Guest blog by Maggie Rauch, senior research analyst, Phocuswright
WIT Bootcamp, the one-day, startup and innovation-focused precursor event to Web in Travel is a rare opportunity to get a peek into the future of Asia-Pacific’s online travel world. In a room filled with 200-odd people (not all necessarily strictly speaking, odd), we had founders of some of the region’s most successful established companies, regional executives from some of the biggest global travel players, and the brains behind startups ranging from very early stage to those that have already raised significant funding or signed partnerships with some of the biggest names in travel.
Maggie Rauch onstage at WIT Bootcamp
This strikes me as the unique character of WIT’s Bootcamp event – bringing together in one room, in a relatively small group, some of the most proven leaders of this industry along with a crop of entrepreneurs with no track record to speak of – just an idea, a small team a little bit of money.
The event kicked off with a panel of heavy hitters—Patrick Bosworth, CEO and co-founder of Duetto; Rod Cuthbert, CEO of Rome2Rio and founder of Viator; Fritz Demopolous, CEO of Queen’s Road Capital and a co-founder of Qunar; Stephan Ekbergh, CEO and co-founder of Travelstart; and Turochas Fuad, co-founder of Travelmob. That added up to huge amounts of insight on the travel industry and startup operations coming off that stage first thing this morning.
From that first session to the presentations, interviews and panels that followed – and the afternoon unconference breakout discussions, some memorable things were said. Here were some of the things we all learned:
Innovation requires as much guts as brains. “Everyone wants to be innovative but when it comes to being first, people are sort of hesitant. Everyone wants to be second or third.” – Sara Axelrod, COO, Local Measure
Dominance can be deceptive. “The overall market is still emerging enough that there is room for everyone.” – Tao Tao, co-founder, GetYourGuide
Overcoming startup challenges often requires trusting you will solve your biggest challenge – later. “You just take their money, however they want to give it to you.” – Simon Christy, COO and founder, Alehap.vn, on payments challenges in Vietnam.
Market entry requires a certain amount of patience “China just cracked our top 20 global markets – next year it should be in our top 10.” – Bobby Healy, CTO, CarTrawler
Big questions remain about some of the hottest startups. “Uber is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, and they lose money on every transaction.” – Timothy Hughes, VP of marketing, Agoda
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