Prediction Didn’t hold up
Avi Meir: Business travel in 2021 will surpass 2019 levels
“I'm willing to bet That business travel will grow in twenty-twenty-one. Not based on twenty-twenty, based on twenty-nineteen.”
Prediction Held up
Meir in 2019: Tesla will become a $1 trillion company
“I believe that Tesla will be a trillion dollar company.”
Opinion
Avi Meir: Sweden found the right balance in its COVID-19 response
“So if you look at Swedish approach, it seems right this moment, and again, it might change in a week, so who knows, but right now it seems that they have found a good balance between Protecting, allowing those who need protection to be protected, those who hav…”
Insight
Avi Meir: Startups are sports teams, not families
“It's not a family, right? And if you have to use a cliche, the family one, I like sports team one, right? So in a sports team, you have to sometimes give hard news, difficult news and deal with it instead of trying to be liked and protective. And I think the b…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Meir: TravelPerk will be the top global business travel platform by 2025
“We probably will be the number one business travel platform globally in the next five years.”
Insight
Meir: Founders must interview and reference-check board members like employees
“So I treat investors and board members the way I treat employees and they need to be a screen. They need to be referenced and they need to be interviewed.”
Insight
Meir: Disagreeing with Twitter consensus usually means you are right
“So first I would say if people on Twitter would disagree with you, you're probably right.”
Disclosure
Meir: TravelPerk lost great engineers due to strict office-only policy
“We actually never did remote work as a company. We always believed in being in the same office, having this kind of serendipity that you get by bumping into people and having an interesting discussion, waiting for the coffee or something. So we never did remot…”
Assertion Contradicted
Avi Meir: Flattening the curve delays COVID infections without reducing total cases
“Flattening the curve means that the surface below the curve still is the same. You just delay. If you're going to get it, you're still going to get it. You just want to catch it when ICU beds are available and there's a ventilator waiting for you if you need o…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Avi Meir: TravelPerk grew Q1 2020 revenue multi-fold year-over-year
“But we actually grew very, very well multiples year and year in Q-one, right, in revenue. So Q-one was an amazing quarter for us in growth, even though we had, of course, not so great March.”
Prediction Partly held up
Avi Meir: Rail bookings will exceed domestic flights during travel recovery
“Rail will be bigger than flights, at least by the number of bookings, because it's just more convenient to travel domestically, in many cases, in train versus flight.”
Prediction Held up
Meir: First-round venture funding for travel startups is dead for a while
“First money into travel company, probably dead for a while.”
Disclosure
Meir: TravelPerk is actively seeking acquisition opportunities during the pandemic
“We're definitely, any deal of this, we're definitely looking more and more into that direction, yeah.”
Disclosure
LocalGlobe offered TravelPerk emergency capital without asking for terms during COVID
“As the crisis started, they sent me an email and they said, We have X million waiting for you. Tell us when to wire them. They didn't ask about terms. They didn't ask about if I actually need the money.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Meir: Investors who mistreat founders quickly lose reputation because founders talk
“We do talk, and something for investors to note, I think, is everybody knows it, but I think it's important to remind everybody that we talk between us, right? Don't screw entrepreneurs because everybody will know, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meir: VCs sometimes destroy M&A deals over immaterial terms and ego
“I heard stories about investors who are, of course, board members as well, who kill deals, kill fundraising deals, or M&A, just to maximize, and it's not even material, like, just, you know, because they don't like not getting everything.”
Disclosure
Meir: TravelPerk rejected remote work, accepting talent loss to maintain culture
“And so far, we made very clear not to have multiple locations. We only had Barcelona. We never did remote, and we lost great people because we didn't do remote, and some, like, great engineers want to travel to Japan and work from there, so we paid some price,…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Meir: Cutting workforce capacity too deeply will delay post-pandemic rebuilding
“As I said, it's going to end, and people will go back to traveling, and I don't want to lose 12 months after lockdowns are lifted in rebuilding the capacity, rebuilding the muscle that we have lost if we went and did too deep of a cut.”
Prediction Held up
Avi Meir: Domestic business travel will recover faster than international travel
“Domestic travel will emerge faster and sooner than international travel.”
Insight
Avi Meir: VCs should proactively fund top portfolio startups during market shocks
“The first thing visitors should do if they are able to, and the company is good, is reach out and sign a check to their current portfolio. I think that's one of the best helps, because it gives you the oxygen to breathe, it gives you the oxygen to think clearl…”
Disclosure
Meir: 95% of hotel owners rejected Hotel Ninjas' cloud software pitch
“95% of the people you talk to do not need. They don't feel that they have a pain that you're solving.”
Insight
Meir: Warm intros from portfolio companies are best for securing term sheets
“And I know that the best way to get a term sheet is a very warm introduction from a portfolio company, right? I mean, this is the best way.”
Insight
Meir: Informal social gatherings yield more board value than formal meetings
“Whatever you do, a dinner or tour, I would always plan, and we actually do it every single time, takes a bit more time, You have to commit to kind of travel a bit longer than just three hours to a board meeting, but you get way more value out of it than just k…”
Disclosure
Meir: TravelPerk never conducted concentrated fundraising sprints pitching dozens of funds
“I never went into, like, a fundraise mode and pitched, like, 30 funds in a period of a month. I never had to do it.”
