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Previous Posts
Sell your travel company when you are on top.
Travel industry awards don’t sell companies or raise investment capital.
No one ever went broke selling early.
Venture backed need 3-4 rounds of financing to build a lasting and profitable travel business.
Selling a $500M travel company and $5M travel company are the same.
You have the 2nd highest burn rate behind Uber one VC said
Does your travel company have an economic metric that is shared company wide?
The question every startup founder & CEO ask themselves.
Most nights I made $1,000 in profit. Some nights I made $3,000 in profits.
The most valuable asset in the travel industry is the transaction.
M&A deal structures in the travel industry, I’ve seen lately.
The fastest way to grow in the travel industry is through M&A.
It was worth $2.2M, 88x our $25K investment when the company went public.
Legacy travel companies will be dethroned by a different business model.
Hotels have legacy technology because they have legacy leaders.
When I hear, “the travel industry can’t innovate because of legacy systems.” I know it’s not true. It’s not legacy systems impeding innovation. It’s the people running legacy travel businesses.
A recent post at LinkedIn that received good engagement and comments. Feel free to read the post here and comment at LinkedIn. You can also private DM me or send me an email at matt@travelstartups.co Thanks for...
Save American Capitalism by Building an Equitable Ownership Economy
A Thesis for The American Dream 2.0 Entrepreneurs, board of directors and owners of small businesses have a responsibility to save American capitalism. We help ensure the greatest economic and wealth creation system in the...
Insights after 40 mentoring calls with founders and CEOs on the COVID-19 Crisis
Over the last 14-days, TSI talked with senior travel executives and 40 emerging travel tech founders, one-on-one for 20-minutes each. Below is a summary of what we advised and what we learned. No sugar coating, it’s really...
MyLifeID, Traxo Raise Investment Capital from TSI Travel Tech Investment Symposium
2/21/20 - MyLifeID & Traxo have both received investment capital after 1:1 meetings with investors at the TSI Travel Tech Investment Symposium on Jan 8th. 21 investors met with 20 emerging travel tech companies through...
TWAI Acquires Airlines Technology from Meeting at a TSI Symposium
On April 30, 2019 at the TSI Travel API & Microservices Tech Symposium, CEO Trideep Aggarwal of TWAI met with CEO, Varun Bansal of Airlines Technology. After the Symposium the two CEO’s engaged and started to discuss an...
Don’t Fight the Tape
In my 20’s during the .com run of the late 90’s, I traded IPO’s and wrote a book. One day, a guest staying at our fly-fishing lodge told me, “Matt, you can’t fight the tape.” He was hoping my publisher, John Wiley could get...
How to Pilot Travel Technology with Corporates
This year we’ve focused on helping our portfolio companies and advisory clients gain technology pilots and licensing agreements with larger travel companies. We won’t sugar coat it, it’s a tough road. We’ve successfully...
Now is the time to launch your travel technology startup
The old guard in the travel industry is embracing the startup ecosystem and new entrants are entering to assist travel startups. There is more pre-seed money and organizations catering to travel tech startups than at any...
Do you have what it takes?
I was speaking with an investor on the phone recently. I described that we were raising capital to build Travel Startups Incubator into a $1B global business. I could tell right away he didn’t know much about travel...
An OTA Killer Arrives?
A new mobile travel application is infiltrating the consumer travel industry that we believe will change how travelers plan and ultimately purchase travel. We’ve coined this new travel application, “mobile travel chat”...
There will be blood
Is your company bleeding, getting ready to die?Are you waiting there for something to click? I know some of you are hurting.Well actually many of you are hurting. We’ve estimated that potentially 40%- 50% of the startups we...
Your Travel Startup just lost $1M.
Over the last few months we have moved into fundraising mode here at Travel Startups Incubator. We just launched the Travel Technology Investor Platform to help our startups expand their reach in accessing angel investors,...
An Open Developer Sandbox and API Platform for the global travel industry.
API’s are all I think about lately on the Business Development side of work I do for the startups in our portfolio. Every startup is either looking to distribute their API or acquire an API from a 3rd party travel company....
Travel the 4th best industry if you want an exit for a tech startup.
View image | gettyimages.com CB Insights one of the leading corporate data intelligence companies has released their 2014 Global Tech Exits Report on global tech exits. In 2014 the travel industry was a leading industry in...
Successful travel startup founders are always asking.
Asking is part of selling. Before you can sell you have to ask. In startup mode it seems like we ask, ask and then ask some more. If you don’t ask you’ll never get anywhere. It’s as simple as that. I launched the Travel...
If I Were 22, I’d learn how to take $1 and make it into $2
This post was published at LinkedIn as part of the "If I Were 22" series. When I was 22 years old I was a college student at George Mason University (GMU). My first entrepreneurial venture was the “Brew Bus.” I bused...
How to do business with an Internet giant.
I recently helped one of my travel startup clients strike a deal with an Internet giant. Yeah, it was a big deal. Most likely multi-millions in customer lifetime value (CLTV/LTV). It went down like this. I sent an email to...
The day we were offered $1M dollars for an idea.
One day my phone rang. This guy says, “Matt Zito, the IPOguys"...I am building the next generation Initial Public Offering brokerage platform to distribute shares directly to individual investors. I’ve got patents. I am...
Dirty little secrets about NET rates.
I am working with a new client and we are analyzing moving their hotel contracts from a commission rate-contracting model to a net rate-contracting model. Here are my thoughts about NET rates and why I think NET rates are...
You know your travel startup has arrived when they try to take you out.
We were finishing up our second ski travel season when a letter arrived in the mail from an attorney in Fairfax, Virginia. Our main competitor was trying to stop us from conducting business. The travel competitor was a...
Fear and greed kill travel startups.
Fear and greed are a travel startup entrepreneurs two archenemies. The key to managing your fear and greed is to recognize it, acknowledge it and then find a balance with each one. Make decisions that are not based in fear...
5 techniques to create the next hot travel startup.
In this post you'll learn 5 techniques you can use to take your current or new travel startup idea and iterate the core components into a singular-use travel product. I see a product trend in the consumer Internet space I...
Without her I’d be nothing.
I sat down next to this beautiful girl. Her name was Nicole Spotswood. I had seen her on college campus but never met her. We chit chatted. She was a golfer and an athlete. She was smart. I really liked her. I wanted to...
Pull the covers to your side of the bed.
“Matt, you’re pulling the covers to your side of the bed.” I’ll admit, when I was a young travel startup entrepreneur I was a taker. I tried to take at every corner. I felt that the only way to succeed was to be a ruthless...
The tour bus was flipping. I thought it was over for our travel startup.
As CEO and founder of your travel company you are going to be making tough choices in the face of adversity. These decisions will impact the short-term bottom line and have consequences for years to come. The travel...
These four words can change your entrepreneurial life forever.
It was Spring 1992. I was walking out of my last communications class in my senior year at George Mason University. Professor Robert Conley taught me communication and entrepreneurial skills, how to think for myself and...
Travel Startup Founders Series: Steve Kaufer Co-Founder & CEO TripAdvisor
Travel Startup Founders Series are inspirational short stories direct from travel startup CEO's, founders and entrepreneurs. The Travel Startup Founders Series is an exclusive from TravelStartups.co. Sponsor: ChooseToTravel...
The travel industry is building less authentic travel start ups.
Is it me or are you noticing more travel start-ups that are really just technology businesses or media companies operating under the disguise as a leisure travel business? These new start ups are companies termed as social...
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