20VC: Trivago Founder on Why Incumbents Have Lost Their Main Business Model, Why You Have To Destroy Everything Ego Related & Why Transparency Is The Key To Capital Flow
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2017
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rolf Schrömgens is the Co-Founder and Managing Director @ Trivago, the world's top hotel price comparison site. In 2012, Expedia acquired 62% of Trivago for $531m and in Dec 2016, Trivago raised $287m through their IPO on the NASDAQ. As for Rolf, he has been a serial entrepreneur since 1999 when he founded Amiro.de, later merged with Ciao.com. At Ciao, Rolf successfully led the product launch of the company in his role as Director of Strategy and Product Development.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Rolf made his way into the world of startups and came to found Trivago?
2.) Having had one of Europe's best-funded startups with Ciao, what is Rolf's take on the number of startups taking large amounts of VC money today? What advice would Rolf give to those contemplating a more lean approach vs attaining large amounts of VC money?
3.) Why does Rolf believe transparency is so key for the flow of capital within a market? What can founders do to engender this basis of trust between the capital sources and them?
4.) Why does Rolf think it is unthinkable that the incumbents of today will survive the wave of disruption? Why does Rolf question their ability to a consolidator market environment?
5.) Why does Rolf think it is so important to destroy everything that is ego related? What are the dangers of ego in the company building process? How does Rolf look to stamp this out without damaging culture and internal morale?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Rolf’s Fave Book: How To Create A Mind by Ray Kurzweil
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20-minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H. Stebbings on Snapchat, and today, |
| 0:04.8 | my word, do we have a special episode for you this Founders Friday. So normally, we have a found |
| 0:09.1 | in the trenches in the fundraising process. But today, we have something slightly different, as I'm |
| 0:13.5 | thrilled to welcome Rolf Schrumgen's co-founder and managing director at Trevago to the show today. For those that don't know, Travago is the world's top |
| 0:20.9 | hotel price comparison site. In 2012, Expedia acquired 62% of Travago for $531 million, and in |
| 0:28.3 | December 2016, Travago raised $287 million through their IPO on the NASDAQ. As for Rolf, he's been a |
| 0:34.9 | serial entrepreneur since 1999 when he founded Amiro, later merged with chow.com. |
| 0:39.9 | At Chow, Rolf successfully led the product launch of the company in his role as director of strategy and product roadmap. |
| 0:45.7 | But before we head into the episode today, a lot of people ask me, Harry, you do so many calls and interviews, but what do you use? |
| 0:51.9 | My response? |
| 0:53.0 | Zoom. |
| 0:53.6 | The number one video and web |
| 0:54.9 | conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to an |
| 0:59.2 | array of activities, including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration enabled conference rooms |
| 1:04.8 | and business I am, just to name a few. And it's the easiest solution to use, buy and scale, |
| 1:09.9 | and for sure, the most straightforward pricing. But hey, buy and scale, and for sure the most straightforward |
| 1:11.2 | pricing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Their partnership with Sequoy in their latest |
| 1:15.7 | 100 million funding around says it all. Zoom really is a must-checkout for your business. |
| 1:19.8 | I cannot emphasize that enough, and you can find them at zoom.us. Speaking of video, though, |
| 1:24.2 | to power your company there with Zoom, you must check out VoodDit. |
| 1:27.8 | Vood It is a free video recording tool that makes it easy for organizations to embrace the power of video for personalized communications. |
| 1:34.6 | Vood it enables sales professionals, executive leaders and customer support teams to easily record personalized videos and add them to their email conversations. |
... |
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