5 Things We Learned From Tao

According to Filip Felician Dames, founding partner of VC Cherry Ventures and Tao’s long-time friend, “Tao is an incredibly dedicated operator. You won’t find [him] at meaningless networking events. He wants to build a successful business and likes to stay focused. He’s also an extremely kind human being who puts a lot of focus on his company culture and the happiness of his employes. With Cherry we like to back the most ambitious founders that want to build European technology leaders. Both Tao and Johannes [Reck] are perfect examples for the type of founders we like to back with Cherry Ventures.“

We had the pleasure of chatting with Tao about the GetYourGuide journey, travel trends, and how he continues to grow and challenge himself. Here’s what we’ve learned.

1. Don’t Start a Travel Company

First of all, there are three industries Tao believes are very difficult to enter: food, fashion, and travel. As he puts it, these are “passion and frustration products,” meaning their success relies on the gratification of customers’ needs and expectations. Second, the travel industry is dominated by big players (think Booking.com, TUI, and AirBnB) with whom you’re competing on a global scale. That means navigating through an expensive and complex network of multiple regions, laws, languages, channels, currencies, and cultures all the while playing with and against industry giants who’ve got – let’s face it – more resources and an established reputation.

2. Say “Yes” To Opportunity

4. People Don’t Always Want What They Say They Want

Everyone claims they want activities that are “off the beaten path.” As much as they want to “take a dance class on a rooftop in Paris’ 11th arrondissement“, an Instagram photo with the Eiffel Tower in the background almost always comes first. The key is to offer people unique experiences, but still giving them the option to go the “traditional” route.

The key is to offer new spins on popular tourist spots (places that are usually overcrowded by tourists to the point of inaccessibility) and give people the opportunity to plan things in advance, skip the lines, and combat the over-tourism in a more intelligent and tech-enabled way.

5. Travel Is More Mobile and Spontaneous

With accommodation, you know what you need and you book it in advance. With experiences, it’s not as clear and thus recommendations have a strong influence over your trip. Therefore GetYourGuide puts a lot of emphasis on the curation of their offers based on data, and data says mobile is king. For example, they created an “Instagram tour” which very quickly became the #1 experience package in Bali.

Same-day bookings are also the result of the growing trend in mobile bookings. Now that the European Union is rid of roaming charges, over half of all activities are booked via mobile, and one in ten are booked within 24 hours prior.

What’s Next For Tao And GetYourGuide As They Continue To Scale Globally?

We asked Tao how he continues to challenge himself, to which he responded, “I think the right question is: How do I keep up? When your business is growing in size year after year, just keeping your role is a promotion.”

Tao has a very strong sense of gratitude and responsibility to the opportunities that came and continue to come their way. What started as a small vision between two university students has grown into a bigger global mission. Tao’s vision is that in ten or twenty years time, when people travel, they do it with GetYourGuide – to share experiences with family and friends, and to learn and reach out to experience the rest of the world.