Shane Corstorphine is SVP 增长 at Skyscanner, the world’s travel search engine. Shane最初以首席财务官的身份加入Skyscanner, 他在多轮投资中发挥了重要作用, including from Sequoia Capital and a $192m investment round in January 2016, 之后成为负责所有区域营销的高级副总裁, taking Skyscanner to in excess of 50 markets each with at least 1m users. Skyscanner now has more than 80m monthly unique users with no single market being larger than 15%. 一个真正的全球化企业.
在Skyscanner从c.100 to 1,200名员工, Shane is also an advocate of the “fail fast” approach in the workplace and the importance of growth mindset. Shane has been an advisor to online startups for more than 15 years and continues to advise and invest in both start-ups and scaleups.
谢恩是一位热情的演讲者，谈论所有数字事物, 以及初创企业和扩大业务规模以实现增长.
你对数字的热情从何而来?
最初，它是出于财政限制而诞生的! 一年前我取得了会计资格, my plan was to take all my learnings and apply them to setting up my own company. 我住在伦敦, had saved £5k and while I toyed with the idea of spending it on a jeep wrangler, 我选择了成立自己的公司. The male grooming industry caught my eye since it was growing at 19% a year then, 随着在线业务以每年40%的速度增长, 我看到了产品在这个市场的扩展潜力. 也, the capital required to set up an ecommerce business was relatively small so it was an attainable business for me to start after the stock market downturn in 2001.
那是我生命中辉煌而充实的时光. 有了都市美男的地盘.com, 我要为这一切负责, from teaching myself HTML and Dreamweaver in order to build the website, 通过成为一个人的搜索引擎优化负责人, 销售, 金融, 招聘, IT和其他开办数字企业所需要的一切. Although the business continued to grow, I decided not to continue with it for personal reasons. What had become evident during this period was that I really cared about sharing all my learnings and thus began mentoring online digital start-ups, 这是我至今的爱好.
你是做什么 最喜欢的 关于行业的事情?
互联网行业是一个相对公平的竞争环境. There is so much opportunity and anyone with a good idea has the potential to make a success of it. 最好的可以赢，即使他们没有得到最多的钱.
也就是说, there is an increasing monopoly from giants such as Google and Amazon – this is making it much more challenging and worrying for all kinds of digital businesses, 从媒体和新闻到旅游和零售.
你认为贵公司五年后的发展如何?
I have been at Skyscanner for seven years and seen so many changes during this time, 随着我们扩大业务规模. 是的, despite our incredible journey from a start-up to a global business with eleven offices worldwide, I actually think the biggest opportunity is very much in front of us, 这非常令人兴奋. Sadly, consumer’s trust in the wider travel industry is damaged, if not broken. They want a positive, reliable, stress-free experience when searching and booking a trip. 我们天巡网的文化是真诚的, firmly and consistently about putting the traveller first and therefore our product will 总是 先做旅行者. We want to take the trust that consumers have in our brand – we were voted the best comparison site and the most trusted in a survey from consumer title Which! in 2018 – and build on it, to make Skyscanner a one-stop shop for travellers’ ease. We want to help travellers – and for them to know we can help them – with all their requirements, 从浏览目的地, 预订机票, 酒店, cars and trains; inspiring them with recommendations through to organizing their itineraries with our 旅行 function.
你的角色是什么?你每天都做些什么?
I have a dual role – one is a member of the exec team and that requires constantly thinking about, 并确保未来, Skyscanner. 第二部分是作为区域营销办公室的高级副总裁. 我们有25支球队管理35个市场, working to create the best and most local traveller experience in these markets. One of our key goals is to win market by market so my role is to look at how Skyscanner can be scaled, 通过问这样的问题:“我们如何在50个市场实现50%的增长??’ and ‘how do we grow in multiple markets without requiring tens of thousands of staff?’
在Skyscanner工作的一天并不是很平常. 因为我们在迈阿密和新加坡都有办事处, 在英国时间，会议可以早开始晚结束. 我在爱丁堡的办公室工作，但是, 和其他高管团队一样, we spend a fair amount of time flying around to take temperature checks and support our teams in our other offices.
Skyscanner有什么新产品或新服务吗?
Skyscanner是一家在旅游领域开展业务的科技公司, 而不是一家有技术的旅游公司. That means we have over 600 engineers working on and testing product changes every day, 目前每月进行大约200个不同的实验. Within these experiments we are then running about 800 “versions” or “iterations” which people use to refine their idea / pivot on their learnings and retest – so there’s a lot going on! 最近, we launched rail as a search and book function on our app; we launched user-generated content and also, 旅行, a function to help organize your itinerary across single or multiple trips. 作为一个不断创新的公司, we are 总是 looking at our core product and how we improve it and offer the best possible experience to travellers. 在未来, 你会看到更多关于旅行计划的功能, as well as an increasingly enhanced user booking experience for 酒店, 租车和机票
If you could give one piece of advice to an emerging business/startup, what would it be?
To focus on retention of customers rather than solely on acquisition and, 反过来, allow you to build a sustainable business as quickly as possible; one that is not dependent on fundraising for survival but instead fundraising for growth.
关于Skyscanner
成立于2003年, Skyscanner是全球最大的旅游搜索引擎, 提供即时在线航班比较, 酒店和汽车租赁
- With over 80m monthly active users and an award-winning app downloaded more than 70m times, Skyscanner在全球有30多种语言版本
- Skyscanner employs over 1100 people in eleven offices across the world
- 天巡网是携程大家庭的一员