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one of the first people invited up to the GooglePlex that's at the Fairmont. Our span didn't really balloon like the other guys because in the niche market of group travel there's just not as many searches per day. So that kind of plateaued for us in the early years but that definitely helped us gain momentum and volume in a very short amount of time. en we expanded more to strategic planning: partnerships with the NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB—so we could go in and sponsor teams and set up their travel and we still do that today. We kind of took this into a lot of different directions. We started getting into big entertainment, concerts and things like that— we've got a ticket package, so we have taken our group's core and expanded into all these events and sports. In your opinion, what's the most important thing that every entrepreneur needs to know? ere's a lot of things. I was told from the very beginning— something that I pass on all the time—is don't give up in the first three years, and quit your day job. You have to have some savings, you might have to borrow some money too, but you have to quit your day job because you have to be all- in. Nobody is going to believe in you if you don't believe in yourself. e stats are that 90 percent of businesses fail in the first year, 80 percent in the second. So less than two percent of businesses make it to the third year. Until you're past those first three years, don't expect big partnerships to come. e statistics are against you so banks don't lend you money but once you hit that three- year mark, things come in very quickly when you prove to the market that you're there and you believe in your idea. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs I've seen that expect to be an overnight success. It's not going to be an overnight success if it's real. If it's private equity-backed and pump-and-dump, yeah, I've seen a ton of those, we all know how that story ends. We grew organically. e bubble bursts I've went through in 2001 and then we saw it in mortgage meltdowns again in 2008, these created opportunity for us because we had competitors at the time that were private equity-backed and [venture capital] backed, those guys got their funding cut and we picked up all their partnerships. We also bought one of those companies for next to nothing because of that. Work on the fundamentals, making 90 cents into a dollar is always the best way to grow. If you buy your revenues, you're not fooling anybody. People will see through that when they look at the numbers. 'OK great, you've got this kind of revenue but how much did you spend to get there?' If those revenues aren't growing, it shows the customers aren't really seeking you out. at's why I like organic growth. If I'm making 90 cents into a dollar, the customer is seeking me out because I'm doing something good for that person. POINT OF VUE V U E N J . C O M 93

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