TravelBird, who hasn’t heard of this rapidly growing holidaymaker? I ask CEO Symen Jansma to confirm some facts: TravelBird is five years old; had a turnover of 95 million Euros last year with an average growth of 200 percent per year; is active in seventeen countries and employs 700 people. Check that.
A simple idea
“I noticed that many people, like my own wife, had difficulty finding their next holiday, there was too much on offer. So we had the simple idea to offer one deal per day, but have it be an amazing deal, with the best service when booking it. We started with that idea in April 2010 and we basically still do the same today.”
Yes or no to investors
TravelBird recently secured another 16,5 million investment money from Global Founders Capital, bringing the total investment by the Samwer brothers to 32,1 million Euros. “They found us. We weren’t interested in funding initially, didn’t need it for what we were doing. We’re entrepreneurs, we didn’t want investors meddling, asking irrelevant questions and stalling time. But when the Samwer brothers call you it’s a different story.” Symen says it’s one of the lessons they have learned: “our reluctance towards investors in the early days wasn’t necessary. If we had let on board investors sooner, we could have invested in growth and expansion in an earlier stage.”
Amsterdam: key to success
“Amsterdam plays a major role in our success. It’s an amazing city to locate your business in. It’s not as expensive as London, it’s not as big as Berlin, it is international, great airport, the city has fantastic facilities. Internationally it has a good reputation, many people in the world want to live in Amsterdam, at least for a while. When we start TravelBird in, say, Portugal or Finland, we want local people to re-locate to Amsterdam. The city sells itself, we now have about thirty nationalities working for us.”
Growth of the Dutch startup scene
“I have a network of people in the startup scene I enjoy talking to. The Dutch startup world has grown immensely. I coach a few young entrepreneurs, all very casually, we have a beer and discuss issues they deal with that I faced five years ago. If you want to be an entrepreneur, there are plenty of possibilities in the Netherlands. TravelBird does business in seventeen European countries, and I can tell you there is not one other European country in which it is this easy to work with institutions. Take our chamber of commerce and tax authorities, for instance, they function pretty smoothly. Some people complain there’s not enough money available, but that’s rubbish. I think people need to be more daring. Stop drinking latte macchiatos and work your fingers to the bone.” It’s a piece of advice Symen would give to young startups: “Work hard. It’s not about having a brilliant idea. Better have an average idea and work very hard at making it a success than the other way around.”
Advantage of being Dutch
TravelBird has spread its wings over Europe, getting the advantages of scaling up: a bigger network and more options for better deals. “The Dutch consumer is open to change and readily embraces innovation. Therefore the Netherlands is a great country to launch your product or service. The German market, for example, is much tougher and needs another approach. There are many differences in market behavior amongst European countries, both in marketing and products. It’s an advantage to be from the Netherlands: we understand cultural differences. If TravelBird were to go the US, I would chop its market up in eight regions and pay attention to the cultural differences of each.” TravelBird doesn’t think too long or hard about which market to take on: “We just go. Any country that has a well- sized middle class going on holiday should be a country in which TravelBird can be successful.”
Dutch startups to be proud of
Symen soon illustrates just how familiar he is with Dutch startups, reeling off a list of startups to be proud of like Ace&Tate, Cloackroom, Silk and Blendle. Guys he pretty much all knows personally. “Catawiki is great. It’s like Marktplaats (Ebay) for collectors. Old watches, comic books, antique toy cars. It’s not sexy, and to me that proves that the internet is no longer just some hip tool but a part of pretty much everything we do.” Talking about how cool Adyen is, Symen wonders when a company can still be called a startup. I share the perspective that a startup remains flexible in its mindset and business management, and has not yet grown so big that it is subject to bureaucratic processes. “In that case TravelBird is definitely still a startup.”