Dear Friends, As the second half of 2024 is coming to an end, the broader market seems to have settled into a new-normal, consisting of more normalized customer demand (except for anything AI), more balanced revenue growth, lower appetite for excessive cash burn, and much lower, harder to get investment capital. So what should companies do now? Answer: Continue to grow. Achieving consistent, reasonable growth of 50-70% for smaller companies and 20-35% for larger companies tends to make everything else fall into place: team confidence & momentum, recruiting, fundraising, expanding into new areas, adding channel partners, launching new products, or reaching profitability. As you consider plans for 2025 in this new-normal, look for achievability and repeatability. We can’t count on the go-go days returning, but if they do companies will be in an even better position to capitalize on new opportunities.
The 3TS Team
3TS KEY LEARNINGS
3 Key Learnings – Interactive Travel Holdings’ (ITH) Stunning Journey That Led to a Successful Exit
When 3TS invested in ITH, the company was a promising online airline ticketing platform active in Romania with Vola.ro and Poland with Fru.pl. Fast forward after an initial growth phase, managing through a destructive pandemic, and emerging with faster acceleration on the other side to establish itself as a regional market leader, is nothing but impressive execution by ITH’s CEO and management team. 3TS played a key role in guiding the company through an expansion from a transaction fee-based model to a comprehensive suite of travel-related products and services. This strategic shift enabled ITH to have a more scalable business model with higher profitability and to adapt to the evolving demands of post-pandemic travel, offering passengers more convenient and seamless travel experiences.
1. Staying Focused
It would have been simple for ITH to view Central Europe (CEE) as a series of similar countries to try to address. But staying focused on its initial two countries paid off, because marketing, offers to clients, the technology platform, customer support, and many other areas were all easier to execute in a repeatable, scalable way. Each country (even in CEE) is not actually all that similar in the way consumers buy and expect travel services to be delivered. ITH is another shining example where focus paid off. Vola.ro became the 60% market share leader for online tickets in Romania, while Fru.pl was in the top 3 players in much larger Polish market.
2. Exceptional Execution Through the Downturn from the Pandemic
How does a travel company manage through a global travel shut down and a 65% revenue decline? ITH did. It was hard to imagine in Q2 2020 how the company could survive through so many unknowns. But through a series of proactive, creative and flexible tactics, management was able to rapidly re-align expenses to a new reality, find new sources of pre-booking & travel add-on revenues, sustain its dedicated employee base, maintain strong customer relationships through clever offers & adjustable re-scheduling, and pull in additional financing from a broad set of sources including banks and government institutions.
3. Emerging Stronger, Faster, Better and Close a Successful Exit
ITH navigated the challenges of the Covid period exceptionally well, positioning itself to fully leverage on the post-pandemic up-swing trend in travel. As a result, ITH’s outstanding 4.4x revenue growth and 6x profitability expansion over the past three years have enabled an exit in Q3 2024 that delivered strong returns for management, the broader team and all shareholders.
3TS PORTFOLIO & NETWORK NEWS
Autenti Partners with A-Trust to Expand into DACH Region Through this complimentary partnership Autenti and A-Trust broaden their respective solutions to deliver a complete e-signature compliant document workflow. A-Trust will play an important role in reaching new clients in DACH region. Good luck to both companies! EyeRim Opens Another Store The Company just opened its second physical location, in the vibrant heart of Prague. While establishing itself as a premier online optician revolutionizing eyewear shopping, EyeRim is expanding to offer omnichannel experiences that meet consumers wherever they are. Leanpay Secures €10M Series B Funding from BlackPeak Capital and Catalyst Romania We are thrilled to have Leanpay added to the broader 3TS portfolio, through the investment by our sister fund Catalyst Romania. With over 120 thousand satisfied customers, Leanpay grew 2.5x in the past year. A trailblazer in the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) segment, Leanpay is now expanding into Hungary, Romania and other key countries, on its way to become the digital consumer lending champion in CEE.
GOOD READS & GREAT IDEAS
If You Plan to Scale, Do Not Skip Essential GTM Maturity Milestones,by Charlie Moss of Revenue Leader
The title says it all. We are big believers there’s a set of stepping stones and inflection points that companies have to deliver on in order to scale. Growth is never a straight line. Companies that plan how to overcome these key scaling milestones succeed, those that ignore them don’t.
Sales 2024: Key Findings from 500+ Sales Pros,by Outreach
As planning for 2025 starts, this survey of over 500 sales execs has a series of actionable metrics for benchmarking your sales and marketing. Everything from mix of outbound vs inbound in pipeline, quote coverage ratios to use, sales cycle ranges, what should the expectation for quota achievement and improving forecasting.
The Ultimate Guide to Win/Loss Analysis,by Pragmatic Institute
Defining a value-based, scalable pricing strategy is something most executives miss. Many companies price too low, don’t have a way to expand, make pricing an impediment to the buying cycle, or all of the above. This article outlines the main issues in pricing and how to optimize each one of them.
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| Emerging Founders: Think Global S01E02 – 28 November 2024, Warsaw, Poland FinTech & InsurTech Digital Congress – 2 December 2024, Warsaw, Poland |