Startup life (after being bought by one of the biggest travel brands on the planet)

So how’s it going, life after acquisition?

You remember that reason we all started our own businesses in the first place - the mission, the passion, the unfaltering belief? Then remember how that got completely deflated by the day-to-day realities, the stress of fundraising, brand-building, legals, more finance, nightmare operations and the general minefield that is employment law? Well, take away that second part and that’s what it feels like - going back to the time when all I obsessed about was my product and the people building it.

Wow, sounds pretty good!

Yes, it really is. And given we’re fast approaching the six-month mark, I’m pretty sure I’m not just still in the honeymoon period.

Nonetheless, there must be downsides to joining such a massive company - come clean please.

That’s the interesting thing I’ve found with TripAdvisor, it’s run very much like a startup. The attitude around "speed wins" is not just rhetoric, and I think that comes from the fact the company is still run by one of it’s original co-founders. That makes a big difference.

Okay, but there have to be downsides or, at the very least, differences.

Absolutely, I think it’s just that I entered this chapter with very little certainty around what it would be like, other than a gut feeling. And I’m just very, very happy and very, very glad that the people here are as talented and passionate as I’d hoped and the culture just as positive. Arguably more so. BUT, I get your point, you want the "other side" as well. So I would say that the biggest shock to my system has been becoming one small part of a much bigger machine. That has benefits because parts of that machine deal with stuff I used to have to - and really didn’t enjoy; but there’s also that weird thing where you no longer know everything. Before the buck stopped with me but so did all communications, and that’s no longer the case. It would be unfeasible to know everything and, in the early stages, I overdid trying to get a handle on everything. I had to become a lot better at selecting what I took an interest in. So just like with startups, focus is everything.

How has your focus changed?

Like I said earlier, I get to focus on the community (of Tripbods) and the product, which are in part the same thing of course. I also get to focus more on developing myself and my team, which often went poorly neglected during the frantic madness of growing a business. Only now do I appreciate what a business benefit that can bring.

And what’s the product?

Most people perhaps didn’t know that for the last two years we focused heavily on creating and curating high-value content. We still supported the ability for travellers to connect directly with Tripbods, but that was far from the core focus. Instead we worked on problems around brand differentiation, customer retention and delivering personalised content from and into the right hands. Right now, this involves the Tripbods delivering trusted local content in various formats that improve a traveller’s experience, both on TripAdvisor and in-destination.

Any regrets?

Not in the slightest. But then even if things weren’t going as brilliantly as they are, I’m not one for regrets in general.

What messages for other startup founders who are not yet at the exit phase?

As mentioned above, I’d strongly encourage founders and startup teams to remember the value of their own well-being to their business. It’s so easy to buckle under the immense and continued pressure, but you are one of the most valuable assets to your company (until you scale to a significant size) and so it makes logical sense to protect that asset. Secondly, I’d echo the many, many fellow founders who talk about the importance of going with your gut feeling. It’s easy to get brain-washed by people you assume are superior to you, perhaps because of their previous success. But they will never know more about your product than you do. They may well know more about the industry or context in which you’re operating, so milk them for all the insights they’re worth! But stop at the point it comes to applying those learnings to your business. Only you and your team are expert on that. Thirdly, don’t ever lose your faith. Sometimes it takes ricocheting off rock-bottom to reach unexpected heights, and I know that was the case for me many, many times over.