Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 4)

SM: Let’s discuss the competitive landscape. What was it like when you started and what is it like now? SH: The market has evolved quite a bit but not as much as we expected it to. Initially the only competition came from two companies. One was called FareChase and they did not have a consumer

Read Full Article »

Serial Entrepreneurs

I want to turn the spotlight on serial entrepreneurs, and open a discussion on what drives them, and if you want to become a serial entrepreneur, what can you learn from the lives, careers and choices of other successful serial entrepreneurs.

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 3)

SM: When did you launch the service? SH: It was October 2004. SM: Can you give us an idea as to what kind of ramp you saw in terms of traffic building and adoption? The vertical search concept was still new in 2004. SH: There had been folks who tried to do it in the

Read Full Article »

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 2)

SM: What gave you the idea for Kayak? SH: Orbitz was a great company, but it never fulfilled on its original mission which was to help consumers find great airline and hotel deals. The reason it did not fulfill it’s original mission is because we could not convince every airline, hotel, and rental car company

Read Full Article »

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 1)

I have written endlessly about the verticalization of the web, and the rise of vertical search engines, vertical ad networks, and the threat they pose to Google. I have also featured Kayak in the Deal Radar series earlier, and here, I speak with their CEO for a comprehensive discussion on Kayak’s strategy.

Microsoft’s Shopping List

Let Yahoo deal with its mess, Microsoft should go cold turkey on them for a year now, and let Jerry Yang get fired for failing to create shareholder value. A far more interesting question looms on the Microsoft side. What is Microsoft’s Internet strategy going forward?

Deal Radar 2008: Yatra

Yatra is a travel company which provides availability and booking facilities for air travel, hotels, buses and car rentals worldwide. Besides its strong online presence, Yatra also offers its services through mobile phone and retail mediums. Founded by Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra in 2006, the company currently is based in 10 cities

Read Full Article »

Travel Ad Network Raises Series A

Travel Ad Network (TAN), the largest vertical ad network in travel, just closed a $15 million Series A round of financing led by Rho Ventures, Village Ventures and individual investors. And what a Series A it is! $50-$75 Million valuation, estimated in my deal radar post and commensurate with the trends in the industry set

Read Full Article »