How I Got Here - Inside stories behind innovation and startups in travel

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.