Holibob
Headquarters: London
CEO: Craig Everett
Website: Holibob
Founding date: 2019
Investment: $15 million
Holibob is the e-commerce engine
for experiences, aggregating the world's best "Things to Do" into a single,
curated set of experiences that makes it easy for any travel brand, DMO or tour operator to sell experiences.
Our custom collections and personalized
marketing engine match the right product with the right people at the right
time - all under the banner of our partners’ brands - to drive ancillary
revenue, greater customer loyalty and higher customer lifetime value. And
we've designed the whole thing to be turnkey, so brands and operators can focus
on their core business while we drive what's next.
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Strategic goals for 2023
In 2023, we’ll be focused
on scaling our partnerships across travel brands, DMOs and tour operators –
putting to work everything we’ve developed and learned over the past three
years (plus decades of experience before that) to help our partners drive
bookings and grow customer lifetime value.
As with any startup, we’ll be
constantly optimizing our marketing platform, e-commerce engine and supply base
so that we can efficiently and effectively share amazing experiences with
travelers all around the world.
Lessons learned since founding
There are so many lessons that you learn as a founder that
slimming down the selection is difficult. But if I were going to list just two,
I’d say: First, be a sponge for knowledge and information. You have to have
conviction around your idea and a belief that you can solve difficult problems.
But that doesn’t mean you know everything or have all the answers. From very
early on we adopted a “we know very little” attitude, which allowed us to learn
so much and has been a significant contributor to how we’ve gotten Holibob to
where it is today.
Secondly, don’t be afraid to hire people better than you. In
fact, I would say always hire people that are better than you when you can. It
plays into the same mentality as above, where founders often think they need to
know everything and therefore try to pretend that they know everything. The
fact is that you are probably only good at one or two specific things and for
everything else you want to hire people that are better than you. It’s a fact
of life. Embrace it, and it will help you move faster. At least that’s what I
think.
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