VIDEO: The VC view on travel startup strategy

The finance houses that have backed so many travel startups over the years have not been immune to events of the last 20 months.

Venture capital has been the mechanism that supports the growth new businesses, but many of the individuals that operate in that world have had to put efforts into more advisory roles as portfolio companies were forced to reevaluate their proposition and services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of the suggestions have been tough ones to make to startups, as William Bao Bean of SOSV explained during PhocusWire Pulse: Startups in the Spotlight last month.

Advising a business to offload its entire staff in February 2020, so that it could hunker down and survive, would not be a satisfying message to have to convey to any startup - but such moves have perhaps saved countless startups from a fate even worse.

Pivoting to providing relevant services to the time and place have also been important requirements for travel startups, with domestic travel becoming a far bigger proposition for startups than those that traditionally served international travelers.

And, as Bao Bean also explains, considering bigger picture moves into e-commerce, up-and-coming software and, especially in Asia, social commerce, have been useful switches to make. 

The full interview between Bao Bean and PhocusWire's Linda Fox is included below...