Last week, a friend pointed out that I hadn’t written a post since January. Turns out that it is easy to get out of the habit of writing. It kicked me into action and at an interesting time. Travelabulous was recently selected into the Chinese Angel Mentorship Program (CAMP). CAMP is a joint initiative between the Chinese…
As I sit here dreading the thought of going out in the frigid cold, I’m reminded of a moment that passed me by four months ago. It was a beautiful Sunday on Labour Day weekend. I was at a friend’s cottage and there was ample beer, sun and fun behind a speedboat. But alas, I left…
Looking back on the end of 2013, I was definitely thinking that we would have to raise money for Travelabulous by June of this year. Wow, did I learn a lot between then and now. We spent the first half of this year driving toward that goal of fundraising by the summer. We spoke to…
As I was running on the treadmill this week, I was thinking about the circumstances that had me preparing to fundraise AND run a marathon. It is not uncommon for me to “gut feel” myself into a position like this only to reflect on what got me here after the fact. It turns out there…
I had a great conversation with a former manager and mentor yesterday on the topic of granting trust. In these conversations, I think about trust as having the components of character and competency. Trust is also the cornerstone of relationships. Relationships are what make up a culture, including a company’s culture. This talk led to a conceptual model that I have…
I’m guessing people struggle with this question all the time. I think the five most important things to understand about yourself in answering this question are sunk costs, opportunity costs, experience/knowledge, the idea and inner drive. This post focuses on product-based startups. Services-based startups are different because you can start making money in those right away and…
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary on my first post on this blog. With that, I have been thinking a lot about what I have learned over the past 12 months. This is not even close to an exhaustive list, but I thought it would be fun to throw some out there. So, in no…
One thing I have always observed to be true is that the most successful people can do two things exceedingly well: Know the small amount of things that are truly important. Have an unrelenting focus on those things. I believe this applies regardless of profession, job, relationships… well, it applies everywhere. Now why is this?…
I met with a fellow entrepreneur today. A great guy who – along with his co-founders – is killing it with his startup. As I was going through the regular formalities of how I ended up “here,” it inevitably came to the my last day at Kinaxis. I went to… “so about a year ago……
I want to focus on growth. I love the idea of people everywhere talking about the magic of Travelabulous. I love the idea of disrupting the online travel industry – to let people find the perfect trip before giving them an interface to book it. I want to be part of a team working in…
In my last post, I spoke about an obsession on client experience. In this post, I will talk about how this client focus is driving everything we do. We are just starting the fundraising process in earnest. In these meetings, we get asked a lot about our channels and cost of customer acquisition. It is…
Few would argue some really key business tenets: It is harder to acquire a customer than keep one. It takes a long time (sometimes years) for customers to become profitable. The best salesperson you could ever have is your (happy) customer. I could go on for pages! Before looking at how to please your client,…
