02:44:36 · Luca Ferrari
[02:44:36] S5: and also, and perhaps more importantly, we believe that our business units tend to perform a lot better if they are allowed to operate with extreme levels of autonomy and flexibility. Mhmm. We want our small teams to feel like they're almost like a startup, like, basically, we trust them to make decisions and move quickly. And if you if you start asking many business units to coordinate on branding and cross selling and yada yada yada, then all of a sudden you're creating a ton of glue that and and that kills sense of ownership, agility, excitement. So it's a trade off. You wanna have teams that feel very entrepreneurial and empowered or maybe extract an additional 5% of revenue through, say, cross selling or some sort of bundling. We we found the former in the long run. He has much better returns, so we go for it. In a way, I think you can think about Benning's Fools a little bit like the technological version of the P and G, Procter and Gamble, where Yeah. There is a ton of shared infrastructure and capability. In their case, I I suppose, I don't know them well, logistics and distribution and marketing and product development. But the when you look at the brands they sell, they most people wouldn't even know Yeah. That they are by the same broader corporation. And and in a way, we would like that in this point to be similar. We don't really care necessarily that a say, an Evernote customer knows that that Evernote is behind it. And we're finding out a way, but we don't try to push that message on them as long as they think Evernote is perfect for them and they stay subscribed and they love it. And and in fact, we think that if we try to homogenize our brands, we will be destroying a lot of the value that we acquire in the first place with these storied brands and and loyal customer bases.
02:46:21 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Healey Cypher, Luca Ferrari
[02:46:21] S0: That makes a ton of sense. [02:46:22] S1: Makes a lot of sense. [02:46:23] S0: Thank you so much for taking some time so soon after having a a child to join our show. We really appreciate talking to you. I learned a lot. So thank you so much for taking the time. [02:46:33] S1: A ton, Luca. Come on anytime. [02:46:35] S0: Yeah. We'd love to talk to [02:46:36] S3: you more. [02:46:36] S1: To following the journey. [02:46:37] S0: Have a good one. Cheers. [02:46:39] S5: My pleasure. [02:46:39] S0: Take care. Before we bring in our next guest, let me tell you about Adio customer relationship magic. Adio is the AI native CRM that's build scales and grows your company to the next level. Fun fact, Jordy, Brightcove acquired by Bending Spoons was founded by Jeremy Alaire who runs circle now. Yeah. In 2004. Very fun. Well, our next guest is Healy from boom pop. Healy, how you doing? Welcome to the TVP at ultra.com. Hey. How's it going? Good to see you. What's up, man? [02:47:09] S3: Been a while. How are doing, man? Good to see you. [02:47:11] S0: Good to see you. Introduce yourself for those who don't already know. [02:47:15] S3: Yeah. Yeah. My name's Healy Cypher. I'm the CEO, cofounder of BoomPop. Yeah. And we are actually that's so funny. Hold one second here. I'm a close this. [02:47:24] S0: Yeah. No worries. Okay. I got you.
02:47:24 · John Coogan, Healey Cypher, Jordi Hays, Stacy Rasgon, John Tennant
[02:47:24] S0: Yeah. No worries. Okay. I got you. [02:47:27] S3: Yeah. We're an AI powered group travel company. I've been running and selling companies my whole career. I'm from Nebraska, which is a small state in the center of the country you probably haven't been to, and the plot twist is like over it. In Saudi Arabia. [02:47:39] S0: Wait. Wait. You grew up in Saudi Arabia? I didn't remember that. That's crazy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [02:47:44] S3: It's fun. Riyadh for sixteen years. [02:47:45] S0: Sixteen years. [02:47:46] S1: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. [02:47:48] S0: Very cool. Anyway, let's go back to the business. [02:47:49] S1: What is somebody if if if what what is the must do thing in Saudi Arabia for you to [02:47:55] S0: Beast World wasn't there when you were there. Well, how did you survive? Beast Land. Beast [02:48:02] S3: The the new hotness in Saudi, there's this place called, [02:48:05] S6: I think it's [02:48:05] S3: called Alaaba. It's like Petra in Jordan, but in Northern Saudi. [02:48:09] S0: Okay. And they actually [02:48:10] S3: I think they're building an Amman there right now. So there's, like, there's some stuff going down. [02:48:14] S0: Yeah. Pretty cool. It's scary. We have a little Amman property. Fine. So give us the latest. Give us the news. Give us the fundraising news. [02:48:22] S3: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, man. So we raised a $25,000,000 round, pulled in some [02:48:27] S0: oh. Yes. [02:48:29] S1: Thank you. Go. There [02:48:31] S4: that. Appreciate
02:48:31 · John Tennant, Healey Cypher, John Coogan
[02:48:31] S4: that. Appreciate [02:48:32] S3: that. You, Jordy. Pulled in some debt and equity. And, yeah, it's it's all about growth. You know? Yeah. I think travel has produced some really good returns for venture. You know, you [02:48:43] S4: think about [02:48:43] S3: Airbnb, Expedia, Booking. It's crushed. People don't think about it. Travel's, like, 10% of global GDP. It's $11,700,000,000,000. [02:48:52] S0: Wow. [02:48:52] S3: And often when you think of travel, especially in the corporate setting, you gotta think of like, whatever. Your EA is booking you a flight. [02:48:58] S0: Yeah. [02:48:59] S3: Turns out 60% of corporate travel is stuff involving groups. Yep. It's like an off-site or an SKO, and and especially in today's day and age, we're finding the demand for group travel is the most it's ever been. Some fun facts. One, most people are exceedingly less trustful of Zoom meetups. They wanna be people people in person. Most AI companies now are hiring event teams. Like, it's one of the first hires because it turns out for scaled AR businesses, events are, like, one of the number one demand channels. And so as you looked at group travel, we were kinda like, wait. Wait. Wait. It's this massive part of travel, and it's so anachronistic. Like, if you wanna if you wanna, for example, book over 10 hotel rooms, you literally can't do that online. Did you know that?
02:48:59 · Healey Cypher, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[02:48:59] S3: Turns out 60% of corporate travel is stuff involving groups. Yep. It's like an off-site or an SKO, and and especially in today's day and age, we're finding the demand for group travel is the most it's ever been. Some fun facts. One, most people are exceedingly less trustful of Zoom meetups. They wanna be people people in person. Most AI companies now are hiring event teams. Like, it's one of the first hires because it turns out for scaled AR businesses, events are, like, one of the number one demand channels. And so as you looked at group travel, we were kinda like, wait. Wait. Wait. It's this massive part of travel, and it's so anachronistic. Like, if you wanna if you wanna, for example, book over 10 hotel rooms, you literally can't do that online. Did you know that? [02:49:43] S0: Yeah. It's crazy. We run into this Yeah. Run into this a fair amount of times just with the small team traveling. Like, it happens. I don't know if you saw that block party that they had. The or, like, showed up in their earnings because they spent so much [02:49:56] S1: on travel. Like 68,000,000 or something on [02:49:58] S0: one trip. Of the craziest stories. [02:50:00] S1: On one trip. [02:50:01] S3: No. This is this is real. Like, I was at this conference, and the then president of Brex walked over to me. He was like, hey. [02:50:07] S0: Yeah.
02:50:07 · John Coogan, Healey Cypher, Luca Ferrari, Jordi Hays, John Tennant
[02:50:07] S0: Yeah. [02:50:07] S3: Are you Huey at Boompop? And I was like, yeah. But who cares, man? Like, you're the president of Brex. Like, I'm nobody. Yeah. He goes, no. No. Guess what the second biggest expense category is for all of our companies after payroll? And I was like, no way. He goes, it's group travel and events, man. [02:50:22] S0: Yeah. [02:50:22] S5: I was like, [02:50:23] S3: holy shit. So it it's on the rise. It's crazy. [02:50:25] S0: Yeah. So talk through the actual product experience. How do you and then and then how do you actually make money? Are you just taking a fee on top of whatever is booked? Is that the secret? [02:50:37] S3: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so The product is pretty rapid. [02:50:40] S1: Secret to success? [02:50:41] S0: Or or I mean, it could be like seed based. [02:50:43] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [02:50:45] S3: Turns out you should buy low, then sell high. [02:50:47] S0: Yes. This is good. [02:50:48] S3: This is good. I like it. Heard heard it here, folks. Yeah. So it's it's simple. You talk to our AI agent. You give it a simple prompt. You're like, yo. I wanna do an off-site within whatever, a two hour drive of LA [02:51:01] S4: Yep.