The Exchanges

Q In those two years, what are you doing? And when you have three to five bookings and three is your mother, God loves your mother. Mothers are brilliant, aren't they? But like, what are you doing?

A Completing our degrees. So we were still at uni at the time. So we're still at uni living honestly off Very little money at the time. But the, the great thing about it was, um, you know, we could fail, like there was no problem in failing. And, um, even more so it was just a lot of fun. Like, you know, we didn't do that really to build a company. Even at the time it was more like, you know, this is a great space. You know, we want to build like a really successful web product. You know, Facebook was going viral at the time. So those were like the days of web two point O. And we're really working at night, to be honest, like we were studying throughout the day and then at night we'd do this.

AI assessment note: “Completing our degrees. So we were still at uni at the time.”

Q Got you. Were you pleased with that price? It's a hard one where it's like, you know, you've done so much better as a business, But the price is probably quite high from 20 21. And so it's a tough one to kind of match.

A Yeah. So, um, this is where you get into, um, you know, the whining of the CEO and a consumer internet company these days. Like, you know, we all feel that we're very undervalued compared to a lot of other AI or like even SaaS businesses. But the reality is it is what it is. Like, I do think that, um, at the end of the day, you know, these valuations, um, you know, will, you know, Expand and sometimes they will contract and you need to build a really good business. I very much empathize now with Jeff Bezos, who said, you know, willing to be misunderstood, right? So I think you need to invest for the long term and then maybe the valuation will be slightly below where you would personally want it. You know, that's fine as well, because ultimately I don't need to sell any shares, right? I'm going to be in this for a long run. We're profitable. We're investing. We're growing like crazy. The numbers are amazing. They're better than they've ever been. I'm pretty sure that over time, you know, the valuation will take care of itself.

AI assessment note: “maybe the valuation will be slightly below where you would personally want it”

Q Series B is often said to be a very hard round. You need to have a very clear proven model and say that's kind of edging into the scale capital phase. When you think about the Series B and getting Highland, How many meetings did it take to get the series be together?

A It was very easy because Highland, um, actually co-invested with Spark and, you know, those guys actually really liked each other. And, um, the partner who actually joined from, uh, Highland, uh, Fergal Mullen is a tremendously great guy. And we had immediate kind of product market fit with him. You know, he loved Get Your Guide who was a customer, you know, he sat down and I vividly remember, you know, when, when he invested, he literally, uh, let us pitch for 30 minutes and then he pitched for 30 minutes. So we were like, you know, this guy is like something special. Like I had never seen that in VC before. Uh, you know, he showed me through his fund deck. He was like, this is my strategy for the fund. I wanted to do something for Europe, you know, Highland Europe. You know, he just came back from the US and it was really about creating that ecosystem here in Europe. So we felt it was such a good connection. So it was actually, that, that was a very easy one.

AI assessment note: “It was very easy because Highland, um, actually co-invested with Spark”

Q Knowing all that you know now, what did you not do that you wish you'd done?

A To be honest, and I don't want to praise myself, but we did all of the right moves during COVID in hindsight. And this is not because we knew it was a lot of it was also luck. And I think the thing that really, you know, helped our plans was that the recovery then after, I forgot it was the Delta virus, like it was the benign virus, I think in, um, early, um, You know, people were storming back to travel, right? And suddenly there was like this complete over demand and we had kept all of our supply. We had even struck better deals with the supplier during the pandemic because they needed to have more revenue. Everyone was switching to online channels during the pandemic because people were just getting so used to online bookings. So having rebuilt the product, having fine-tuned all of like the kinks that were there before, Having, you know, streamlined the supply base, better contracts, more direct contracts with all of the major suppliers and attractions and theme parks in the world. We were coming back insanely fast.

AI assessment note: “we did all of the right moves during COVID in hindsight”

Q For people that don't know, what's convertible debt?

A Convertible debt basically means that's a node that converts with your next equity round at a discount to that price. The only thing that was kind of not so great was the moment we came back, the equity markets went down like crazy, right? So it was this This completely weird world where everyone in 20, 21 was celebrating in tech, you know, it was like the boom year of tech. We were deeply depressed. We were saving the business. We are nowhere. And then in 20, 22, we had this massive year growing super fast. Everything was working up, but like no VC was available because they were all like, you know, working on saving their portfolio, you know, for most of their companies, it was really doomsday, uh, at, at the time. It was a very interesting dynamic. So we actually held off raising more capital until early, uh, 20, 23, which was like the first round then we raced after COVID.

AI assessment note: “Convertible debt basically means that's a node that converts with your next equity round”

Q What do you advise young founders who are approaching that? You invest as well, and you see some founders where You can almost see them getting sucked into the vortex of tech power and influence and money, and you're like, oh, that's going to lead you badly.

A Yeah. I don't think you'll be successful if you will. If you look at the most successful founders in Europe, like you look at a Peter van der Doze, right? You know, you look at, you know, Mickey from, from Vault, like all of those people are like very grounded people. Um, they are super smart. They've been working on their companies for a long period of time. And they don't get eaten up, um, by their success and by their wealth. In fact, they reinvest a lot of this into the startup ecosystem, which is like the same thing that I'm doing. Like, I don't think that, um, you know, hanging out with that type of crowd or living in that world brings you joy and fulfillment. Like what brings me joy and fulfillment personally is seeing the next founder succeed.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that hanging out with that type of crowd brings you joy”

Q What gave you the conviction? Respectfully, you had two years of it not working. Where did you get the conviction to say, hey, parents, remortgage the house, fund me, it's gonna work.

A So honestly, I have no idea looking back. Um, I think like the best thing, um, that happened to me at the time was that I had this group of co-founders that was really strongly tightly knit after this. So like, you know, one of one and a half years, two years of like doing this prototype. And we just really got along so well, and it was just so joyful to go to work every morning with them and like create something. So it was really more of a gut feeling that this is the right thing to do. It just felt right. Than anything else. Um, but the way how we operated at the time was really being in this deep tunnel. You know, I, I once met the great race car driver, Nico Rosberg, like formula one champion. And he said, you know, when you go and race, right, you look at the road, you don't look at the wall, because if you look at the wall as a race car driver, gonna hit the wall. Like, so stay focused, focus on the road. And I think that's very much what it, what it felt like at the time. Like we were even, Considering failing. Like for me, like failure was non-optional. It was like, you know, that that's not a valid option. We will stay the course. We'll win this.

AI assessment note: “it was really more of a gut feeling that this is the right thing”

Q I'm just seeing so many founder re-up packages now and my investors are getting screwed and it's like, why are we getting screwed? Do you know what I mean?

A Totally. No, look, I think the, the founder incentives, uh, that you see, uh, first and foremost should happen after a longer period of time. Right. So, so, you know, if I look at myself, I think the first founder incentive package that I personally, um, got awarded, um, by the board with, um, I think happened after like a decade or so. Wow. So it's like much, much later. And then there's a lot of market best practices and standards. And, you know, if you're a more mature company, you know, an investment bank can come in and like benchmark that against peer companies and then it works out. But at the end of the day, you know, at that point in time, you get awarded as a founder CEO, right. Or like as a founder, Management team, um, you know, for the work that you're doing, um, in terms of driving share price for shareholders over the next decade.

AI assessment note: “founder incentives, uh, that you see, uh, first and foremost should happen after a longer period”

Q Knowing all that you know now, what did you not do that you wish you'd done?

A To be honest, and I don't want to praise myself, but we did all of the right moves during COVID in hindsight. And this is not because we knew it was a lot of it was also luck. And I think the thing that really, you know, helped our plans was that the recovery then after, I forgot it was the Delta virus, like it was the benign virus, I think in, um, early, um, You know, people were storming back to travel, right? And suddenly there was like this complete over demand and we had kept all of our supply. We had even struck better deals with the supplier during the pandemic because they needed to have more revenue. Everyone was switching to online channels during the pandemic because people were just getting so used to online bookings. So having rebuilt the product, having fine-tuned all of like the kinks that were there before, Having, you know, streamlined the supply base, better contracts, more direct contracts with all of the major suppliers and attractions and theme parks in the world. We were coming back insanely fast.

AI assessment note: “we did all of the right moves during COVID in hindsight”

Q Series B is often said to be a very hard round. You need to have a very clear proven model and say that's kind of edging into the scale capital phase. When you think about the Series B and getting Highland, How many meetings did it take to get the series be together?

A It was very easy because Highland, um, actually co-invested with Spark and, you know, those guys actually really liked each other. And, um, the partner who actually joined from, uh, Highland, uh, Fergal Mullen is a tremendously great guy. And we had immediate kind of product market fit with him. You know, he loved Get Your Guide who was a customer, you know, he sat down and I vividly remember, you know, when, when he invested, he literally, uh, let us pitch for 30 minutes and then he pitched for 30 minutes. So we were like, you know, this guy is like something special. Like I had never seen that in VC before. Uh, you know, he showed me through his fund deck. He was like, this is my strategy for the fund. I wanted to do something for Europe, you know, Highland Europe. You know, he just came back from the US and it was really about creating that ecosystem here in Europe. So we felt it was such a good connection. So it was actually, that, that was a very easy one.

AI assessment note: “It was very easy because Highland, um, actually co-invested with Spark”

Q Do you think we have too many tourists? I think there are a lot of people who think that being a founder is sexy. There's so much VC money that they get funded and they kind of can start the life and say, you didn't get it.

A Yeah. And that's, I think the point where we need to be careful with ourselves and we need to make sure that we have a sustainable lifestyle. Ultimately life is long. And I, I do think, um, you know, when I'm 6070, I want to look back at my life and I want to make sure that I've spent the time in the right way. And that means I will want to have built a very big business. But my lesson has also been, you don't build that in a year or two, you build that in decades. Right. And you need to sustain over decades. You need to sustain that pressure and you need to have that high level of energy over decades. Right. How do you do that? That's like a question I ask myself quite a lot. I've completely changed my own lifestyle because of that. You know, I do a lot more sports. You know, I do spend more deliberate time with my family and my kids, for instance, because that actually helps me sustain. That is the antidote.

AI assessment note: “we need to make sure that we have a sustainable lifestyle.”