Building an Online Travel Company From Barcelona: Guillermo Gaspart, CEO of ByHours (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about what happens after you’ve covered all of Spain. Is there any other strategic move that you made that is worth discussing?

Guillermo Gaspart: Yes. At the beginning, we were really focused on the product and on the technology. We were investing a lot of money just to improve this technology both from the user side and from the hotel side.

But after that, in 2015, we did another fund raising process with international investors. The challenge at that time was to go out outside of Spain. The first country that we moved outside of Spain was Germany.

Sramana Mira: When did you start Germany? What year was that?

Guillermo Gaspart: We started that at the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016, more or less. Normally when we start a new country, we first get the supply or the number of hotels. Once we have a minimum number of hotels in the main cities of the country, we start to invest in marketing to acquire users in this new market.

Sramana Mitra: How many countries are you in now?

Guillermo Gaspart: Now, we’re in more than 25 countries – in all of Europe, all of Latin America, and Middle East.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. What is behind that strategy? I understand Europe is your home ground. Why Latin America?

Guillermo Gaspart: Europe is clear. Definitely the most important continent for us is the States. But we also know that you can’t fail in opening in the States. That’s why we decided to move to Latin America first to prepare the technology – to be more ready and to prepare the team to test even more. Right now, we’re ready. In 2019, we want to open in the States.

Sramana Mitra: What are the metrics right now? How many hotels? How many hotel rooms? How many users? Whatever metrics you’re comfortable divulging.

Guillermo Gaspart: We’re close to a little bit more than 3,000 hotels in more than 25 countries. We have sold more than 1 million hours. We have more than 220,000 unique users.

We have a lot of different KPIs. It’s different in the markets. In Spain, for example, we’re profitable right now because it’s still the main market. We’re growing really fast.

Sramana Mitra: How much money have you raised to get to this point?

Guillermo Gaspart: We have raised €8 million. We’re really close to a new fundraising process. Maybe around €8 million for the new strategy to open in the States and also to increase our business in the market.

Sramana Mitra: Your revenue is in what range right now?

Guillermo Gaspart: In 2018, we were at €5.4 million. During 2019, the business plan will be close to €15 million. We want to be more aggressive from the marketing side.

Sramana Mitra: So, your forecast for 2019 is based on opening the States. The funding that you’re doing with the last round and in this round, is this from European investors?

Guillermo Gaspart: Yes. Until right now, we have few European investors and some small business angels from Abu Dhabi. This new round will be covered probably by four Mexican investors.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Building an Online Travel Company From Barcelona: Guillermo Gaspart, CEO of ByHours
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