Travel Tech Essentialist #97: Words
Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read. – Leo Burnett
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1. Is a picture worth a thousand words? Not in this campaign, which shows the power of copywriting
The new British Airways ad campaign captures the wonder of travel with no visuals whatsoever, just simple and evocative copy lines. The campaign consists of 500 unique print, digital and outdoor ads for this campaign. Here are a few.
2. How AI copywriters are changing SEO
AI-generated copy is being used to produce SEO-driven content at scale. Chris Tweten (CMO at Spacebar Collective, a SEO agency) writes about how the widespread adoption of AI tools like Jasper and CopyAI is sparking new questions: How do AI copywriters stack up against human writers? How is the increased use of AI writing tools impacting SEO and search results? How can companies and creators intelligently use this AI revolution to their advantage? Read + Future.
3. AI-generated copywriting in action
I went to CopyAI and requested to have a blog post written on “How AI copywriters are changing travel SEO.” 10 seconds after I submitted my request, and less than 1 minute after I landed on CopyAI, I got my blog post. I have to say…very impressive and far exceeded my expectations. You can read it here.
4. Culture and brands
Toby Shorin recently published an essay that took him 6 years to write. Life After Lifestyle describes how brands integrate themselves into the cultural landscape. He writes about the implications of the Direct To Consumer brand overload of the 2010s and how we respond to the designed cultures and connected cults of today’s brands. It’s not a light read, and it’s 10,000 words long, so take your time. A 60-word extract: The Lifestyle era was not about creating culture; it was about attaching brands onto existing cultural contexts. It was not about shaping people; it was about sorting consumer demographics into niche categories. The new order we are entering into reverses this. For some organizations, culture has become the product itself, and products have become secondary, auxiliary, to the production of culture.
5. Quitting is a skill we need to get better at
Annie Duke is a First Round VC Partner for Decision Science. In this interview, she goes over the psychology behind why it’s so hard to quit and walk away. She highlights the cognitive biases to be aware of, from how identity can become enmeshed in company-building, to sunk cost fallacy, to the common tendency to make incremental changes instead of taking more drastic measures. She also provides some tactical advice on how founders can address these cognitive challenges and make the right difficult decisions.
6. Fundraising when capital becomes more expensive
In normal market conditions, investors use contract terms (liquidation preferences > 1x, warrants, anti-dilution clauses) less frequently to invest at the valuation a founder wants, but with terms that make sense for the investor. In a down market, when capital is more expensive and valuations are down, “structured deals” (deals with non-standard clauses) become more common as founders look for ways to avoid a down round. Andreessen Horowitz wrote a post to help startups better understand the different contract terms used to increase headline valuation, how investors think of and use those terms and the impacts that founders need to take into account, especially on equity dilution, before signing the round. Read + a16z.
7. Down Rounds: Deal With Reality
Brad Feld (VC at Foundry Group )recommends that when you have a choice between financing at a lower valuation and financing “with all kinds of crazy structure” to try to maintain a previous valuation, negotiate the best price you can but do a clean financing with no structure. Read + Brad Feld.
8. Selina goes public
Selina debuted as a public company following its merger with a SPAC. Selina is one of the world’s largest hospitality brands built to address the needs of Millennial and Gen Z travelers. It is positioned to address a growing market with niche preferences, blending designed accommodations with coworking, recreation, wellness, and local experiences. You can see their investor deck here.
9. The most downloaded OTA apps in the first half of 2022
10. Fundraising and M&A
Payments technology company ConnexPay announced a $110 million growth equity investment led by FTV Capital. The funding will help the Atlanta-based company to expand in Europe. Its technology integrates both sides of the payment ecosystem - accepting and making payments - inside a single platform.
Vacation rental company Holidu closed a €100 million Series E financing round led by 83North.
Real-time charter bus marketplace CharterUP raised $60 million Series A led by Tritium Partners to reinforce its $150 million ARR and accelerate aggressive national expansion and product development.
Hotel tech company Canary Technologies closed a $30 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with continued participation from F-Prime Capital, Y-Combinator and Thayer Ventures. Its platform is used by thousands of hotels in more than 75 countries, and offers an array of products.
WeTravel raised $27 million in Series B. The company is a booking & payments platform for multi-day travel used by 3000+ companies to accept payments instantly, manage bookings, and transfer funds globally.
Lodging e-commerce solutions provider RootRez raised $1.8 million in seed funding for expansion. Founded in 2015 as the booking engine and lodging service provider for the Sundance Film Festival, RootRez has grown to serve 50+ cities in North America.
Months after raising a $30 million Series A round, Amenitiz acquired Ododo, a French leader in online hotel training. Amenitiz is a Barcelona-based startup that provides an operating system for independent hoteliers.
Travel Investor Network
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Thank you and have a great rest of the week,
Mauricio
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