Many of the stories in this issue revolve around the early stages of growth and innovation, from early-stage SaaS startups to the evolution of large, established companies. Discover insights that can spark ideas, drive conversations, and influence your next important decision. We hope you enjoy it, and as always, we ask for your interest.
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The most clicked links in Travel Tech Essentialist #137 are: Amadeus’ best travel startup Let’s wait and see in 2024.
As you probably know, GPT It is a customized version of ChatGPT that can be tailored to very specific tasks. Lenny's Newsletter Share 20 examples Learn how people today use GPT to increase productivity in the workplace. Maybe you'll be inspired by one of these ideas and create your own GPT.
One example is GPT Custom, built to speak to customer personas.
Everyone has a ‘persona’. I literally took the persona document, turned it into a PDF, uploaded it to a GPT (with my knowledge), and then created the GPT to talk to the persona. This will help you refine your roadmap ideas and better resonate with your customers.—Dennis Yang, Chime PM
eDreams has published results for April-December 2023 (the fiscal year ends in March). As it has since 2017, the company has placed a strong emphasis on communicating the growth of its Prime subscription program. The company now describes itself as no longer a traditional travel agency but a ‘subscription business’. Since launching in 2017, eDreams' Prime membership has grown significantly, reaching 5.4 million members by the end of 2023. The company expects this number to increase to 7.25 million by March 2025.
The market has rewarded eDreams investors for seven years starting in 2017. At this point, eDreams' stock price rose 120%, ahead of Bookings (+90%) and Expedia (+13%).
We believe the main reason eDreams is developing a membership program is to reduce our reliance on expensive customer acquisition channels. They aim to move away from a transaction-based acquisition model and position themselves as businesses that deliver more loyal and recurring customer revenue, lower variable costs and higher margins.
However, the results do not reflect this dynamic. Variable costs as a percentage of revenue (mainly marketing costs) are the highest compared to other online travel agencies (OTAs) and continue to increase, from 59% in 2017 to 82% in 2022 and 73% in 2023. Adjusted EBITDA/Revenue decreased from 20% in 2014 to 12% in 2023.
This week I came across the following two observations that I found particularly insightful about the distribution race of startups and the innovation race of established companies, as well as the impact of the internal dynamics between startups and established companies.
“The battle between every startup and an incumbent ultimately boils down to whether the startup gets distribution before the incumbent can innovate.” — Alastair Rampell, GP A16z
“When a startup is competing against a large competitor, it's likely that it's not competing against *the entire company*, but rather against a select group of PMs who are focused on internal politics/career advancement.” — Dalton Caldwell, Managing Director, Y Combinator
Oliver Ranson's airline app economy The potential of New Distribution Capability (NDC) in air travel is discussed. He outlines five conceptual ‘killer apps’ that must exist to address current challenges and opportunities, with the goal of maximizing the potential of NDC to transform the way airlines and passengers interact.
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travel market: This is a platform that integrates various travel services so that consumers can more easily plan their trips with a variety of options, from airline tickets to local experiences.
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Upstream Proposal: A system that allows passengers to make counter-offers on airline ticket prices, potentially optimizing revenue for airlines and reducing costs for travelers.
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tradable tickets: Allowing non-refundable tickets to be traded or sold introduces flexibility, reduces passenger losses and improves demand forecasting for airlines. (TravelX We are already making this a reality)
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air travel futures market: Similar to futures markets in other industries, it is a marketplace where airline demand can be traded in advance, providing financial stability to airlines.
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Tour Guide Certification Pack: Providing a platform for tour guides to be recognized and fairly compensated improves sustainability and the local economy.
Lenny Rachitsky had a great conversation with Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr (the world's largest community for B2B/SaaS entrepreneurs) about how to build a great sales organization. Some key points:
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Don't hire salespeople too early. If you don't invest 20% of your time in sales and 20% in recruiting, you have failed as an entrepreneur. Hire your first salesperson when you have closed your first 10 customers and are spending more than 20% of your time selling.
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If you need to hire your first sales representative, hire two instead. Because otherwise there would be no AB testing. We need to do AB testing on humans.
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Your initial sales rep should be a product expert. When scaling later, they should not become product experts. Otherwise you won't be able to scale.
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Once you have established a repeatable sales process and have seen success with your initial sales reps hitting quotas, wait to hire a VP of Sales. Hire a VP of Sales to help you scale your sales reps from 3 to 300 and make sure he/she actually wants to sell, not just manage.
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Prioritize early success for your sales reps by ensuring they retain 100% of initial sales in the first three months.
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Unlike building a product team, there is no efficiency when building a sales organization. If you take a sales-led motion, 50% of your company will be in sales, whether it's $10 million or $100 million in revenue.
+ Lenny's Podcast
Jason Lemkin believes it should be so. If so, you can get more leads down your funnel without having to release new features, fix bugs, or have engineers do the work.
Lemkin points out that a common pitfall for SaaS startups with ARR ranges from $1.5 million to $10 million is that their marketing site often fails to evolve with the product. As your products become more abundant and your target market expands, an outdated marketing site can diminish your brand's perceived value. He emphasizes the importance of ensuring that your marketing proposition reflects the current state of your product and company.
He provides practical advice for evaluating and improving your marketing site. Among them:
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Gather your executives around a table and ask each one, “Is our marketing site better than our product?” If you all disagree, change it this month.
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Adopt personas for customer segments that account for at least 10% of your revenue. Is your marketing site actually talking to your customers?
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It's super easy to contact anyone, whether it's sales, support, marketing, or the CEO. no? Why not?
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Does your marketing site make you look at least twice as big as you actually are? Why not?
These are some of the questions Lemkin raises, many of which need to be answered on your marketing site before potential customers even see your product.
Upgrade your marketing site to be even more seamless than your product itself. And watch your close rate go up, or at least convert visitors into contacts. Almost always. Without writing a single line of code. easy. — Jason Lemkin
Read + SaaStr
Endeavor investigated Career paths of 200 unicorn founders (100 US, 100 emerging markets) Here are some key learnings:
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55% of U.S. startups and 32% of emerging market startups are immigrants or second-generation immigrants.
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60% have study or work experience abroad.
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One-third have a bachelor's degree from a prestigious university.
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20% were previously employed by elite firms (top consulting, FAANG, top banks).
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50% have worked in startups/scaleups, often experiencing successful exits.
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49% have previously set up a business.
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The average experience of founders was 10 years.
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Undergraduate level: Science/Engineering 61%, Business 19%. Graduate school: There are more engineering fields than MBAs. And the 10% of founders who completed a PhD were mostly in CS fields.
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Emerging market founders were 10 times more likely to work in finance/marketing than their U.S. counterparts. American founders are more likely to work in product and engineering fields.
KLM is using AI to reduce food waste on board by accurately predicting passenger numbers and ensuring the right amount of meals are prepared. An AI model called TRAYS, developed with Kickstart AI, fine-tunes meal plans based on historical data and provides continuous updates up to 20 minutes before departure.
A three-month analysis found that there was 63% less food wasted compared to providing food to every passenger on a reservation. KLM said the biggest improvements will be seen on intercontinental KLM flights departing from Schiphol.The amount of meals to be discarded per flight is reduced by 2.5 meals (1.3 kg)..” So, if 2.5 meals means a 70% reduction in food waste, does that mean about 3.57 meals are wasted per flight, and after AI, this number is reduced to about 1.07 meals per flight? That's a good % improvement, but I'm more impressed with how much less waste there was before. That's 3.57 meals on an airliner flight of 250-350 people.
KLM says this will save 111,000 kg of meals per year on all KLM flights departing from Schiphol. This equates to approximately 213,461 fewer meals per year (using 2.5 meals @1.3 kg). Assuming the airline costs about $5 to $10 per meal (ranging from $4 to $20 or more, depending on the source), that would save KLM $1 million to $2 million per year.
Read + KLM
It was created by Alex Cohen, founder of Spendoso. be careful. This content is for humor and should not be taken seriously. However, with almost 1 million views on
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stall High 110 million dollars With a valuation of $1.2 billion, Kinnevik ranked first with $41 million invested.
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betterA travel planning and booking solution for travel advisors is born. 2 million dollars Participated in pre-seed funding led by Trip Ventures.
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capital one travel is adding to its vacation rental property inventory through partnerships with: Abang Stay and boutique. Read +.
If you are a startup looking to raise a round (from pre-seed to Series D), I can help you for free. Travel Investor Network is a private platform that recommends innovative travel startups to investors and innovators. If you are interested, start now. Fill out this form.
Explore 1367 job postings curated by Travel Tech Essentialist. job board Subscribe to stay ahead. Job alert. Some jobs on the Board of Directors:
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propellant | Business Development Director | remote | Solid base compensation, no commission limits.
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Airalo | data director | remote
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TravelPuck | Senior Supplier Relationship Manager | Barcelona, London, Miami, Boston, Chicago
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Flight | sales director | London, Amsterdam
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WeTravel | sales manager | Remote, Amsterdam, Spain, UK, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina
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above | Senior Backend (PHP) Engineer | contractor | €4400 – €6200 per month
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Mauricio Prieto