9: Strategic Capital Can Define Success or Failure w/ Whereto’s Ryan Wenger
Build With Rob
Rob Dyrdek
5.0 • 636 Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ryan wanted to create a unique travel app that let you enter dates and an amount of money, and it returned all of your options globally. Rob was enamored with the idea and quickly signed on, but a call from a Fortune 10 company changed everything, making the pivot to enterprise travel too good to pass up. But now the entire board was out of their depth, so they needed to bring on capital partners who knew the enterprise travel and SaaS industries. That smart money led to even smarter money, and eventually to an exit, even in the darkest days of the pandemic. All money is green, but not all of it has the same value.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Build with Rob. I am Rob Deirdick CEO and founder of the Deirdick Machine, a one-of-a-kind venture creation studio. |
| 0:11.3 | We are a company that creates companies by systematically fusing art, science, and magic through a process we call the machine method. |
| 0:24.5 | The art is the creative vision and the constant shaping and refinement of an idea. The science is the proven methods and time-tested fundamentals |
| 0:31.5 | of business. The magic is the intangible, universal luck that provides an unexplainable push towards |
| 0:39.1 | success. Each guest on this show is one of my do-or-dire partners and co-founders. This show is |
| 0:46.0 | an inside look at all the companies that we've created in the lessons we have learned along |
| 0:51.5 | the journey. Today's episode, we have Ryan Wanger, the Wangstar, founder and CEO of Where2. |
| 1:01.2 | Where2 is an enterprise travel booking software company that was acquired by Flight |
| 1:06.4 | Center Travel Group, one of the world's largest travel agencies. |
| 1:12.7 | Where2 began as this crazy white space consumer travel app and morphed into this enterprise software. Ryan is someone who had a |
| 1:19.7 | great idea but had zero knowledge of the travel industry, software development, or anything |
| 1:24.7 | else involved in bringing an idea like this to life. |
| 1:28.1 | But he had the grit, the determination, and the other crucial do-er-dire qualities that drove him to succeed anyway. |
| 1:36.7 | The story of where too really underscores the importance of strategic capital. |
| 1:41.7 | All investor money is green, but not all investor money has the same value. The right strategic capital. All investor money is green, but not all investor money has the same value. |
| 1:47.1 | The right strategic capital at the right time can often make the difference in a company |
| 1:52.4 | succeeding or failing. Ryan Wagner, welcome to build with Rob, the Wangstar. I mean, where do you get that type of nickname? |
| 2:03.0 | Well, Gangstar changed my life in 11th grade. |
| 2:06.6 | You're trying to tell me the Wangstar goes all the way back to Gangstar. |
| 2:10.9 | Well, it wasn't until Instagram was, you know, that I needed a handle that was obscure |
| 2:14.9 | relatively, that I realized it was a good segue to my last name |
| 2:18.7 | of Wenger. Okay, okay. Let me describe you in do-or-dier terms. I refer to you as a rebel do-er-dier |
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