Travel Tech Essentialist #100: Turning 100

After 100 editions of the newsletter, thisI wanted to give an overview of what Travel Tech Essentialist is and the new directions I’ve been pulled into as a result of it.

First of all, who is behind Travel Tech Essentialist? Technically speaking, just me. But it is thanks to all of you that the newsletter has consistently expanded its reach. And thanks to your input, I’ve identified new opportunities and launched new products to try to address them: Talent Network, Interactive Datasets, and Travel Investor Network. Here’s a brief overview of these 4 initiatives.

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This week’s newsletter is sponsored by

“We love the focus on quality and experience. Pattern’s solution aligns with BookOutdoors’ goal of making outdoor experiences easy to book.” In Pattern’s latest blog, “Pattern Insurance makes it easy for BookOutdoors to offer innovative outdoor experience protections” CEO Meitav Harpaz sheds light on the new partnership and confidence it gives customers to holiday outside.

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1. Travel Tech Essentialist newsletter

I sent the first newsletter on May 30th, 2019, to a whopping 86 subscribers. Throughout the past 3.5 years, I’ve been refining what the newsletter is about and have come to realize that its value is as much in what it includes as what it excludes.

The newsletter has subscribers from 65 countries, the most represented being the USA, Spain, UK, Germany and France. By continent: Europe 55%, Americas 35%, Rest of the World 10%.

Subscribers are entrepreneurs and executives who work in the travel ecosystem:
- Startups: 34%
- Scale-ups: 23%
- Large companies: 21%
- Small and Medium Enterprises: 16%
- Venture Capital, Private Equity, Angels, Family Offices: 6%

The 45th edition on January 1, 2021, was the first time I had a newsletter sponsor. Shout out to my first three sponsors, Google, xCheck (later acquired by FLYR Labs) and Nethone. All 55 editions since then have had a sponsor. I give my utmost appreciation to every one of the sponsors who have trusted Travel Tech Essentialist :-)

👀 By the way, 2022 sponsorship slots were sold out in June 2022, and 2023 sponsorships are almost sold out. The next availability is April 6, 2023, and only 11 remaining slots are available in 2023. If you are interested in sponsoring one or more newsletters, please complete this very short form at your earliest convenience.

The growth of this newsletter has been 100% organic. I appreciate your help in spreading the word by recommending this newsletter to your friends and colleagues. This is what allows Travel Tech Essentialist to keep on moving forward.

“I would like to say a big THANK YOU for your newsletter! I have been reading it for the last 3 years (since #10!) and I'm always enthusiastic about opening it. I have to say I'm extremely demanding at content reading. It should not waste my time and I have to say that your content is always captivating; I'm never disappointed! To be honest, you are the only newsletter I'm really following. You cover diverse topics but it's always relevant. And it's not just about content but also about your format; you get the exact balance between being concise and still explaining the topics properly. Sincerely, I have never seen content having such a quality, and I would like to deeply thank you for freely offering it to me!” - Clément HUGON, Tech cofounder at Kombo

2. Job Board and Talent Collective - Connecting Talent with Opportunity

As a result of the newsletter, I was approached by great professionals and companies looking for each other. I made some one-off matchmaking, but wanted a better way of connecting hiring companies and talent.

I started with a job board, which I launched in May 2021. Since then, 1250 jobs have been posted by 70 companies. The job board has had a total of 15,600 unique visitors, with 3018 clicks on jobs and 210 job applications.

Over a year later, in July 2022, I launched Travel Tech Essentialist Talent Collective, a reverse-job board where top companies apply to candidates and candidates are guaranteed to be seen by hiring companies. It’s as if your candidacy makes it to the top of the hiring manager’s pile. The goal was, and continues to be, to make this the best place to hire high-caliber travel tech talent worldwide.

A few weeks ago, I merged the job board (companies pushing jobs) and the Talent Collective (companies pulling candidates) to maximize the effectiveness of connecting candidates with companies. The new name is Talent Network.

On the 1st and the 15th of every month, I send a new “drop” of candidates to more than 20 companies that have signed up to get instant access to a curated list of candidates open to new opportunities.

There are now more than 100 active candidates in the Talent Network whose quality has exceeded my expectations. They are among the best professionals with deep functional experience in sales, partnerships, business development, growth, data science, design, and engineering from some of the best travel companies in the world.

A bit more about these candidates:

• Top 5 main functional expertise. Business Development, Partnerships, Sales: 33%. Operations (sales, revenue, business): 27%. Product/Project Management: 15%. Marketing/Growth: 9%. Data & Analytics: 4%. Other (Design, UX/UI, Engineering, Customer Success, HR, Content…): 12%

• Candidates located in 34 countries. Europe: 53%. USA + Canada: 28%. Latin America: 7%. Asia: 7%. Rest of the world: 5%

• Candidates experience. Expert (9+ years): 59%. Senior (5 - 8 years): 23%. Mid-level (3 - 4 years): 8%. Junior (1 - 2 years): 10%

→ For candidates looking for new opportunities: sign up (for free) and get warm introductions to over 20 companies that are looking to hire today.

→ For companies: If you’re hiring, join now to meet 100+ world-class hand-curated talent with deep functional experience in the travel sector. ***Use coupon Talent100, and for only $90, you will have 1-month access to the Collective AND you can add 3 job posts to the job board***

Access the Talent Network (use coupon Talent100)

“This is the best hiring platform for travel companies out there. Xeni has been a customer of 'Travel Tech Essentialist Talent Collective' for a few months and won't even consider changing. Our initial set-up was seamless, and we made our first significant hire with Talent collective. All the candidates listed here are legit and vetted. Thank you very much, Mauricio, for making this happen for a small start-up like ours.” - Sachin Narode, CEO of Xeni 

3. Interactive Datasets - Search Less, Find More.

In October 2021, I launched two interactive datasets to allow you to search less and find more: a Startups & Investors dataset and a Research & Insights dataset. You can read below a bit more about each dataset. This is the post I wrote back in October 2021: Better Search, Better Curation.

Startups & Investors interactive dataset
Updated weekly, this dataset consists of 968 (and growing) travel startups from 76 countries and 347 cities that have received a total funding of $47 billion from 2192 VCs and angels in the last 5 years. The startups are categorized into 9 macro categories and 294 micro categories.

Access both datasets for $90 with this link

Research & Insights interactive dataset
A weekly updated dataset with 1433 travel articles and reports, 450 categories and 1065 companies to easily search, find and discover relevant content. Think of it as a categorized search engine for quality and curated travel content.  If you’re looking for a specific article, researching topics or companies, or just browsing for something inspiring on a topic of interest to you, this is the best place to start. Also, it’s great for serendipitous discoveries.

💣If you’re interested in accessing the datasets, use this link to get both datasets for a special price of $145.

I just subscribed to both the datasets & I feel it was the best $135 I ever spent. Just the 1st insight I came across on ancillary revenue would probably save me so much time in research as I am building my pitch for the next fundraise. Thank you so much for putting this together. Looking forward to more stellar stuff like this. — Ankit Sawant, Cofounder and CEO, OnArrival

4. Travel Investor Network - Connecting Startups with Investors

Due to my involvement in the travel ecosystem for 20+ years in Europe, USA and Latam, I get a significant flow of incoming requests from startups to get introduced to potential investors, as well as from investors looking for great companies to invest in. On October 1st 2022, I launched Travel Investor Network to help both parties connect directly in a more scalable way rather than me being in the middle of the conversation :-)

Travel Investor Network (TIN) is a private platform for investors and innovators in travel, hospitality, and mobility.  Since I launched TIN in October, 22 select and high-caliber organizations (VCs, Corporates, Family Offices, Angels) have joined.

In the first two cohorts (October and November), I’ve recommended a total of 40 travel, hospitality and mobility startups from 15 countries.

→ If you are a startup looking to raise a round (from pre-seed to Series D),  maybe I can help. Please start by completing this form.

→ If you are an investor interested in joining the Travel Investor Network, please complete this form.

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Based on your input, I’ve launched new initiatives that I think deliver real value to the travel ecosystem. Please continue to reach out to me to let me know of new opportunities that you’d like me to explore. Your input serves as a pull for me, and if it feels like an interesting opportunity and something worth working on, I will double down on that pull.

At eDreams, success was defined by going big. With Travel Tech Essentialist, success is defined by going niche. I’m building a one-person business that seeks to add value to thousands - not millions-.

Thanks again for your support. I will continue to work hard to earn a few minutes of your attention every 2 weeks,

Mauricio