We’re excited to launch the first in a series of SUG Talks between our Executive Chairman and Founder, John O’Connell and successful entrepreneurs who have founded, grown and successfully exited their companies. Our first guest – Frank Reeves, a distinguished entrepreneur and innovator in the travel technology sector, best known for his role as the co-founder and CEO of the bootstrapped travel tech firm, Avvio.com, from 2002 to 2022.
In addition to recently becoming a Partner at ScaleUp Group, Frank and John worked together previously. John was Frank’s founding Chairman at Avvio.com, between 2014-2018 followed by fellow ScaleUp Group Partner, Sean Finnan until it’s sale in 2022.
Frank has a powerful story and some memorable points emerged from their conversation, which every self-respecting tech entrepreneur should heed.
Tune into the talk here.
Firstly, aligning your proposition directly with your clients is paramount. This means speaking and pricing in their terms, resonating with their needs, and being bold about it. It’s not merely about showcasing technological prowess but rather about articulating how your solution directly addresses their pain points and adds tangible value to their lives or businesses.
“I think one of our first big go-to-market initiatives, post Calculus [Capital fundraise of £3.5m] was our 25% guarantee. Where we just bravely went into the market and said, look, this is what working with us means, right? Everyone’s got great technology, that’s fine. But when you boil it all down, working with Avvio means that you get at least 25% growth in your direct channel, which is your most cost-effective booking channel, and that then is tied directly to a PNL impact. So that was a very differentiated go-to-market strategy – talking about business outcomes rather than how great we were as a company and how great our tech was. That really resonated in the market. We worried, of course, that some competitors would follow us into that value prop. But none ever did, which was wonderful,” said Frank.
Harnessing AI ahead of the curve can be a game-changer. However, the emphasis should not solely be on the technology itself. This was one of Frank’s two big hitters from a go-to-market perspective, “we had rebuilt and repositioned our platform as Allora.ai in 2017, so we were very much the first in our market to pioneer the application of AI for the e-commerce market within travel and that took time to get those messages across. Nobody else was really talking about AI, certainly not in travel, but over time things did start to heat up and of course as we came through and came out of Covid, people not only started, you know, developing more of an awareness to the opportunity of AI, but they started rightly associating Avvio as being first on that. So having several years of competitive advantage or ‘blue ocean’ in that space,” he noted.
Whether it’s streamlining processes, enhancing user experience, or delivering personalised solutions, the focus should always be on how AI translates into real, tangible advantages for your customers.
Empowering staff is another critical aspect, especially during the early, risky transitional stages of your business. An actively trusted, empowered team can be the driving force behind innovation and growth. Additionally, this empowerment extends to your leadership team.
As John notes, “It’s always struck me how well how the role of the founder and CEO has to change as a business scales and also the impact it has on the rest of leadership team – some of whom just can’t scale up the way you’d like and some awkward loyalty challenges there.”
Frank adds, “It’s a very big topic, around culture and leadership team. We got very clear early on about who we were, who we wanted to be, what we stood for and how we were different in the market and what that meant then if you were ‘on the bus’ and part of the Avvio team. We had a number of people internally who really stepped up and stepped into very big roles that had started in a very junior role.”
Having the right leadership team, again actively empowered with an aligned vision, resilience, and ability to navigate uncertainties can make or break the trajectory of your business.
Leveraging unexpected ‘black swan’ events can be an opportunity to deepen your connection with customers. These moments of disruption often reveal new insights into customer behaviour and needs.
“We took a couple of big gambles during COVID. I was conscious both of, how the Avvio and the Allora brands were being perceived in the market during COVID, but also of course, very conscious of morale and culture internally,” said Frank.
“One of the big things we did early on in COVID, we just took all of our resources – our intellectual property, our staff, their time and we focussed on training hotels. We thought, look all of these hoteliers around the world are being furloughed. They are certain to come back, if they do come back, they’re certain to come back to an industry that needs them to do more with less. So, let’s almost open source our secret source, our digital marketing, conversion rate optimisation and let’s just upskill hoteliers. We launched very early during in COVID. We mobilised a hotel digital academy and trained thousands of hoteliers, who were working from home or not working from home. But nonetheless, they were engaged with our brand at a really early stage through COVID and that really resonated in the industry,” he continued.
By being agile and responsive, you can not only weather the storm but also emerge stronger and more attuned to your customer’s evolving demands.
Lastly, having sufficient funding to survive through such times is non-negotiable. John adds, “I’ve yet to see any business plan which ever allows for any significant interruption, in a continuous unbroken, upward graph of revenue. We all sit around and we check the financial models and we do this, do that, and no one ever talks about the elephant in the room, which is that once in every 5 or 6 years there’s going to be some unexpected thing coming along.”
While forecasting may never fully anticipate every twist and turn, ensuring financial stability and resilience can provide a vital lifeline during turbulent periods.
These principles underscore the importance of customer-centricity, innovation, resilience, and financial preparedness in the realm of tech entrepreneurship. By adhering to these guiding points, entrepreneurs can navigate the ever-changing landscape with confidence and purpose, ultimately paving the way for sustained success and growth.
Listen to John and Frank’s SUG Talk below and learn more about Frank’s background, how he became a CEO, lessons learned, funding rounds, when it was time to exit and more. What’s next for Frank? He’s just launched Voyria, a new venture fund dedicated exclusively to early-stage companies within the Travel Tech sector.