I thought I shouldn’t mention these stories because it makes us look like such idiots but somehow I thought it would be great to get them out in the open. Hopefully it can bring some closure.

Buying a company in Riga.

Some years ago we were approached by travelport to “make something” in The Baltic’s. I went over to Riga a dark winter night. There was this type of investment firm that had invested in just about everything. They had originally made their money on alcohol, which I must say is a safe bet in a country like that. This company owned a small high street agency that we could use as a springboard for fulfilment in the Baltics. We had a dinner and talked about how to make a deal. I thought "what the hey, did I travel all this way for nothing? Lets just buy the company. "Later we signed a LOI and had a law firm to make a due diligence. My Swedish colleagues went over and had a different idea and stopped the project. Lesson learned: Don’t do a deal just to justify a trip.

Launch in Latvia

A year later Travelport, approached us again, about a possible j/v in Latvia. We met and agreed that there were things we could do. We set up all formalities and launched with a huge press release at the swankiest hotel Latvia. The bookings never took off the way we wanted and we closed it down after about a year. Lesson learned: watch out for joint ventures they seldom works

Buying a guest house in Cape Town

In 2006 we started to bring down Swedish staff to Cape Town to manage Scandinavia customers. We needed a central place were we could place the staff. In the process we found that it was actually a lot cheaper to keep the guesthouse running as a separate entity. We kept it for a year and then decided to sell. We are not a real estate company. This was one of several mistakes we actually made money on. Funny how that works. Lesson learned: If you buy a hotel at least buy a big one.

Venturing into technology.

It was always our idea to monetize on the technology we had built. So in 2008 our technology company TravelLab launched a web based online travel solution to be licensed to third parties called Xstart. We had worked with the whole project for about a year. Just after launch I realized that there were some critical elements simply not working. I shelved the project until I got a proper organization together. To bad with some 20 premium customer signed up.

We also invested heavily into another tech project that was constantly postponed, until I got tired of promises and fired the team and scrapped the project. Lesson learned: never trust a developer in business decisions

Buying Cape Town Pass.

Some years ago we had an idea to venture out into new areas like incoming. We acquired a small start up called Cape Town Pass and wanted to turn the business model around. It was too complicated besides it was too much work. We used the tax benefits in the company and closed it down. Lessons learned: there’s always something on a bone that you can chew on.

Building a design studio – Irrational Studios

Being high on design and creative people we tried to build a design studio called Irrational Studios some year’s back. Paying customers got higher priority than Travelstart and that didn’t really gel with what we wanted to do. Close down. Lessons learned: Focus man.

 

Well there are at least 20 more of these. Let’s see if I’m bold enough to tell them some day