Adam Schwab is our guest on Scaling Up, the CEO and co-founder of Luxury Escapes – a travel marketplace with almost $1b in bookings annually.

Adam’s story is that of a quintessential and accomplished entrepreneur – one of trial and error, learning from mistakes and applying it to the next chapter as is always required. Luxury escapes and its coming to being is exactly this – the twist and turns of a variety of businesses, over almost a decade, that eventually spun out something that was scalable and incredibly capital efficient.

While the scaling story is largely unknown but none the less incredible – it is a story born out of customer obsession, and providing consistent value to both sides of the market placeWhat comes next for Luxury Escapes is been exciting enough to get Adam back from 18 month sabbatical, and we not only discuss the many iterations of the business and its future, but also how Adam has thought about his own journey as a leader.

Buckle up, this is a fast paced and frenetic end to another great season of Scaling Up. We will be back in 2023 with another series, a new format and hopefully many more lessons for business builders, executives and investors alike.

Chapters:

(02:39): The Founding Story of Luxury Escapes

(09:30): Business model: Part 1, The Flash model

(16:20): Business model: Part 2, Building trust in the brand

(23:09): Business model: Part 3, Scaling Product and TAM.

(29:58): Business model: Part 4, Horizon 3 and the billion dollar question.

(35:51): People and Culture: Journey and Philosophy

(40:02): Retaining Talent and views on remuneration

(42:05): The Roles of Coaching, Mentoring, and Managing

Show notes:Adam with a longer version of the start up years and founding story

Adam on work from home -

Adam's podcast "From Zero"

Adam's podcast "The Contrarians"