#106 Elude: Building a Travel Search Engine and Trusted Global Brand in a Heavily Regulated Industry | Alex Simon, Co-Founder & CEO

In Episode #106, we explore building a travel search engine and a trusted global brand. We’re joined by Alex Simon, Elude’s Co-Founder and CEO. We cover why the travel industry is a startup graveyard, the importance of being the merchant of record, and the difficulties and rewards of entrepreneurship. “It's not who you know, it's who knows you.” – Alex Simon EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/elude-alex-simon-spotlight-show-notes  FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/elude-alex-simon-spotlight-transcript  CHAPTERS This episode is our definitive guide to building a travel search engine and a trusted global brand. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:24 – The path from investment banking to entrepreneurship 00:05:35 – The Elude customer journey, from app download to travel time 00:14:11 – Building a travel search engine from the ground up 00:19:34 – Why the travel industry is a startup graveyard 00:25:32 – How travel regulations make it difficult to build and scale a business in the industry 00:32:42 – Why becoming a merchant of record was crucial to Elude’s success 00:35:21 – Building a brand with the help of Apple advisors 00:44:09 – The difficulties and rewards of entrepreneurship 00:49:55 – It’s not who you know; it’s who knows you ABOUT ELUDE Alex Simon is the co-founder and CEO of Elude, which is focused on helping people find and book incredible travel experiences. It's the only place where you can simply input your max budget, your local airport, and how many days you'd like to be gone to find incredible destinations around the world that fit those parameters. So you can ask the question, where can I go next week for a thousand dollars?  This episode is a fascinating, deep dive into the world of travel, from the unique barriers to building an airline and hotel booking business—which include a surprising amount of regulation—to an overview of the major players in the travel space and a look at what it's like to build a cutting edge company in a very old industry. 💌 FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter 🎙 LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices