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How booking.com's business travel gap sparked a unicorn startup idea

Ron Levin, Managing Partner at Alumni Ventures on Riding Unicorns · The USA's most active investor with Ron Levin, Managing...

“We knew how many people were using booking.com to make business bookings even though the platform was really built primarily for consumers.”

4:46 / 5:07

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And we kind of put our heads together, and we saw an opportunity around solving business travel. We knew how many people were using booking.com to make business bookings even though the platform was really built primarily for consumers. And we saw a lot of other opportunities within that business travel space. So we decided to come together and start a company called TravelPerk that was around 2014,

About this clip

Ron Levin explains how he and his co-founders identified a market opportunity by recognizing that business travelers were using booking.com despite it being designed for consumers. This insight led them to launch TravelPerk in 2014, targeting the underserved business travel market with a purpose-built solution.

Why this clip

This reveals the specific market insight and founding moment behind TravelPerk, showing how observing user behavior mismatches can lead to startup opportunities.

4:46 - 5:0721sfounder story
opportunity-identificationbusiness-travelmarket-gaps

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What they said next

I had a lot of ideas in the early Internet when people were just initiating the first eBay, the first Amazon. I had a lot of them that were great and ahead of their time, but you just don't know what you don't know. I wish I had maybe a little bit more technical skills.

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I had a lot of ideas in the early Internet when people were just initiating the first eBay, the first Amazon. I had a lot of them that were great and ahead of their time, but you just don't know what you don't know. I wish I had maybe a little bit more technical skills.

The regret of missing early internet opportunities resonates with many who lived through that era. The admission about lacking technical skills while having good business ideas highlights a common founder challenge. The 'you don't know what you don't know' insight is broadly applicable wisdom.

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