Jun 23, 2025 · 1h 24m · 20vc
GetYourGuide CEO & Founder, Johannes Reck: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
GetYourGuide CEO and founder Johannes Reck discusses the startup's fifteen-year evolution from a failing peer-to-peer student concept into a global travel powerhouse. He shares crucial leadership lessons on fundraising dilution, surviving a zero-revenue pandemic crisis, and the strategic reforms needed to scale Europe's tech ecosystem.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 18.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.5 Guest teaching 3.0 Guest disagreement 1.4 Harry pushing back 2.7
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:09:34 Disagreeing on European Venture Capital Availability
Johannes explicitly rejects Harry's claim that Europe has too much venture capital, drawing a direct distinction between early-stage glut and growth-stage scarcity.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 1:02:10 Pushing Back on Executive Workweek SustainabilityHarry refuses Johannes's argument for sustainable work hours, bringing up NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang as a explicit counterexample of top CEOs who work constantly.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:00:08 Educating on Culture Alignment Across Industry VerticalsJohannes reframes Harry's provocation about GetYourGuide having a 'soft' culture by explaining that travel and hospitality platforms require fundamentally different organizational empathy than fintech companies.
Harry holds his own ▶ 17:25 Challenging Founder Re-Up Equity PackagesHarry uses his perspective as an investor to challenge founder re-up packages, pointing out how early-stage investors get diluted and penalized long after the initial terms were set.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Origin Story of GetYourGuide | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Harry introduces the episode and asks about GetYourGuide's origins at university. Johannes details the Beijing trip, the initial guide marketplace, and early iterations, while Harry interjects lightly to confirm his background research on early pivots. | |
| Going All In and Securing Parent Funding | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Harry uses his own law school background to suggest that starting a company alongside university isn't risky, asking if going all-in is necessary. Johannes politely disagrees, stating that built-up prototypes require an all-in commitment to scale, and explains how he persuaded his parents to fund him. | |
| Signing the First Suppliers and Early Traction | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Johannes explains early supplier acquisition and seasonality issues. Harry brings up Rocket Internet's Samwer brothers and questions whether blatantly copying US trends is dodgy innovation, but Johannes defends their role in founding the Berlin tech ecosystem. | |
| Landing the Seed Round with Brent Hoberman | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Johannes recounts securing his seed round from Brent Hoberman after pitching him at a conference. Harry demonstrates industry knowledge by naming co-investors like Sean Seaton-Rogers and ProFounders. | |
| Seed Round Rejections & Tenacity Advice | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks for advice on pitch iterations during fundraising rejections. Johannes explains how Spark Capital led their Series A, and Harry drills into financial metrics, calculating gross booking volume from net revenue and take rate. | |
| Managing Dilution and Founder Re-ups | 6 | 3 | 2 | 6 | Harry challenges the practice of founder re-up packages, arguing that early investors get unfairly diluted when terms are renegotiated years down the line. Johannes defends founder re-ups as standard long-term alignment mechanisms awarded by boards after a decade of value creation. | |
| The Danger of Scaling Too Fast & Kees Koolen's Mentorship | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Johannes reflects on early mistakes post-Series A, such as over-hiring senior execs and listening blindly to VC board advice. He shares how Booking.com founder Kees Koolen stepped in during 30% layoffs to mentor him and join the board. | |
| Lessons in Early-Stage Hiring & Strategic Focus | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Johannes breaks down the difference between early-stage operators and corporate scale-up executives. Harry validates the importance of staying narrow on core markets, referencing HubSpot's long-term SMB focus. | |
| Promoting Internally and Raising the Series B | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Johannes explains promoting internal talent and narrowing focus to core European cities to drive recovery. He shares a key board management lesson on gaining investor respect by standing up against board recommendations. | |
| Series B Metrics and US Expansion | 4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Harry asks about Series B mechanics and traction requirements versus storytelling. Johannes details Highland Europe's involvement and candidly admits expanding into the US market prematurely. | |
| Raising $450 Million from Masayoshi Son and SoftBank | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Johannes describes raising $450M from SoftBank and Temasek in 2019. Harry asks about stereotypes around rapid SoftBank checks, and Johannes clarifies that Masayoshi Son was surprisingly focused on P&L financials alongside long-term AI vision. | |
| Surviving the Crisis of COVID-19 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Johannes recounts the sudden onset of COVID-19 as revenue collapsed to zero within three weeks. He outlines adopting a calm 'surgeon' mindset and resisting investor demands to lay off the entire company. | |
| Cost-Saving Sacrifices & The Sequoia Tree Metaphor | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Johannes explains how employee equity swaps allowed leadership and engineering teams to take 30-80% salary reductions. He references his Sequoia tree metaphor, emphasizing growing stronger after a crisis. | |
| Post-Pandemic Hypergrowth and Financial Resiliency | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Johannes describes the 10x rebound in bookings post-pandemic as consumer travel returned. He explains using convertible debt as a financial reserve during macro uncertainty. | |
| Strategic Fundraising Rules and Partner Longevity | 6 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Harry shares an observation on venture capital dynamics, noting that 95% of General Partners won't be at their firms in 10 years unless they are firm founders. Johannes validates this point, attributing GetYourGuide's long-term investor stability to working with firm co-founders. | |
| Profitability and the Discipline of Cash Flow | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry questions whether self-funding from cash flow restricts GetYourGuide's ability to innovate aggressively. Johannes responds that profitability imposes a healthy discipline that prevents wasteful bets, invoking Jeff Bezos's long-term philosophy. | |
| Founder Liquidity, Lifestyle Upgrades, and Fulfillment | 5 | 3 | 4 | 6 | Harry forcefully pushes back against conservative secondary liquidity caps, arguing that upgraded personal lifestyles significantly improve CEO performance. Johannes strongly dissents, warning founders against adopting lavish lifestyles based on paper wealth. | |
| Angel Investing Lessons and Adapting Culture to Industry | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | Harry asks Johannes directly if he worries GetYourGuide's culture is 'soft' compared to high-intensity fintechs. Johannes reframes the point, explaining that consumer travel demands hospitality-driven empathy, whereas fintech demands intense execution. | |
| Sustainable Leadership: Demystifying the Seven-Day Workweek | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | Harry asserts that winning today requires a mandatory 7-day workweek, citing NVIDIA's Jensen Huang. Johannes rejects this framing for scale CEOs, arguing that sustainable long-term leadership requires dedicated reflective time for strategic focus. | |
| Analyzing the US vs. European Venture and Talent Ecosystems | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | Harry pushes back on claims of European capital scarcity, stating that European VCs over-fund early stages and encourage unnecessary spin-outs. Johannes explicitly disagrees, highlighting the severe deficit of growth-stage capital (Series C/D/E) in Europe compared to the US. | |
| Winning the Global Tech Talent War: Visas and Tax Incentives | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Harry questions European public market listings, and Johannes outlines policy reforms to attract global engineering talent, citing a six-month visa delay when hiring a senior Netflix executive due to German bureaucracy. | |
| Protective Civic Society and Youth-Centric Investments in Europe | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Johannes discusses civic society, political polarization in Europe, and the importance of investing in youth. Harry asks if Johannes would enter politics, to which he replies that his current focus remains building GetYourGuide. | |
| Quick-Fire Round: AI, Boards, and Untapped Supply | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | In a quick-fire round, Johannes names Jeff Bezos as his dream board member, explains how AI streamlined supplier onboarding, and outlines plans to expand into show and event ticketing. | |
| Leadership Evolution, Parenting Balance, and Final Legacy | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Johannes reflects on becoming more humble as a leader over 15 years and advises new parents against trying to be a ruthless 'killer' at work while striving for perfect parenting. |
Statements from this episode (48)
GetYourGuide originally launched as a peer-to-peer tour guide community
“And like the prequel to get your guide was like, we were building a travel community for everyone to be a guide.”
GetYourGuide had only 3 to 5 bookings in its first two years
“We had, I think three to five bookings in the first two years of our prototype, three of which was my mother because she took so much pity on our students.”
Reck: Europe accounts for 60% of global inbound travel
“Europe has 60% of the global inbound travel.”
Johannes Reck asked his parents to remortgage their house for GetYourGuide
“I need to go to my parents and basically say, hi, you need to fund me for like another year after university. So, you know, can you please, you know, put a mortgage on your house and like fund me because there was no seed capital available. No one would give a…”
Reck: GetYourGuide was first to sell Vatican tours online in 2010
“We got very lucky because we got a very good tour agency, which did tours to the Vatican very early on in the Vatican is like one of the major sites in all of Europe and no one had sold the Vatican online at that point in time.”
Reck: GetYourGuide earned $500k in net revenue in 2010
“I think we did something like half a million then in, in the first year in 2010 in net revenue. So commission revenues, more or less profitable, but we didn't have any cash because we were just living off the mortgages from our parents.”
Johannes Reck says the Samwer brothers single-handedly created Berlin's tech ecosystem
“I think the three of them are incredibly smart dudes, and I think they have created the Berlin ecosystem single-handedly.”
Reck: GetYourGuide probably wouldn't exist without Rocket Internet
“And it is that I never did business with them but I must say that without them even Get Your Guide probably couldn't exist.”
Brent Hoberman regrets passing on acquiring Booking.com at the seed stage
“I made one pivotal mistake at last minute.com. I had the opportunity to buy booking.com at the time as a seed stage company. I still regret that to the present day.”
GetYourGuide Raised $1 Million Seed Round at a $5M-$6M Valuation
“It was a million bucks... I think at like a five or six million pre-money.”
US VCs Refused to Fund GetYourGuide Unless They Relocated to America
“For the people that I met in the U S most people said, you know, move over here or we're not going to give you funding.”
GetYourGuide had ~$2M net revenue growing 2x-3x at Series A
“Business was doing somewhere around two million net revenue at that point, and growing, I think two X to three X over a year.”
GetYourGuide raised $14M Series A at $30M-$35M pre-money valuation
“Series A at the time was actually very big for European standards at the time so it was somewhere around fourteen million. As a total of Series A, like I think like 30, thirty five million pre-money.”
Johannes Reck regrets raising a $14M Series A due to excessive dilution
“I would have not raised as big of a series A looking back. I think it was too much dilution.”
Reck Received His First Founder Incentive Package Ten Years After Starting GetYourGuide
“The first founder incentive package that I personally got awarded by the board with I think happened after like a decade or so.”
GetYourGuide laid off 30% of its staff a year after Series A
“I remember like a year or so after Raising that A round, I needed to lay off 30% of the company and completely re-juggle Get Your Guide to refocus us on the core.”
Former Booking.com CEO Kees Koolen invested $1M in GetYourGuide
“I'm going to come on board. Like I'm joining a board of directors and I'm going to personally invest a million bucks in the company.”
Reck: Founders earn board respect by standing firm and pushing back
“We gained so much more respect when we went against the board and said, we're not going to do this. We're not going to do that. We'll focus on this. This is my opinion. This is where I stand.”
Reck: GetYourGuide Would Have Grown Faster by Delaying US Expansion
“If I'd go back in time, it's another lesson for a lot of founders. I would have not gone as early. I would have done more in Europe. I think we would have had even more growth and more profitability.”
Johannes Reck says Airbnb tried and failed at experiences in 2015
“Airbnb had tried experiences From 2015 onwards, they had failed.”
Reck: Masayoshi Son is a skilled financial investor
“So I was surprised because, you know, you have these stories of Masa that he's just this crazy person, but he's actually a really good financial investor as well. So don't know, don't be kidded by like all of the headlines. He knows what he's doing.”
Reck: GetYourGuide's $450M round included secondary buyouts
“Between Southbank Vision Fund and Temasek, we raised an aggregate of roughly four or fifty million dollars at the time. We did take some of that capital to buy out earlier shareholders, so not all of that was primary.”
GetYourGuide would have gone bankrupt during COVID without its $450M round
“For us it was the decision that ultimately made Get Your Guide into what it is today, because just six months after we raised that money, COVID hit. So we would be bankrupt without that round.”
GetYourGuide revenues dropped to zero within three weeks during COVID-19
“It took three weeks from that board meeting to us being at zero revenues, literally zero.”
Investors urged Johannes Reck to lay off GetYourGuide's entire staff during COVID
“The bad thing was I had a lot of investors who basically called me up and said, you have to lay off the entire company immediately to save all of the dollars you have on the balance sheet.”
GetYourGuide Product and Engineering Staff Took 30%+ Salary Cuts for Equity During COVID
“Our product and edge organization, and even beyond that into management function, people on average reduced their salaries by more than 30% in exchange for shares.”
GetYourGuide Retained All Engineers and Product Managers Throughout the Pandemic
“So we only had to ultimately lay off throughout the entire two years roughly, 15 to 20% of the staff, not a single engineer, not a single product person.”
GetYourGuide Lost Zero Senior Executives During the COVID Crisis
“We had not a single person in senior leadership leave the company.”
Reck: GetYourGuide grew 10x between late 2021 and March 2022
“We went from, you know, late, 20, 21 to March, 20, 22, we grew 10 X.”
Reck: GetYourGuide 2022 volumes doubled 2019 pre-pandemic levels
“Literally like in 2022 were double 20 19 levels. And 20 21 was still half 2019 levels.”
Reck: GetYourGuide raised $100M in convertible debt during COVID
“We raised some convertible debt. On top, we raised roughly a hundred million, both from existing and some new investors.”
Harry Stebbings claims 95% of non-founding VC partners leave within 10 years
“They will not, like, 95% will not be there in 10 years. That's why most VCs are not rich, actually. It's because they're not there long enough for the carry to hit. That's why you go with people who founded the firm, because they're fucking stuck. They're neve…”
Reck: GetYourGuide Never Touched Capital Raised in 2023 Round
“We never touched any of that capital because we broke even at the same time.”
Reck: GetYourGuide Is Profitable and 5x Pre-Pandemic Size
“Fast forward today, we're now five times the size of pre-pandemic and we're profitable”
Johannes Reck sold secondary equity during GetYourGuide's 2019 SoftBank round
“I did sell secondaries, thankfully in 2019 as part of the soft bank round which actually was very helpful.”
Reck: Founders should cap secondary liquidity to a few million dollars
“I think a couple million bucks is probably the right thing if you're a mature company. I don't think that you should be taking too much off the table, so it shouldn't be enough so that you retire forever, never need to work again.”
Reck: Trade Republic is one of the most underrated tech companies in Europe
“Trade Republic, which you know, is a very successful fintech company, probably one of the most underrated companies in Europe, you know, they're absolutely crushing it.”
Reck: Trade Republic's founder centralizes all product reviews under himself
“He's centralizing all of product under him. You know, basically every product review runs through him.”
Reck: Spark Capital's fund returned multiple times via Oculus and Wayfair
“So TalkSpark Capital, our Series A lead, you know, the deal after Get Your Guide was Oculus Rift, right? You know, Palmer Lucchi. So, you know, we were basically off the hook a couple of months after they made the investment in us because the fund was already …”
Johannes Reck calls Peter Thiel's critique of European founder ambition "BS"
“I think it's bullshit to be honest when people say European entrepreneurs don't work as hard, are not as ambitious. You know, I've heard Peter Thiel and like others say that, but I think that's BS to be honest.”
Johannes Reck says hiring scale executive product talent in Europe is impossible
“If I want to hire, let's say the next chief product officer, At Get Your Guide, it's almost impossible to do that in Europe and need to go to Silicon Valley because the density of people who have done that scale have served tens of millions of customers a year…”
Reck: European VC funding is $50B annually versus $200B+ in US
“We spent fifty billion a year in VC in Europe. The US is north of two hundred billion.”
Germany subsidizes pensions with €100B yearly but invests only €7B in VC
“Germany subsidizes its retirement system every year with a hundred billion, right? But we don't, we have seven billion invested in VC, a hundred billion subsidies in retirement system.”
Johannes Reck says GetYourGuide can only go public using American funds
“How can a German company go public in Europe? It's impossible. And like, if we go public, it's only with American funds.”
Reck: 90% of GetYourGuide's Berlin Employees Are Non-German
“At Get Your Guide, we have 90% of our employees in Berlin are not German.”
Reck: German Visa Process Took Six Months for GetYourGuide CTO
“For him to get a visa to come to Germany after he had signed a job contract, and this guy makes a lot of money, took him six months.”
Reck: GetYourGuide engineering headcount will grow slower due to AI gains
“We'll have more, but a lot less than we thought we would add. So, so in other words, we'll gradually grow, but I think the productivity gains from these engineers will be massive.”
Reck: AI reduced GetYourGuide product onboarding from days to seconds
“On the supply side. The supply is completely transformed. It used to take, I think, days to upload a product because experiences are so complex. You know, you need to add a description and photos and like take a hundred boxes at the meeting point and, you know…”
Shorts cut from this episode
▶ Germany’s Visa Problem · 20VC with Harry Stebbings (@1:13:55)
▶ Why Europe Struggles to Hire Executives 🤔 · 20VC with Harry (@1:07:54)
▶ 90% of Our Berlin Office Aren’t German · 20VC with Harry Ste (@1:12:57)
▶ “We Almost Lost Our Company” · 20VC with Harry Stebbings (@0:00)
▶ How To Attract Talent To Europe 🇪🇺 · 20VC with Harry Stebb (@1:11:37)
▶ European founders are just as driven! · 20VC with Harry Steb (@1:07:07)