travelers and then paying the hotel after the customer had stayed was both revolutionary at the time and allowed the company to grow on its own cash flow.Before switching to a web business and renaming to Hotels.com, completing a successful IPO and navigating an eventual sale to Expedia, HRN also developed the affiliate model and illustrated how PR (rather than advertising) could drive the profile of a brand.Diener joins us for the latest episode of How I Got Here.HIGH is a weekly show produced by PhocusWire and Mozio, aimed at getting the inside stories behind startups and innovation in travel and transportation.Other episodes: on PhocusWire and Mozio.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
