Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
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Hi and welcome to another episode of the Innovation
Conversation. Today we are joined by André Stoze.
André, welcome. Thank you. André, would you like
to tell the audience a little bit more about
yourself and what you do? So I'm a mechanical
engineer born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal.
And yeah, after taking my education, I ended
up working on a robotic startup. And after a
bunch of things, I ended up starting a company
called trip .com where currently we have 2 million
users and we have been through the proper startup
protocols here. So very happy to share. the experience
with trip .com and the ongoing challenges that
can be growing worldwide started. So how did
trip .com get started? So basically in 2018 I
came to Denmark to take a master's in product
development and innovation and as part of my
studies I had the opportunity to study in China
during the summer and as part of that study program
I had to come up with a business idea that would
connect the Nordic countries with the Chinese
market. And when I was doing the trip, I was
also not only staying in China, but I was hopping
between different cities around Asia. And that
whole trip was a pain to plan. Like it took a
long time and I thought like what we are doing
here or what I'm doing as a human which is looking
into big data tables from Google fights and trying
to stitch different routes and find the cheapest
tickets and the cool places to go probably could
be done much better and faster by an algorithm.
So when I was doing this course I basically ran
with this idea in this course of a startup that
would enable Chinese travelers to go to Europe
and hop between different locations. And that
was the start of TripleCom. Initially, I was
thinking that I could assemble a Chinese team
of developers and run things in Europe, having
the Chinese people in China. But unfortunately,
the developers that ended up being in the initial
team, they didn't speak English. So that was
quite a challenge to get things running. Yeah,
it was an issue, yeah. A slight issue. So basically,
what I said was, told myself, okay, this is not
going to work with Chinese developers. I need
to find friends and colleagues that can help
me build these in Europe. And I had a bunch of
friends from Lisbon, from technical, from Nova,
and also from Denmark, very good engineers. I
just grabbed the phone and told them, hey, I
have this idea. I tried this with some Chinese
developers. It didn't work out, would you guys?
like to help me build this open -ended platform
that can create dynamic trips from anywhere to
anywhere. And that was the starting point, was
basically this relatively small group of five
other people besides me, all software engineers
working, then COVID came working on this project
in our homes during our free time. And then it
started gaining size and the engine getting better
and better. which led us to quit our jobs and
start for time on the company. Interesting. Were
you in Lisbon at the time or you were back in
Denmark? No, I was back in Denmark. I started
this project at the end of my first year of master's
education and I was running with it for the Covid
year, basically in 2020. and then I started working
for the university in Denmark as a research assistant
doing something totally different with com site
materials research lecturing students but still
keeping basically the pep project in a way on
the side with my colleagues and we would have
weekly meetings about trip .com and work slowly
on the project and then it got to a point where
like the engine was giving really good recommendations.
It was also maybe because at that time flight
tickets were very cheap. So the engine like it
could come up with a bunch of combinations and
actually it was like amazing because it was super
affordable. But we felt like the combinations
that were suggested by the engine were pretty
good. So we had something to go crazy basically
at quit our jobs. And that's what we did. Myself
and our CTO Elio, he was working for a startup
in Portugal. He decided also to quit his job.
together with another Danish colleague and we
had no money in the account basically and we
just had the will of creating something that
would enable people to travel much easier and
go to places that they wouldn't be expecting
if it wasn't for our recommendations. I'm assuming
at some stage you went and got some funding to
continue this or you're completely self -funded?
No, no, actually from the starting point, I remember
my first speech about trip .com was in China.
I was pitching to it to a group of investors.
I asked for basically 40 ,000 euros for, I think
it was like a 15 % stake or 25 % stake in the
company. So from the get -go, I was trying to
raise money for the project. We just didn't get
money. So we had to, especially during COVID
times, no one wanted to invest in a travel project.
So we just had to basically bootstrap and do
things by ourselves. When it came to us quitting
our jobs, we were lucky enough that after three
months of quitting our jobs, and basically having
no money in the company by then, that we got
two angel investors from Denmark that said, we
don't really get this engine. We like the team.
We like the fact that you guys are crazy, that
we quit your jobs to do this. We like your big
ambition. So they gave us basically each one
about 40 ,000 euros each one. And we got also
the support of the Danish Innovation Fund, Danish
Pro Fund. So we did what we could call a pre
-sig round of 250 ,000 euros. That was our first
basically capital raise as a startup. Was it
hard to start a company in Denmark overall? Because
for example in the UK I think it's fairly easy
to start a company but how is it like in Denmark?
Well, at the beginning I was a bit lost. It's
very digital Denmark. The system is there actually
to help you so everything should be very easy
but I don't speak Danish or I don't speak almost
anything of Danish so it gets a bit difficult.
By then we had a guy called Jordan that was advising
us in this kind of procedures. So I created the
company and created a holding company, but it
was not done very properly. So he was then able
to fix the things and make it right. But I think
the Danish side is very helpful in anything.
There is plenty of financing opportunities, soft
funding basically. So it's a very friendly environment.
And how, you know, you actually mentioned the
ecosystem. How is the ecosystem over there for
startups? Because everyone knows that, you know,
the taxes are incredibly high. So is it still
the case when it comes to startups? So you actually
have some type of tax deduction or exemption?
Well, a funny fact is that at least for salaries,
taxes are very much in line with what we would
be paying in Portugal. Actually, it's the same.
And with the added benefit that things in Denmark
are just easier. If, for example, as an employee,
I set my monthly wage as 3 ,000 euros, this is
how much I'm going to spend. For Android, it's
3 ,000 euros. Well, in Portugal, you pay 3 ,000
euros, but actually, you are not going to pay
3 ,000 euros. You're going to pay much more because
you have all these hidden taxes. So in that sense,
I think the system is very straightforward. And
at the end of the day, you end up with 45, 50
% almost tax. But if you are being paid 3 ,000
years per month in Portugal, there are going
to be taxed almost 50 % as well when you're looking
to how much money the company is putting and
how much money you get after taxes at the end
of the month. So I quite like the Danish system.
In terms of the startup ecosystem, Denmark is
a place where there is a lot of protections.
So people don't feel stressed. There is never
the pressure to basically what is going to happen
after I graduate or like what happens if I get
out of job. Like I think people have a easier
life and that looks like sometimes, and this
is a generalization on the startup culture, that
many people don't go into startups because like,
why would I do so? why would I risk all the headaches
and uncertainty when I can have a certain life
with a very well -paid job in a big company.
However, I think like in any country that there
is that like 1 % or 2 % of people that are crazy
in a way but also very eager to create their
own things and to just physically build something
from scratch. I do find like that those kind
of things they are incredibly They have an extremely
good education that is very practical in many
things and they excel. And that's why I think
you see many Danish unicorns or some decent Danish
unicorns that have an impact. Interesting. And
do you think that, you know, people over there,
you mentioned they're not very risk prone on
that they actually don't see the point in joining
a startup in the first go. But is the government
trying to change that overall? Like, are they
giving out grants and stuff like that? So basically,
from the Danish government side, you have two
mechanisms. You have the Innovation Fund. The
Innovation Fund, they have basically one reasonably
big program, which is called InnoFounder, where
you are actually paid to be on your own startup.
So you can be paid 3 ,000 euros per month to
be on your own startup. So talk about the Danish
security. They found a way to basically insert
Danish security into the system. no equity, they
will ask you nothing, will be when you're being
subsidized basically by this program. And that
was a program that we got when we started, which
was wonderful for us because it enabled us. We
were a mixture of Portuguese people, Danish people.
It enabled the team all to come together in Denmark.
So we had two people from Portugal that were
under this program, basically being paid by the
company to work on the company, which was really
lovely. And then the second mechanism is the
Danish Growth Fund, which will basically end
out loans with quite favorable conditions for
Danish startups. Of course, you'll need to pay
it back if you don't go bankrupt before that,
but it's quite friendly conditions and they have
been supporting also a lot of companies. But
these are the two main basically supporters,
like when we talk about bigger panning, it's
Innovation Fund and the Growth Fund. It's actually,
it's pretty good. I mean, if you, if you're able
to launch a startup and you're already getting
paid by the government salary, that's actually,
it's a very good deal because in the beginning,
there's never any, any revenue coming in unless
you're extremely likely and actually have an
amazing product market. So it's one of those
moments where you see you are paying almost 50
% tax, but it goes somewhere. It's like the same
with our education. If you study in Denmark,
as a bank you are also going to be paid by the
state and that's about 800 euros per month after
taxes so it's pretty good that you are paid throughout
every month of your education so at least you
see that some of the money is being put to good
use and it's being used to basically people studying
and also to boost your innovation. That makes
sense and tell me tell me about trip. I mean
you guys launched in 2020 We're talking about
this and then we kind of went Off track a little
bit and how how is it going now? Because you're
still up and running So I'm assuming the last
what 44 or five years have been fairly successful.
The website looks amazing. So yet, how is it
going right now? Yeah, thank you. So Just to
close the round conversation, so in 2023, in
the beginning of the year, we raised another
round of 500K euros. That round was with a VC,
so it was more like a bigger round in a way.
We also had angel investors and again, the growth
fund also supporting us. To go back a bit with
what was our initial idea with RIP .com and how
it turned out to be, our initial idea was we
want a place where first the engine knows all
the flights, all the trains if possible, and
a lot of the process data for the whole year.
So it doesn't matter where you are in the world
as a user, the platform should know from now
till the next year what are the different possibilities
for you to travel from any location to any location.
And this has been the first basically cornerstone
for us is have a very complete picture of what
are the possibilities and routes around the world.
And the second cornerstone is with this very
big data set, how can we do smart combinations
that are likely to interest users? So basically
I can grab a flight from Lisbon to Copenhagen
and that flight can cost 200, 300 euros. Is that
a good deal? Is that something that if I push
to Ricardo, is it something that is likely to
interest him? And that has been like our second
big, basically source of headaches and source
of work is how can we have an engine that stitches
different tickets to get rid of accommodation
in a way that is likely to interest users. We
started with this vision. And then I think I
started also realizing it didn't come as part
of the initial pitch, but having algorithms decide
what I'm going to basically digest as a human
is becoming very mainstream. Like back 10 years
ago, I would go to YouTube and I would search
for things. I would search for cat videos. Now
I go to YouTube and the algorithm, I never search
for anything on YouTube. The algorithm is understanding
who I am and suggest me things for me. So that
has become the big goal for 3 .1 is being the
platform that for the travel industry is able
to understand who you are as a consumer and give
you the travel suggestions that are likely to
interest you. So that has become like our main
focus. And because of that, that's why we created
such an open platform where you don't need to
input dates, you don't need to input where you
want to go, any sort of budget or restrictions,
like the platform will just find what is likely
interest to you. Interesting. How are you doing?
I'm assuming there's a lot of machine learning,
a lot of AI also running on the background. How
hard was it to get that started and implemented
from day one, I guess? You need to start in a
simple format, which is very tough in the travel
industry because the main barrier to entrances
is how are you going to get the flight data?
How are you going to get the trains data? Because
there is no single platform where you can just
take that data from and use it. So those were
some of our initial difficulties. It required
basically quite a decent sized team. So we have
basically at the moment like 12 developers working
full time on the project. And this group has
a ton of API integrations. It requires scraping
different sources. It requires taking data from
different companies so that we can build this
very big data set. And when we talk about like
our big data set, we are talking currently about
more than 70 million flights, trains and buses
that every day basically we need to keep updated.
So without exaggerating like in a math we'll
take more than we'll take billions of data points
to update basically this 70 million flights,
trains and buses. So in terms of infrastructure
is quite expensive and there is a lot of groundwork
then to create this very big system. And then
in terms of the recommendation algorithm, it's
kind of this problem where to give good recommendations,
you need customer data, right? And to get customer
data, you need a good product. So at the beginning,
we did a lot of assumptions of what would be
likely to interest people. And we have been replacing
those assumptions by our deep learning model
that is understanding based on our big customer
data, what have been the patterns in terms of
conversion, in terms of what is interesting people
to click to basically. change trips, like all
of these different user behaviors. Interesting.
It's a fascinating marketing ring because there's,
I guess there's been platforms like this for
quite some time, but I don't think they've gone
that deep into what the possibilities are for
the traveling industry, right? I'm thinking,
I don't know, Kayak or something like that, which
I'm sure is one of your competitors. But at the
same time, I don't think they do half of what
you do. So it's quite interesting. Like the industry
is from Atletina, funny way. This idea for trip
.com of having a super travel platform, finding
the nice combinations, being quite open is nothing
new. It has been one of the holy grails in the
travel industry, but it has never been done.
And I think there are two main reasons for it
never have been realized. The first reason is
just barriers to entrance. If you come as a startup,
the amount of developer hours, the amount of
complexity that you'll need to build to create
something like this, it's just crazy. Basically,
we have been working on this for more than three
years. There's still a lot of things to be done.
The second thing is that the industry has been
formatted in a funny way. So you mentioned Kayak,
the Sky Scanners, the Google Flights. They don't
sell flights. They are what is called a meta
-search platform. So what they do is basically
are like a catalog of the different possibilities,
but they never sell those possibilities. who
sells the flights is what is called online travel
agencies like the Booking .com, eDreams and these
all travel platforms with the exception of Booking
.com have generally not been very good at creating
a brand for themselves. What they have been very
good is understand the dynamics of the meta search
and be able to give and bid with flight routes
at the right time at the right price to travelers.
So the dynamic has been you have the anonymous
OTAs, many times, that are giving their flight
content to the MetaSearch, which is the Skyscanners,
the Kayaks, and people go to the MetaSearch,
they buy the cheapest flight in the MetaSearch,
and they really don't care if they are buying
it in trip .com, in eDreams, Opoldo, whatever
is the website, they just care about the cheapest.
So from this second, there is not a lot of incentive
for innovation. So that has been the second problem.
is that the meta search, they just need to basically
be that catalog. They can be a bit open in terms
of catalog, but at the end of the day, they are
paid by the OTAs to send people there. And the
OTAs, their innovation needs to be on being very
good at bidding. And this is a totally different
logic from what we have at Trip .com, where we
actually need to be the ones showcasing things
to the consumer, understanding what is likely
to convert with them without... them doing searches
and then also doing the transactional part of
selling and holding them as customers. I guess
I always like asking this question, which is,
when you're building this and the journey you
have been on, what was the hardest day and how
did you overcome it? Because I'm sure you had
like really, really rough days when you go over
and pass that. Well, it's a good question. You
find a lot of hardship. Still, even though we
passed a lot of years after COVID, travel is
a space where investors are a bit afraid. There
have been a lot of startup failures in this vertical.
So we reached a point in the beginning of 2023
where we had basically zero money in the bank
account. We were not paying ourselves as founders
for quite some time. and things were basically
six months late with our round. And I think that's
the moment where we told ourselves, like, hey,
we are cockroaches. We'll survive anything that
people throw at us or that we need to endure.
And that needs to be sometimes our mentality
as a startup. It's just focus on what you need
to do and don't overthink headaches. Just live
day by day, you know, doing your stuff, aiming
at keeping your focus. as it is, don't disperse,
don't go crazy, and there will be a way. I think
when you have done the maximum you could have
done, then there will always be some way of getting
out of finding a solution. I think that that's
the same principle when we did our first round,
because we could have raised from day one, but
actually that wouldn't be a good outcome. If
we had raised at that valuation when we started
on the first day, it shouldn't be a good outcome.
do the maximum you can, and then good things
will happen. I think when you reach a point where
you say, like, yeah, I've done everything, I
cannot improve anymore, I just need this to happen,
then if you do things right, it will happen.
It will happen. So have a little bit of faith.
And how, you know, on a personal level, how do
you manage those moments? Like, what do you do?
Do you go over to friends, family? I mean, what
works for you? Good question. I think it's just
you have a lot of moments where you think why
am I doing this and is it all worth it but I'm
very focused on work and if I have something
to do I want to do it so just like I set myself
to do this I'm going to do it doesn't matter
what is thrown what happens like we'll give it
a try and sometimes just out of stubbornness
like you have said I'm going to do it so you
need to do it basically that's that's like it
has been your goal from the beginning so don't
give up on it, so that's sometimes the driver.
I get the stubbornness. I think every founder
needs to be incredibly stubborn. Needs to listen,
but also be incredibly stubborn, because you're
going to get a lot of noses. You need to be able
to say, you know what, I'm still going to push
ahead with this, because I feel like doing it.
The amount of people that have told us this is
ridiculous already. It's not going to work. Even
people from the industry are saying, this doesn't
make any sense. It's going to be impossible to
build such an engine. How are you going to get
the data? Like, do you know what you're getting
yourself into? And you'll need to have that stubbornness.
Like, if you actually done your homework and
you think this is going to work, then you also
will need to be a bit stubborn and ignore the
noise. Yeah, I think that's always the trickiest
thing. You know, I talk with a lot of founders
and investors and one of the key things that...
is at least for investors, I always say is I
always look at the team first, not so much the
idea. I look at the team because they might be
on to the wrong path. But if they have the right
attitude, they're going to be able to pivot.
And then when you talk with a founder, the ones
that are normally very successful, the ones that
started with one idea and end up with a completely
different idea, but they've grown so much in
that process that they actually made them who
they are. And that's a person you want to invest
in. But it's 100 % a journey. It's very hard,
isn't it? Yeah, and you also need to balance
very well you being stubborn because you need
to be stubborn sometimes but also being able
to hear what others have to say because sometimes
you are not right you are totally wrong so you
need to also balance that and I think a big problem
that I've seen with startups and with founders
that if they get a bunch of things right then
they think they are the the holy grail of startup
founders. And then that totally destroys the
company because then people start having egos,
like, oh, I'm the visionary. I know so much about
this. So I'm right and I'm going to be stubborn.
So it's, I think be stubborn about some of your
initial ideas. If you think it's going to work
as a founding team, be stubborn about it. There
are so many internal decisions and things going
on where you also cannot be stubborn. So it's
a very delicate balance. When you're talking
with investors, what do they normally say in
terms of the progress you guys have made and
the way they see the market? Are they super excited
about it or on the contrary, they keep on throwing
objection after objection? It depends a lot.
I think there are investors that will never be
satisfied. We had a lot of investors back in
the day saying, get to 20K MRR and then we'll
talk. We have long surpassed that. But if I come
to them right now with our MRR, which is much,
much bigger than what they were asking, they
will always find an excuse to say, well, actually
great progress, but there is going to be something.
With investors, I think the ones that work with
us have been the uncomplicated ones. The ones
that say, I like this, I would like to go for
it. So that's the best investor that you can
have is someone that gets to know you as a person,
get to know the team and say, yeah, I feel good
about this. I want to do it. Now, how do you
reach out to those investors? Because that's
always a tricky thing, I think. Is there a magical
formula you found and no one else has found?
Well, the first investor was super random because
we were walking on this... started fair in Denmark.
And there's this very tall guy that looks into
me and another Portuguese colleague and is saying
like, oh, funny t -shirts. And how did you get
a Dritnall Colm name? And we start telling him
the story and we go for a beer and the whole
thing happens from there. So it's totally random,
but we have to be at that point that that started
fair. So we have to basically leave the basement
in a way and be out there on an event. Sometimes
it's like this, other times, like for example,
one of our now is our chairman, a very good advisor.
It was just LinkedIn writing saying, hey, I know
that you are an authority in this industry. I
would love to meet you and talk about this idea.
So it's just outreach and I mean, there are 10
billion people in the world. You'll always find
someone that has a time at least to hear you
and that will find you someone or give you some
nice advice. You know in I'm thinking about your
customers like all the trips they've done and
all that Did they normally get back to you and
say thank you? I really obviously you always
have feedback on the website But they actually
say you know this trip has changed my life and
stuff like that Yeah, we get that and it's like
it's like Consumer is like a roller coaster emotions
when they you can be like feeling shit because
you have this Person that is so difficult to
deal with like it's like this four -year -old
on a adult body, just being such a pain. But
then the next time you have someone being so
wonderful and saying, be a strip, I love your
platform. And if you go to our trust palette,
for example, and start seeing the reviews, sometimes
you start feeling quite good with what we have
built because people can be very, very nice as
well. Nice. On the journey, you've been yourself.
What advice, I don't know, the top three things
you would advise someone who's just getting started,
who would that be? As a startup founder, what
are the top three things you'd say, you know
what, do this and do that? So I think the first
question that you need to answer yourself is
do you want to build something that makes you
some money or do you want to create something
that is really big? And if you want to create
like something that is we could say unicorn potential
as a startup, then you'll have a lot of hard
work. There is no easy way. You have so many
people thinking about what can be the next thing.
If it was that easy, other people would have
done it. So you need to answer very well as an
individual, how am I going to pull this off and
why that others haven't been able to come up
with? If you're going for a big shot. You can
also go for like a small shot and like you can
use a large language model and create some nice
thing that makes you so many, but for me it's
not like a startup per se because it's not like
the big shot, it's not the big dream. If you
want to go for the big shot you need to answer
why and are you really willing also to put to
work the crazy work for you to be able to build
this because it's not going to come easy. And
the second one is like no excuses. I hear so
many people saying, oh, I don't know how to code.
I don't know how to do this. How many million
students are around you, like in Europe, that
are very willing to build something together
with other students? Like a ton of them. And
you can find a ton of qualified people that just
want to get some experience. And if you don't
have a big ego and you actually are reasonable
to deal with, you'll find a lot of people, and
you can build a great team that can build anything
that you want to imagine. So I think there's
no excuses from the personal side. Oh, I need
money to raise money to outsource some developers.
Like, fuck off. You should be doing this in home.
You should be doing it properly with your own
team. So this would be my second advice. Well,
the third one, I think I already talked with
a lot, so maybe these two advices are good enough.
Okay, I got an interesting question, which is,
what was your favorite trip so far? Good question.
I think this one, I'm right now in China, so
this one was pretty lit. We basically went from
Copenhagen to Vienna, Vienna to Abu Dhabi, Abu
Dhabi to a city I forgot the name in Uzbekistan.
then traveled in three cities in Uzbekistan,
went to Kazakhstan, grabbed a bus to the land
border in China, visited like four cities in
the north of China, and now we are in Xian. So
that's a cool trip. But we have done many trips,
like trip .com style, and also created by trip
.com, that are very centered on this hopping
concept of like, I don't want to stay 15 days
in the same place, I want to be hopping, exploring
different places. So we have like a plethora
of adventures and crazy situations from these
kind of trips. In a way, now a completely different
topic, which is what's the best advice you can
give for someone going on such a trip? So nothing
to do with business, but just like what advice
would you actually give them? Thistrip .com.
I guess when you're actually on the trip, what
advice would you give them? That's the thing
is that I hate planning. That's why I created
triple calm if I would either have trail of conduit
or ask my wife to Like 10 things in the in the
location for me Just like I bring everything
in one backpack Because that's what allows me
to to travel for trip in low -cost carriers and
believe me You can fit everything for one month
two months in a backpack So that would be my
advice for you. Just if you want to save bring
it back back and that's it Okay, I think we should
do a YouTube video just with you packing your
bag so people can actually see how that works.
Because I know a lot of people that go on trip
days and they bring the whole house with them.
We have customers like this, they need like 60
kilos of luggage to bring like the stuff for
their three -day trip and just think, that doesn't
compute to me. Yeah, that's hard to do. André,
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