20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide
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Key Quotes
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Topics
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Insights
🎯 Summary
20VC Podcast Summary: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank with Johannes Reck (GetYourGuide)
This episode of 20VC features Harry Stebbings in conversation with Johannes Reck, Co-founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, detailing the company’s extraordinary journey from five bookings in two years to processing 35,000 per day, culminating in a massive funding round from SoftBank. The discussion heavily contrasts the European and US startup ecosystems, focusing on capital availability, talent density, and the cultural mindset required for global scale.
1. Focus Area
The discussion centers on General Tech/E-commerce (Online Travel), with deep dives into Venture Capital dynamics (US vs. Europe), scaling challenges, founder psychology, and European competitiveness in the global tech landscape.
2. Key Technical Insights
- Early Product Iteration & Pivots: GetYourGuide pivoted three times in its early years (starting as a peer-to-peer guide community) before finding product-market fit by focusing on digitizing the massive, non-digital European experience provider market.
- Talent Density Requirement: Scaling to $10B+ valuations requires talent density (e.g., CPOs who have managed tens of millions of customers), which Reck argues is currently concentrated almost exclusively in Silicon Valley, necessitating international relocation for top roles.
- Operationalizing Scale: The shift from early-stage failure to growth required going “all-in,” building online marketing functions, and establishing structures and processes necessary for massive scale, which cannot be done effectively on the side.
3. Market/Investment Angle
- US vs. European VC Dynamics: US investors, having seen massive home runs (like Oculus, Palantir in SoftBank’s early fund), operate with less pressure, allowing founders to take bigger swings. European VCs often lack this track record, leading to different founder dynamics.
- The Growth Capital Gap in Europe: While Seed/Series A capital might be sufficient, Reck strongly argues that Europe suffers from a severe lack of growth-stage capital (Series C, D, pre-IPO), making it nearly impossible for a German company to realistically consider a European public listing due to insufficient capital pools.
- Valuation and Cost of Capital: More innovation funding in Europe would lead to a lower cost of capital, resulting in higher valuations for growth-stage companies, which keeps successful businesses anchored in the region.
4. Notable Companies/People
- Johannes Reck & Tao (Co-founder): Founders of GetYourGuide, whose initial idea stemmed from a poor travel experience in Beijing.
- Masayoshi Son (Masa) & SoftBank: Mentioned for the “wild story” of securing a $400M check, which included Masa’s famous Napoleon portrait in the background during meetings.
- Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital: Mentioned as examples of top-tier VCs whose presence significantly eases subsequent fundraising rounds due to the validation they provide.
- Nico Rosberg (F1 Champion): Quoted on the importance of focusing on the road (the goal) and not looking at the wall (failure).
5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion
- Talent Attraction Policy: Reck passionately advocates for Europe to seize the current moment (while the US is politically unstable) by aggressively attracting global talent through massive tax incentives (e.g., five years tax-free, no taxation on stock options) for skilled tech workers.
- Bureaucracy as a Barrier: The difficulty of securing basic immigration paperwork (e.g., a CTO from Netflix took six months and required intervention from the German Foreign Office for a visa appointment) highlights crippling bureaucratic barriers.
- Civic Society Concerns: The rise of the far-right in Europe is seen as a significant detractor for the global talent pool that Europe desperately needs.
6. Future Implications
The future of European tech hinges on its ability to fund growth-stage companies and aggressively attract and retain global talent. Reck believes governments are currently ill-equipped, making it the challenge for the current generation of founders and leaders to inject optimism and drive necessary structural change, particularly in investment allocation toward the younger generation.
7. Target Audience
Tech Founders (especially European), Venture Capitalists, Startup Ecosystem Builders, and Policy Makers interested in global competitiveness, scaling businesses beyond Series B, and the structural differences between US and European funding markets.
🏢 Companies Mentioned
Alex Finkelstein
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And Brent
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Sean Ceton Rogers
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Brent Hoberman
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Rocket Internet
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Oliver Samwer
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And Nico
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Formula One
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Nico Rosberg
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As I
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Beijing Duck
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Great Wall
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Beijing Wall
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Swiss Federal Institute
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Project Europe
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💬 Key Insights
"You should not lift the lifestyle of all of your paper wealth being liquid. And I think that's what a lot of people do. They even take loans against, you know, their people and all of that. So don't do that. Don't do the private jet. Don't go to like the most expensive resorts."
"I very much empathize now with Jeff Bezos who said, 'Willing to be misunderstood.' Right? So I think you need to invest for the long term, and then maybe the valuation will be slightly below where you would personally want it. No, that's fine as well. Because ultimately, I don't need to sell any shares."
"That's why you go with people who founded the fund because they're fucking stuck. They're never leaving."
"You know what no one considers is this GP going to be here in 10 years? Exactly. And I promise you, no GP will be there in 10 years. I promise you, they will not. Like 95% will not be there in 10 years."
"I would actually have a competitive process, and then I would really look at the GP. I think that's very undervalued because there are many people at these different funds, and I think the GP probably matters more than the fund itself."
"People on average reduced their salaries by more than 30% in exchange for shares. Some people went down to like 80% salary reduction and leadership, I kid you not, it was crazy."
📊 Topics
#artificialintelligence
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#startup
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#investment
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🧠 Key Takeaways
attract talent like crazy right now
talk
be doing in our strategy instead of pushing for the strategy that we saw working in the day-to-day