Recapping & reflecting on a 7.5-year journey isn’t easy. It taught so many lessons, and it’ll likely feed new blog posts for a while on a variety of topics (travel, marketing, growth, random anecdotes, and leadership).
It started with this relatively generic—but who cares—message in spring 2018. The biggest trigger: ‘Online Marketplace’. Every company I have ever worked for has had one. Connecting Supply & Demand is something magical, so it was time for another run at it. I’d never figured it would be such a long one. Throughout the interviewing process, I learned about the team’s ambition, the product, and its potential.
TL;DR – After 7.5 years, I left RVshare. After leading SEO at Postmates, I joined RVshare to become a more full-stacked marketing executive, not to build an ‘SEO career’. I think I succeeded at that. We added many capabilities and functions, and I had the pleasure of leading an amazing team. Meanwhile, the business has grown nearly 10x through our ability to add scale, build our brand/industry, improve monetization, and expand our offerings (delivery, one-way, instant book).
Optimizing for three experiences
- Broader Scope: At the time, I would get regular calls from recruiters to ‘come lead SEO at tech-company X, Y, Z.’ While it was flattering, it showed the problem I was starting to build with SEO. There is a playbook-dynamic, and in real success scenarios, it requires more than the leading SEO role can accomplish → higher level support (funding, interest, knowledge, cross-functional support). I was convinced, and still am, that it would require a broader scope role (and often more senior) to achieve the impact needed.
- Proven Operators: There is a time to figure everything out for the first time, and you can learn from your mistakes. But it also takes time. Some of the team that had come in after the initial
- Bigger Team: Times have changed and I wouldn’t optimize for this today necessarily.
Scaling → COVID / M&A → The Next Cycle
Scaling: From $XM to $XXM
At the time, RVshare had just received a $50M commitment from Tritium Partners and brought in a new CEO, Jon Gray. It meant the ability to scale and follow a proven playbook (HomeAway was an investment by Tritium) past the initial stages. How I’ve always described what I initially found was a fast-growing team that just didn’t have the structure in place to keep growing. What I concluded from working with early-stage teams is that they are incredibly fast-moving (strength), but not always with the right objective & focus in mind (weakness). Not all growth or effort results in increased revenue (what matters, eventually), nor does being busy mean being productive. Before COVID, we were able to scale through additional investments and hiring team members to build expertise & lead new functions (partnerships, PR, social) to diversify the channel mix.
COVID / M&A: From Meltdown to Triple-Digit YoY Growth & the KKR acquisition
In 2020, we went from -80% overnight in March to >300% growth YoY by June. But what mainly stood out was that when that happened, opportunities opened up, with lower media costs (so many regular advertisers were pulling budgets). It taught us in the span of two years what media & advertising channels would (never) work, how big the TAM actually could be, and what processes would need to be in place to scale.
Much of this led to KKR’s acquisition in the fall (one of the three largest private equity firms). Going through the motions of M&A is a topic I’ll get back to in another blog post, as it taught me a lot about how to build the right process & reporting framework to always be ready for it.
The Second Act: COVID slowdown & Efficiency
Like many companies, the COVID effect eventually slowed down, and things reverted to the norm (most of the consumer-travel industry is cyclical and closely follows consumer confidence & discretionary spending). Meanwhile, the ‘ZIRP-era’ also closed down. They are all good things!
What it did do was shift the focus from growth at all costs to becoming more efficient and reevaluating the strategy from the prior period. That’s not a skill you think about all the time, as much of the time you want to focus on up and to the right. Guess what, most companies only grow <30% YoY anyway, so managing ‘steadiness’ is a fine skill to pick up. While sometimes painful, it was a great learning experience, delivering an outcome that will build a sustainable business.
The biggest learnings: Efficiency in building a business & People
- Don’t overinvest: Don’t get ahead of your skis when it comes to investments. In growth mode, inefficiency is more tolerated, but it shouldn’t take over to build an unprofitable business.
- People: Investing in people applies both internal as well as external.
- Internal: If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.
- External: Invest in the industry and your network early on. Certain relationships took years to cultivate (for good reason).
For what’s next? More blog posts to come on this journey.