1Mby1M Deal Radar 2011: PhoCusWright, New York And Connecticut

As long as the world has people who can afford to support it, the travel and tourism industry will continue to exist. The industry experienced a decline, understandably, after September 11, 2001. Travel declined again when the recession started in 2007, and an increasing number of people found themselves either unemployed or underemployed, practices like

Read Full Article »

Google Enters Vertical Search With Travel

Something really major happened today. The New York Times reports: “Google has acquired ITA software, a 14-year-old company that makes software that organizes flight and pricing information, for $700 million in cash. ITA, based in Boston, specializes in organizing airline data, including flight times, seat availability and pricing.”

Deal Radar 2009: InXpo

As discussed in an earlier post, overall travel demand is expected to fall 11% in the year. The biggest impact will likely be on corporate travel, where budgets are expected to be down 15%. While the current quarter’s trends might suggest that demand is bottoming out, there is no denying that businesses are still restricting

Read Full Article »

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 6)

SM: When you hired people, did they have equity in the company? JJ: Yes, that was one way to entice people to join us.

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 5)

SM: You had to be cash flow positive for the majority of your business, correct? When did you start breaking even? JJ: It is easy to break even when you are not paying yourself anything. It was not a typical scenario where we had a million dollars, ran with negative cash flow for a while,

Read Full Article »

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 4)

SM: What type of traffic levels are you currently seeing? JJ: We are seeing 5-6 million unique visitors a month.

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 2)

SM: When did you launch VirtualTourist.com? JJ: In 1999 I started talking to Tilman [Reissfelder], who is now my partner. He had the website, which at the time had a clickable map, some open source content, and some paid links. Reflecting back on my travel experiences, I suggested we build something that gave people a

Read Full Article »

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 1)

VirtualTourist.com is a Web 3.0 travel community where users and locals share real travel advice and experiences. It is a source of unbiased, user-generated travel content and a premier resource for travelers seeking an insider’s perspective on their upcoming travels. Real travel tips, reviews, and photos are provided by a community of over 1 million

Read Full Article »