July 8, 2025 • 45 mins
Episode 44 – Travel Media Reinvented: Inside Lost In Travel’s Strategy with Jon Skogmo
What happens when the mind behind viral sensations like Pizza Rat and FailArmy turns his attention to travel media? In this episode, we sit down with Jon Skogmo, founder of Lost In Travel and former CEO of viral media powerhouse Jukin Media, to explore how he’s shaking up the travel publishing world.
Jon shares his journey from clearing VHS tapes for clip shows to building a 300-person media empire—and why he’s now focused on reinventing travel content for a digital-first, community-driven audience. We dig into how Lost In Travelgoes beyond tourist traps, highlighting hidden gems, subcultures, and local creators to inspire today’s “premium economy traveler.”
We also get candid about the challenges of influencer culture, the future of SEO in travel, and why legacy travel publishers are missing the mark. Plus, Jon opens up about Lost In Travel’s multi-platform approach—from physical guidebooks and live events to neighborhood-focused editions and global collaborations.
If you care about where travel media is headed—or how to build an authentic, loyal audience in a crowded space—this is a must-listen conversation.
In this episode:
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The surprising link between viral videos and travel
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Why authenticity beats clickbait in today’s travel media
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The evolution of Lost In Travel and its unique editorial strategy
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How they’re building real-world travel communities through books and events
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Jon’s take on the future of digital content, influencers, and travel demand
Follow Lost In Travel, Travelgram, and View From My Window to see more from Jon’s team.
https://lostin.com/
Subscribe to Tickets to Travel: The Business of Travel Experiences at www.tttpod.com and follow @Tix2TravelPod on social media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
welcome to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bwin, and today on the pod we have John Como, the CEO, and founder of Lost In Travel. Welcome to the pod, John Mario, thank you for having me.
(00:01):
I was thinking back to how I found Lost in Travel, and essentially I was just promoting the, podcast on Instagram and I found some content that was very relevant to what we talk about, in terms of event travel. And so I'm looking at, I'm looking at the account and I'm a little mad at myself, John, because I'm kind of a nerd for anything that's online travel and I hadn't heard about it.
I hadn't heard about Lost In Travel at all. And then as I start to go through it. I look at how many followers, all the various associated, , companies with it. And clearly you guys know what you're doing if you have close to a million followers. And so as I dug a little bit further and got to understand what you were trying to build or, or are currently trying to build.
I also found out that you're one of the guys who are literally responsible for getting people like myself and others out there to see things like Pizza Rat and Chewbacca mom. Can you tell us just a little bit about that journey from obviously understanding viral media clips and then now how that's transferred to Lost in Travel?
My career really, I come from a media content background. I started producing non-scripted reality shows in the mid two thousands, originally from Chicago, but moved out to la
it was a really kind of the golden time of non-scripted TV shows. There was a lot of different formats out there during this time, but I fell in this genre of clip shows. I think of clip shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. It was probably the ultimate clip show. But my job was to go to the PO Box every day.
One of my first jobs in Hollywood was go to PO Box and pick up V Hs tapes in DVDs that people would send in around America. And I thought this was very archaic, but I was really at a really. Great time in history where this was a very analog system and online video just started coming out and the technology just started getting a little bit better.
And so me being the right person at the right age after going out and working in the PO box and picking up, a handful of these. Of these, tapes and realizing my job was actually to clear those videos and call up people and say, Hey, we love your video. We'll put it on this show, and we'll pay you x amount of money.
But it took a long time to clear a single video because, , you had to call 'em, you had to send 'em paperwork. They had to send more footage. So it really was a, a hassle and a really archaic model. But like I said, I came in at the right time, online video, being at the right age, at the right time, the right personality where I really took advantage of online video and went on this platform, where I felt like it was posting content that I could actually go out and reach out to the video owner, the, reach out to 'em, they can send me the footage pretty quickly.
And, my producers at the time told me, kid, don't do that. Kid, don't do that. Go to the po , go to the PO Box. Shut up. But this platform, this website that no one ever heard before happened to be called YouTube. And so again, it's kinda like an early adopter to YouTube and online video. And I was able to quickly reach out to people and at scale, put their content on television and nobody really was doing that.
Before, at least at the scale I was doing that. And so , you were actually supplying like Americans funny or ridiculousness or to 0.0 in that realm, certainly grew up to that. Yeah. So I went around producing a handful of these TV shows, for MTV, for CMT, and I was at discovery when I realized online video, is not going anywhere and the proliferation of these really smartphones that came out, it was gonna be easier to create content.
And consume content than ever before. And so I thought there was a lot of value in this content that I was licensing on a one-time basis that someone needed to get the exclusive rights and buy that underlining property of user-generated content and viral videos. And so I quit my job when I was producing for discovery.
I. And started , buying, videos from my West Hollywood apartment. And that was in 2009. You grew that business 12 years later to a 300 person company. We had offices in la, New York, London, new Delhi, and a few other people scattered around the world. But essentially we built a lot of technology to help us find quote unquote viral videos.
We built a marketplace and think of , Getty Images, or Shutterstock. But we did this for viral videos and we're licensing to every morning show, news show, talk show, , publisher, , news magazine around the world. And, we really were the first ones to put value around user generate content.
Thought there was something here. You scroll through your feed right now on Facebook or Instagram, it's all user generated content. That wasn't always the case and we understood that there was value in owning this underlying ip, and so we built some of the first content brands, one being called Fail Army or people are awesome, really big kind of content brands.
At the time, we were doing 4 billion ish views a month. We had about 400 million fans, and so we really knew how to cultivate community and audience. Yeah. I do that in a digital sense. We got into CTV, produced a handful of TV shows. Anyway, ended up selling that business in 21 to strategic, stayed around for a little bit, took a little time off, although my wife told me I didn't.
Me just being, again, I think the personality, of wanting to build things and. Jukin was a huge success, successful business, that business was called Juto. It was hugely successful, in the eyes of, of revenue and digital media. No, no doubt. You said fail army and I'm pretty sure my kids have given you at least a million views just on heavy rotation in my house.
But what's interesting about is that, so you're packaging it up, but you also created the technology to go source this stuff. So I almost liken it to, the story of Scooter Braun, finding Justin Bieber on YouTube. Were you actively as a person or a team looking for this type of content?
Or did you have technology that sort of. I guess built the algorithm to understand maybe a clip, was this short or it had this type of content in it was that part of what Gimian did? It was absolutely. This proprietary technology was essentially when we first started, we hired a product person and their job was to take my brain and find ways to automate the process.
, Wow. Because I had a great sense of what content we, I knew we could monetize. And then we started collecting all that data, once we were monetizing these videos. And so we were able essentially put a giant filter on the internet and we were going after I. What we call like viewership velocity and see how many views, like shares, comments, a particular video we get in a certain hour.
And if it was something that we would like, it would add, it would be added to a, , a highly customized CRM system that we built. And there were some manual, parts to that 'cause people had to sign contracts. And we also had always verified as the right owner, which we were really great at, leading the charge in rights management, digital rights management.
And so it was, super important to us to get this right. And so we spent a lot of money build out a pretty big tech stack, as every investor always says, if you could solve a problem at scale, you're going to, and that's the secret sauce for a lot of startups to, to scale themselves, but also,, get acquired.
(00:22):
So taking , this experience that you've had, I. Obviously just like everybody you love travel, right? You love events, you love travel, and so obviously you're still building stuff. , Post acquisition or post exit. Where did travel start to fall in here? Looking at the current landscape of travel media, it's a lot of legacy type of brands, and so what did you identify that said, I can go and disrupt this, or I can do it slightly better?
Yeah, it's a great question. So there was like a few things I wouldn't it, it's hard for me to say. There was just like one aha moment and I think it was. Me doing a lot of research on the media content space, , media is really at a challenging time right now. And some people say, , why the hell would you get into media?
This is where opportunities are built, where it is challenged. And that's when I started Juing in oh nine, at the same time of a big economic downturn. So I think first off, I wanted to get a media, 'cause I'm a media content guy. There's a lot of domain expertise there, and so I.
I also have always loved when content has really transformed industries, and there's been a few, very few times in example, or in history where there's been these examples of content really changing the trajectory of a certain industry. And , one of my favorite examples is if you ever see the movie Sideways, which is somewhat related to travel.
, Yeah. , It really, changed the wine industry. It had merlott sales going down and Pinot Noir, which wasn't that much, wasn't that famous, people usually knew as Burgundy, but it when Pinot noir, when Miles said, I'm not drinking. Fucking Merlot. I don't know if can say whatever you want.
No. Yeah, he's a huge pinot, Pinot Noir fan. And so pinot sales went through the roof and it also popularized, wine in America. And so that's like a direct correlation. There's been a few others, but most recent one is Netflix's Drive to survive F1. You can absolutely see a coloration of popularity in F1 and when that series, was out.
So I loved kind of seeing those examples and like, how can I do that within a particular industry? And so I was also looking at travel and seeing how many people are spending travel, like travel spending and popularities through the roof. People want those. They're craving those real life,, experiences, especially out of the pandemic.
I was looking at travel media, and travel media unfortunately was heading in the opposite direction. It was like nose diving. . And so I was obsessed trying to figure out why is there such a disconnect? Why are the media industries not being able to grasp these dollars that are actually, the biggest dollars, as , in travel is more, , more people are spending on travel and experiences than ever before.
And so I was obsessed with trying to figure out that disconnect. And after doing some more research, I realized two, two things. Legacy media. The guys like Fromer Lonely Plan and Conde Nas Travel and Leisure. They come at it from a glossing magazine style approach and we're living in a much different age.
And me, with my background in, in digital media and build audience communities, I think it really needs to take a digital first. Mindset, a video first mindset to come to this space. 'cause that's where the eyeballs are. I think secondly, what those guys don't have, they don't have a loyal following and they don't have a tremendous brand equity when it comes from by the consumer.
And so I. I wanted to build the 2.0 VER version of Jukin. So we were very successful, those brands that I named before, but how do I apply that in travel, industry and really create a sense of community, a sense of audience? And how we do that is through a 360 approach and being platform agnostic, whether it's books, physical books, and I'm sure you get more, you get into that to our social following to live events.
It's really multi-platform approach. Yeah. So it basically, you're building out a community around this type of content, which, what you said really resonated with me earlier about sideways because , I'm a California kid. I grew up in California, and when people think about wine. They think of napa, but this was not NAPA that was featured in,, IT Central California on the map.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's right. It, and that actually drove that. So, you know, that type of media change behavior, it also stimulated travel to that region. And of course, I. Sold a couple bottles of wine. Right. I'm a direct byproduct of that. I actually go to Central California, Northern, up north of Santa Barbara more than I do go to Napa.
I'm also in la. It's a little bit geographically closer for me, but I would've never have known about it if it wasn't for the moving sideways. Yeah, no, that's amazing. And along those lines, what you were saying about these travel publishers, the current ones, and I'll, another thing I'll add is like I don't really see a huge social media presence.
From all of them. , Obviously there are some fans or people , who go to them to curate certain pieces of travel, but from a content perspective, you're working with a ton of influencers as well. But what do you think is the secret sauce from a travel perspective to get people really excited about a destination?
Really excited about a brand that you are obviously going to capitalize on at some point. I think it starts with that audience. It starts with that community that's building fandom and within that fandom, it takes time to build, I think that credibility and authority and trust with the audience. And so when we went out, I knew how difficult it would be to start, a brand.
And so lost in is actually an acquisition and they've done these physical guidebooks. For a number of years, but they're very analog, but they're not your, , not , your mother's guidebook or your Rick, Steve, Rick Guidebook. Through all the respect to them, these, their brand. The Lost in Brand, which is now, , our brand goes a layer deeper.
We're talking about the gastronomy, we're talking about the art scene. The Paris book doesn't talk about the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, and there's obviously those are great places, right? But there's plenty of information on that, and we go to find that subculture and that heartbeat of a city.
And so we're talking about the Parisian wrapper that's up and coming, and this is actually where you have to go check 'em out. And so it's coming at it from a much more, I think, millennial lens. We like to say our audience is the premium economy traveler. They are working professionals. They have discretionary, income and they prioritize that their income and lifestyle around travel and travel culture.
And so that's really the audience we're going after. They're not quite, they're not the one percenters. They're also not , the bottom feeders discount. Let's do travel on a budget. They're willing to spend a little bit more for that lag room and comfort. And so , it's this working professional , that, that is, articulate around travel.
They know travel, and they want to, they consider travel's part, really part of who they are. Yeah. Yeah. You're obviously defining a specific demographic, a specific target, which is. I get it. They're probably underserved at this time and you guys are filling in the gap and in terms of the type of content, it's really off the beaten path, to say the least or Absolutely.
(00:43):
It's not the places that you could always kind of Google or find on TripAdvisor. Yeah. , Sure some of them could be there, but we also like talking about like popups, you can't necessarily find that on Google. And so we really go ask the locals and I think what's some of the proudest moments?
So far my editorial career has been when I launched a book and the locals say, oh my God, I've been here for 20 years. I've never heard of this place. I've never seen this. I didn't know this happens on Wednesday nights. And , that's like the ultimate compliment if you can get there. And I think people, , wanna go beyond just the regular places.
And I'm would say off the beaten path is we're going in the middle of the jungle, but it's off the main street and you have to go, , through some cobblestone alley to get to this underground pub. , It matches , with that demographic, right? , You want something that's cool, shareable, something that is not necessarily, , commonplace that you maybe your parents or your uncles or whoever had done before, you wanna stand out.
Totally. So that's really interesting. I don't, I. Personally, I don't see anybody kind of playing in that space right now. , So it makes complete sense. You'd go to Africa. But here's the other thing, , you're talking to an audience of people who are from the travel industry.
I've been in the travel industry for over 20 years. , Ticketing live events. , I. So what have you noticed, because you're entering from a media lens, right? And coming into the travel industry, I know you're going to certain conferences and events and such, but what's the main difference between,, traditional sort of brand media partnerships that you have and with travel suppliers or companies or technology providers that you would most likely speak to now?
I think at a high level there's a lot of, there's a lot of differences and there's a lot of similarities as well. But I would say what I've learned and what I find so fascinating, just my, very early in my career getting into the travel world, but I'm in inundated, I'm knees deep, I. I've realized how super fragmented the industry is.
There's a, it's a huge industry, but it's super fragmented and I don't think I ever really understood that. And I think where the similarities is coming from being a produced TV producer is really about packaging. And so trying to find the package, trying to find the pieces of the puzzle and how all those.
P pieces fit together. And so within travel you have the OTAs, , the technology, the online agencies. You have the in-kind agencies, , travel agencies. You have the hospitality, you have the tour operators, you have the d os, you have tourism board. So it's all inter, they're all separate, interconnected.
They don't necessarily love playing together or working together, but you have to find your path and find your way in to package it all together. Yeah. And so that's what I found ex extremely fascinating and , like the media industries today, a lot of it is legacy and I think travel's even more.
Legacy is the way from, folks that have been doing this for a very long time. I think once you're in travel, you stay in travel, it's hard to get out of travel. Totally. And so you have a lot of, I think this and I. I wanna be respectful because it is a great industry, but it's some archaic kind of thinking, that goes behind that.
. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think there's a, I think people who think that they're being disruptive actually aren't, they're staying safe , and then there're with these different companies that enter the space, it's, , I have the opportunity to work in ticketing as well, so let's take, , a large company like a Live Nation
Total ticketing is probably about 60 billion versus if you look at travel, it's like 9 trillion a year, annual. And you're right, it's very fragmented. I, break it down more simply in a lot of ways.
It's like it's suppliers and distributors and then the platforms in between. Sure. And so that , when you look at it. In that realm, it allows you to develop a better strategy to hit each side of that, and find who the major players are. In terms of marketing in general, what we find is that a lot of brands in particular, I.
On the travel side, can't compete with the big guys out there in the space. So if you look at Expedia and you look@booking.com, they're literally the biggest clients of Google. Yeah. They drive a majority of the traffic. So a lot of, , whether it's a hotel group or airline, whatever, they have to partner with them.
And so I think I mentioned this to you when we first talked, it's like the fact that you have distribution. Is key. Totally. It's key to working with these suppliers, whether it be an airline or a hotel or a destination. And so has that really has that shaped your strategy a bit of what the value proposition are to these travel suppliers?
I think we can go deep into the open web and SEO and how these guys are, you're right. Are absolutely paying Google and , you're not gonna outspend. I think the OTAs, when I see like a lot, we looked at a lot of startups to acquire. And essentially, , what they were just trying to build is a another OTA, , and they might build , a better looking mousetrap, but they can't keep the M in because in order to keep the M in, you have to keep putting cheese out there and you're spending a lot of money on ads.
And so your customer acquisition costs through the roof. So a lot of these companies don't make it, I'm sure. You've, uh, seen a lot of that, A lot of Com startups say, Hey, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna disrupt the OTA business. But it's super hard when they have such a strong hold the hotels.com Expedias.
Yeah. My thing is I do think this world is changing pretty quickly and with AI and with, I think, SEO being less and less important. That's why we wanna establish a more one-on-one connection with our user and fan base and create that, that, that fan equity and brand equity, because I think SEO is gonna be obsolete or gonna be, , less important obste, maybe not obsolete, but less important in the coming years.
And so our strategy is totally different. We're not even gonna try to compete on an SEL game. Let's not even play in that ballpark. But you know what? Let's build a different ballpark. We'll start off with the sandbox, but let's build a different sandbox over here and start developing over there and start developing those tools and start inviting those kids to come over and play with us.
And the bigger, more kids come, the bigger and bigger, field that , we're gonna build. And because it's important to have that one-on-one relationship and knowing that our audience, which is mostly younger, , their eyeballs are on social, and we wanna take advantage of social and leverage those platforms, those free platforms By the way.
To build an audience and community. Yeah, no, , it's a huge point because, , if you're, if you have to go with that sandbox analogy, , the big kids in the sandbox are spending two to 3 billion a year to, , to drive that traffic, right? So that's, , definitely disruptive in terms of finding new distribution, and there's no reason to even try to compete with them.
(01:04):
You know? Right. It's, it's like moving mountains because mm-hmm. To your earlier point, yeah. I, , as a consultant, I talked to lots of startup founders and, encountered them. And a lot of them can be very precious about the product, John, they wanna make sure that it converts in this way, or it, the buttons look this way and whatever it might be.
But it always comes down to, all right, that's great. You're gonna get all this investment and it's gonna be a perfect product, but. Still gonna market it. Yeah. Uhhuh, how are you gonna drive traffic to it to get all the conversions that you're looking for? And so that's where, , deer in headlights, , oh, it's a realization.
Yeah. , It's. It's true. And so there might be opportunities for others to, as you said, drive traffic through, , content. , One of the things I was curious about too is like using your old sort of methods, is there something in particular that you've seen can go viral very quickly? On the travel content side, is it the way it's edited or is it a certain type of content or maybe it's just the event itself, it's piggybacking off of other, , marketing stuff.
, It's, at one point I was called the King of Viral videos, , and I really lived in that world for a very long time, and. I also think there's a much different world where actually viral videos existed. I think they don't exist as much today where you had a viral video, it became that zeitgeist moment.
It became that cop. Yeah. Pop culture kind of a icon. , We talked about the pizza at Yeah. I we're still talking about it today, but I don't think there's any videos. That are coming out today, we're gonna be talking about five, six years down the road because it's such a commodity for reality.
Yeah, that, that's a huge call out. Actually, I can't think of the last exactly. Real viral video because people just spend. Yep. , I've seen other, , whether it's , a music artist or , a show, they're putting equal amounts of their marketing dollars into these channels to get these views rather than just organic, authentic virality where if someone shares it and another person shares it and it goes crazy.
But to your point, I haven't. Really seen anything lately. Jukin was a great, , company at a great time and a great moment in time in internet culture and history. And , you don't see that type of reality. It's now the company's now evolved, as it should. But I think when I look at it differently is that I don't necessarily don't wanna be.
Shoving clickbaity, , headlines or thumbnails. I, the lost in brand is more about discovery and so I'm also like pushing back. So everything that I did before, I'm almost pushing back a little bit and focusing more on the quality of the content. Working with influencers that, not the big, not the ones with the biggest names.
And you mentioned earlier, and I want to touch on that. It's the ones that really meet our brand ethos , and our talking, through our lens, , who have similar like-minded 'cause that's what a community is., It's , it is this like-minded individuals that share this kind, same values.
And so I. Those are the kind of the folks , and people we wanna partner with. It's less about , let's get the most viral video in the world. 'cause I actually think there's a huge problem with influencers and travel. I think it's a freaking mess out there. Yeah, I was gonna fragmented. It's super fragmented there.
No, I was gonna go there because yeah, , it's a big topic of conversation because a lot of, , if you have 10,000 followers, , you gotta, , up to a million, they, it almost, they feel like they have license to. To go and call a hotel and get a comp, , or go to a bigger brand and get a comp.
And then they, you're displaying their, , their lifestyle, which again, to our earlier part of our conversation could be purchased, right? That the followers that could be around them. And so there's actual companies now who authenticate. The followers for certain influencers so that a hotel or a destination or whoever it might be, can at least feel a little bit more peace of mind in terms of what type of ROI that they're gonna get if they do offer a comp room or whatever it might be.
And , yeah. What sort of your. Way , of looking at qualifying. , You said it earlier actually, like you, you want like-minded individuals, authenticity, but I think maybe , there's an opportunity here for you to provide a little bit of advice to travel, , industry people to say, here's what you should look for and here are the best type of influencers to work with.
Yeah, no, I don't know if I could be helpful on the vice, but I can tell you exactly what we're , looking for and what I like and don't like. , I think actually traffic creators are some of the most annoying people on the planet, to be honest with you. That's my pure honesty.
I think there's nothing authentic about it. A lot of it, and you're right, they're absolutely, they just wanna barter. And by the way, these guys staying. Power isn't that long. It's just a few years. , These guys get burnt out. It's hard to travel to be on the road. I'm about to head to Europe. , I'm about to do a multi-city.
, I'm preparing myself mentally and physically for it. That's a lot. Before I go, , these travel creators, they don't stick around that long, so it's hard to build that loyal following. They give up quickly. It's hard to maintain that, their lifestyle. And you're right, a lot of the time it's inauthentic and it's not organic.
And so they're just going out there to promote a hotel or because they're staying there for free. And by the way, they may necessarily like it and they'll just do it at, they'll just, they're just trying to, they're making calls every day just trying to get free airline tickets, free stays. And you can't really, it's hard to build that one-on-one connection with somebody when you know.
That this is all fake and phony. Yeah. And , we're really trying to find a couple, meaning like a husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, a travel couple who travels together. I would love to find that the problem. All of 'em, all I see are these guys happy and smiling and saying how great of a trip they are.
Trust me, I tell, and I love my wife to death, but we're arguing about getting lost, losing the room key. , Certain times you have to be somewhere. I wanna see that. To me, that is actually the realness and the au the, you talk about authenticity. That's what I really find. So if you find a travel creator, a couple out there, let me know.
There's definitely good times. There's also some bad times. But what, that's real drama that people care about because people do get lost, , on vacation. They miss things and they lose things and, . The airlines lose things. And yeah. , I'm trying to find that authenticity at the end of the day.
And so I think travel creators and influencers are really bad for the industry at the end of the day. And I know the hospitality folks, , it's a gift and a curse for them. Totally. It's an almost a necessarily evil to, to deal with. But if I think , if everything being equal, they would choose not to deal with them.
(01:25):
, At least not to tip field, the phone call. Yeah. , Because they get a lot of them. That's the whole, yeah. That's the whole thing. Totally. And I'm not saying they're all like this, but 90% of them , are like this. Yeah. , If you need a family, , I , to follow my wife and I, we argue all the time, especially about what we're gonna do.
And then when you put a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old into the mix, , you're right, there's a lot of smiling faces, a lot of like cute stuff out there. But it's a matter of. , The reality of travel is, is tough. Yeah. Like getting from, one flight to another. , Getting the right car to take you someplace.
Language barriers, John. , Totally. It's, my son and I are in Duolingo right now. We're on a 50 day streak. You know what I mean? Because ultra barriers too and etiquette. Yeah. , Is super, , important. Yeah, absolutely. But let's get the cameras rolling. Let's go. You know what, on the next one I'll let you know.
We'll get a couple of shots for you. Sounds great. No, that's amazing, man. You've got a set of books that you're already. In. . So what are your, your highlighted destinations currently and where you're going next? Where are you headed next? With lost in? Yeah, great question.
, So we've done 28 different cities, , at this point. And , lost in Paris, lost in London This year we did some new additions of our Tokyo book, our Amsterdam and Stockholm. I. So we have a few more new additions out. I think I can say. We're gonna do Milan and we're partnering, , with Milan there and their local tourism board.
So we're super excited about fantastic that will come later this year. Also tied into the Olympics that they have in 26. And, . I think for us is, , they've done some of the, like London kind of being a big city itself. , Los Angeles has been done, New York has been done, but now we're trying to go and we're coming out with a new collection and we're focusing on some of the neighborhoods.
'cause I think within the city, within a city, a big city, each neighborhood. Has its own uniqueness and has its own kind of people. And so we did our first kind of neighborhood edition late last year, which was Venice Beach. We're also headquartered in Venice Beach. It was our first book under our banner.
So it's a great way to test in our own, , sandbox if you want. Keep using that analogy, and that was super successful. , It was hugely successful and it was awesome to see , the community rally behind it. Working with the Chamber of Converse, working with the local tourism board. It's really awesome to see it come together.
And so we're gonna do that on the east coast with a major city. We're focusing on a, , on a neighborhood that I can't quite pronounce yet, but. We do a few of these neighborhoods and then you have a collection , of the whole city. And , as , each neighborhood is unique, has its own, , style.
And , we wanna go deep, a little bit more deeper and a little bit more localized. , Is really our goal. Yeah, , this speaks to the demographic again. I take anybody who's millennial, gen Z, they're really missing because it's so digital everywhere. They're really missing something to hold.
And I like this to music, right? Buying vinyl is off the charts. And , that authentic sort of analog feeling , is missing the authenticity of the experience. And so when you're going to. When you're going to Venice, which I saw some of your stuff, and I stayed at the Hotel Irwin a couple times, and so great to see how you guys shot it and pulled that all together.
I think it's a really cool advantage, one for the hotel to, to keep that book inside of , the property right. In every room or in the lobbies. Yep. But for the destination itself to have this bridge from digital to real life . And so what is , what are like , the top line, value prop que or.
Points you would say to any destination at this point to look at lost in as a partner or just to liken back to that authentic experience , within their market or destination? , I think what's really amazing I think is, , I talked about that credibility.
, We'll never undercut. , Something because someone's throwing some money at us. You, we actually turn, we actually turned down a lot of partnerships with some hospitality groups because it just doesn't make sense and we would never cover it. And so right now you mentioned different. Cities and different destinations.
It's really cool to see people come pitch us and say, Hey, do our city now, , we'll help support this, we'll help do this, , and , I think that's awesome and that's flattering, but at the same time, we'll never do it if it doesn't make sense for our audience. And it's not authentic , to our community.
And that's the top tier for us when we're thinking about the destination. Would we do this on our own and if we can get help along the way. Absolutely. And it's awesome to see people come to pitch, pitch us. And I do think for a majority though, we can find our own unique lens.
It may not be exactly what kind the destination wants, but like you're coming to us 'cause we're lost in, we have this great audience that's super passionate about travel and we have this very unique, unique and particular lens. And , we avoid the tourist traps. We just don't show them. There's plenty of information where you can get tourist traps or some landmarks.
We like to keep, we like to show the locals and like I said, if the, this is a, , if we can editorialize a place. And socialize a place that the locals are proud of that, that's like kind of the ultimate, , yeah. That's the secret sauce right there. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , That's what you would consider on Brandand for Lost in, as well as, , creating an authentic experience for that destination to market themselves.
Yeah, absolutely. You can get their level approval on a local level, , that, that's the ultimate credibility. So are you looking at collecting this content and doing, something maybe even bigger, like creating television shows or other things that would. Drive, , I guess destination marketing.
'cause I do think that needs to be disrupted a bit as well. , Is this kind of in the long-term vision? I understand if you're like, ah, I can't really say right now. But it sounds like with your background, John, , you could do a number of things. I'm sure there's a much bigger vision in Absolutely.
Of course. , We want, we see this as a multimedia, , company. And with that is short form. We have to be that platform agnostic. And , which that is short form, which that is books, who's that? Events, which is that long form. And we wanna reach our audience, where those eyeballs are. And I think the content might be slightly different.
(01:46):
'cause a 32nd video on Instagram is gonna be different than a long form series. But the long form series is still gonna have the DNA from lost in. We're still gonna have that through line. We're still gonna have that lens. And absolutely. In fact, after this podcast, I'm jumping on a call, talking about a,
an episodic series I think would do really well, , with the, with this partner we're talking to. Awesome. One thing I, one of the last things I wanted to mention too is just, what Tickets of Travel is all about is really focused on the travel demand that's created through live events.
So whether that's sports or music festival or concert series or a tour, and I know you guys deal in live events as well, is, are there partnerships, not just on the travel side, but also on the live events side that you'd look to do, or are you mainly looking at this as creating your own live events to drum up, eyeballs for the brand?
, All the above. How we look at like kind of events and meetups is like we will, we like to eventize when we drop a new book. So for like Venice Beach, we did some, , some great popup dinners leveraging the places that we covered, which is amazing, where we did a big open to the public party where have 400 people show up and that place was in the book.
And , we wanna support, , our partners there. , And so an event could be around a book drop, it could be around a meetup that we're doing in a particular city. We're just starting to talk to, have city ambassadors to help us throw these meetups at the Lost and Meetup and build that community.
, We're also doing events around partnerships that we have, and so we've been very successful partnering with some CPG brands and you're like, , that's not necessarily travel. , They have similar brand alignment as far as the values in that lens. They also have a lot of brand alignment around kind of audience and who the target audience and mar and market they're going after.
And so we did, we're invented speech. We did an event with a fragrance company, this hot. D two CCPG company that did live activations at Coachella, which again is part of our audience too. Yeah. , Younger music lovers. And we did this big event, , over here in on Venice Beach, off Abu Kinney. And so we created content, we promoted together.
I'm finding these up and coming partners and up and coming D two CCPG companies where our brands, , where there's a lot of synergy and overlap and so we're doing events , and programming with them. And so it's , just to specify for anybody who wants to follow your progress and,, evolution Lost in is the main brand, but what are the other ones that we should look out for?
That are related to lost. Yeah. So we're really pushing out, lost. But it's, my kind of. Growth hacking and digital chops. A little bit comes from, , seeding and other distribution. And so we have a few other brands that we're able to cross pollinate audience and send people to Lawson and vice versa.
And so there's one called View For My Window, which is a Facebook group, about 4 million fans. It's huge, hugely, highly engaged. A hugely passionate audience that love taking photos from anywhere in the world That's. A view for my window, and so that's really awesome and amazing. We have another one on Instagram called Travel Gram, which is more kind of general travel, but again, younger, slicker content that we're able to cross pollinate with the lost in brand.
Awesome. , John, I. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time today. , We are gonna continue to keep an eye on, , lost in and the related brands and really watch you grow. I do believe you guys are, , disrupting in your own way in terms of creating this type of content, viral content in some cases.
But I really appreciate you, sharing your story and some of your vision for Lost in Travel. Thanks. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. .
welcome to Tickets to Travel, the Business of Travel Experiences. I'm your host, Mario Bwin, and today on the pod we have John Como, the CEO, and founder of Lost In Travel. Welcome to the pod, John Mario, thank you for having me.
(00:01):
I was thinking back to how I found Lost in Travel, and essentially I was just promoting the, podcast on Instagram and I found some content that was very relevant to what we talk about, in terms of event travel. And so I'm looking at, I'm looking at the account and I'm a little mad at myself, John, because I'm kind of a nerd for anything that's online travel and I hadn't heard about it.
I hadn't heard about Lost In Travel at all. And then as I start to go through it. I look at how many followers, all the various associated, , companies with it. And clearly you guys know what you're doing if you have close to a million followers. And so as I dug a little bit further and got to understand what you were trying to build or, or are currently trying to build.
I also found out that you're one of the guys who are literally responsible for getting people like myself and others out there to see things like Pizza Rat and Chewbacca mom. Can you tell us just a little bit about that journey from obviously understanding viral media clips and then now how that's transferred to Lost in Travel?
My career really, I come from a media content background. I started producing non-scripted reality shows in the mid two thousands, originally from Chicago, but moved out to la
it was a really kind of the golden time of non-scripted TV shows. There was a lot of different formats out there during this time, but I fell in this genre of clip shows. I think of clip shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. It was probably the ultimate clip show. But my job was to go to the PO Box every day.
One of my first jobs in Hollywood was go to PO Box and pick up V Hs tapes in DVDs that people would send in around America. And I thought this was very archaic, but I was really at a really. Great time in history where this was a very analog system and online video just started coming out and the technology just started getting a little bit better.
And so me being the right person at the right age after going out and working in the PO box and picking up, a handful of these. Of these, tapes and realizing my job was actually to clear those videos and call up people and say, Hey, we love your video. We'll put it on this show, and we'll pay you x amount of money.
But it took a long time to clear a single video because, , you had to call 'em, you had to send 'em paperwork. They had to send more footage. So it really was a, a hassle and a really archaic model. But like I said, I came in at the right time, online video, being at the right age, at the right time, the right personality where I really took advantage of online video and went on this platform, where I felt like it was posting content that I could actually go out and reach out to the video owner, the, reach out to 'em, they can send me the footage pretty quickly.
And, my producers at the time told me, kid, don't do that. Kid, don't do that. Go to the po , go to the PO Box. Shut up. But this platform, this website that no one ever heard before happened to be called YouTube. And so again, it's kinda like an early adopter to YouTube and online video. And I was able to quickly reach out to people and at scale, put their content on television and nobody really was doing that.
Before, at least at the scale I was doing that. And so , you were actually supplying like Americans funny or ridiculousness or to 0.0 in that realm, certainly grew up to that. Yeah. So I went around producing a handful of these TV shows, for MTV, for CMT, and I was at discovery when I realized online video, is not going anywhere and the proliferation of these really smartphones that came out, it was gonna be easier to create content.
And consume content than ever before. And so I thought there was a lot of value in this content that I was licensing on a one-time basis that someone needed to get the exclusive rights and buy that underlining property of user-generated content and viral videos. And so I quit my job when I was producing for discovery.
I. And started , buying, videos from my West Hollywood apartment. And that was in 2009. You grew that business 12 years later to a 300 person company. We had offices in la, New York, London, new Delhi, and a few other people scattered around the world. But essentially we built a lot of technology to help us find quote unquote viral videos.
We built a marketplace and think of , Getty Images, or Shutterstock. But we did this for viral videos and we're licensing to every morning show, news show, talk show, , publisher, , news magazine around the world. And, we really were the first ones to put value around user generate content.
Thought there was something here. You scroll through your feed right now on Facebook or Instagram, it's all user generated content. That wasn't always the case and we understood that there was value in owning this underlying ip, and so we built some of the first content brands, one being called Fail Army or people are awesome, really big kind of content brands.
At the time, we were doing 4 billion ish views a month. We had about 400 million fans, and so we really knew how to cultivate community and audience. Yeah. I do that in a digital sense. We got into CTV, produced a handful of TV shows. Anyway, ended up selling that business in 21 to strategic, stayed around for a little bit, took a little time off, although my wife told me I didn't.
Me just being, again, I think the personality, of wanting to build things and. Jukin was a huge success, successful business, that business was called Juto. It was hugely successful, in the eyes of, of revenue and digital media. No, no doubt. You said fail army and I'm pretty sure my kids have given you at least a million views just on heavy rotation in my house.
But what's interesting about is that, so you're packaging it up, but you also created the technology to go source this stuff. So I almost liken it to, the story of Scooter Braun, finding Justin Bieber on YouTube. Were you actively as a person or a team looking for this type of content?
Or did you have technology that sort of. I guess built the algorithm to understand maybe a clip, was this short or it had this type of content in it was that part of what Gimian did? It was absolutely. This proprietary technology was essentially when we first started, we hired a product person and their job was to take my brain and find ways to automate the process.
, Wow. Because I had a great sense of what content we, I knew we could monetize. And then we started collecting all that data, once we were monetizing these videos. And so we were able essentially put a giant filter on the internet and we were going after I. What we call like viewership velocity and see how many views, like shares, comments, a particular video we get in a certain hour.
And if it was something that we would like, it would add, it would be added to a, , a highly customized CRM system that we built. And there were some manual, parts to that 'cause people had to sign contracts. And we also had always verified as the right owner, which we were really great at, leading the charge in rights management, digital rights management.
And so it was, super important to us to get this right. And so we spent a lot of money build out a pretty big tech stack, as every investor always says, if you could solve a problem at scale, you're going to, and that's the secret sauce for a lot of startups to, to scale themselves, but also,, get acquired.
(00:22):
So taking , this experience that you've had, I. Obviously just like everybody you love travel, right? You love events, you love travel, and so obviously you're still building stuff. , Post acquisition or post exit. Where did travel start to fall in here? Looking at the current landscape of travel media, it's a lot of legacy type of brands, and so what did you identify that said, I can go and disrupt this, or I can do it slightly better?
Yeah, it's a great question. So there was like a few things I wouldn't it, it's hard for me to say. There was just like one aha moment and I think it was. Me doing a lot of research on the media content space, , media is really at a challenging time right now. And some people say, , why the hell would you get into media?
This is where opportunities are built, where it is challenged. And that's when I started Juing in oh nine, at the same time of a big economic downturn. So I think first off, I wanted to get a media, 'cause I'm a media content guy. There's a lot of domain expertise there, and so I.
I also have always loved when content has really transformed industries, and there's been a few, very few times in example, or in history where there's been these examples of content really changing the trajectory of a certain industry. And , one of my favorite examples is if you ever see the movie Sideways, which is somewhat related to travel.
, Yeah. , It really, changed the wine industry. It had merlott sales going down and Pinot Noir, which wasn't that much, wasn't that famous, people usually knew as Burgundy, but it when Pinot noir, when Miles said, I'm not drinking. Fucking Merlot. I don't know if can say whatever you want.
No. Yeah, he's a huge pinot, Pinot Noir fan. And so pinot sales went through the roof and it also popularized, wine in America. And so that's like a direct correlation. There's been a few others, but most recent one is Netflix's Drive to survive F1. You can absolutely see a coloration of popularity in F1 and when that series, was out.
So I loved kind of seeing those examples and like, how can I do that within a particular industry? And so I was also looking at travel and seeing how many people are spending travel, like travel spending and popularities through the roof. People want those. They're craving those real life,, experiences, especially out of the pandemic.
I was looking at travel media, and travel media unfortunately was heading in the opposite direction. It was like nose diving. . And so I was obsessed trying to figure out why is there such a disconnect? Why are the media industries not being able to grasp these dollars that are actually, the biggest dollars, as , in travel is more, , more people are spending on travel and experiences than ever before.
And so I was obsessed with trying to figure out that disconnect. And after doing some more research, I realized two, two things. Legacy media. The guys like Fromer Lonely Plan and Conde Nas Travel and Leisure. They come at it from a glossing magazine style approach and we're living in a much different age.
And me, with my background in, in digital media and build audience communities, I think it really needs to take a digital first. Mindset, a video first mindset to come to this space. 'cause that's where the eyeballs are. I think secondly, what those guys don't have, they don't have a loyal following and they don't have a tremendous brand equity when it comes from by the consumer.
And so I. I wanted to build the 2.0 VER version of Jukin. So we were very successful, those brands that I named before, but how do I apply that in travel, industry and really create a sense of community, a sense of audience? And how we do that is through a 360 approach and being platform agnostic, whether it's books, physical books, and I'm sure you get more, you get into that to our social following to live events.
It's really multi-platform approach. Yeah. So it basically, you're building out a community around this type of content, which, what you said really resonated with me earlier about sideways because , I'm a California kid. I grew up in California, and when people think about wine. They think of napa, but this was not NAPA that was featured in,, IT Central California on the map.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's right. It, and that actually drove that. So, you know, that type of media change behavior, it also stimulated travel to that region. And of course, I. Sold a couple bottles of wine. Right. I'm a direct byproduct of that. I actually go to Central California, Northern, up north of Santa Barbara more than I do go to Napa.
I'm also in la. It's a little bit geographically closer for me, but I would've never have known about it if it wasn't for the moving sideways. Yeah, no, that's amazing. And along those lines, what you were saying about these travel publishers, the current ones, and I'll, another thing I'll add is like I don't really see a huge social media presence.
From all of them. , Obviously there are some fans or people , who go to them to curate certain pieces of travel, but from a content perspective, you're working with a ton of influencers as well. But what do you think is the secret sauce from a travel perspective to get people really excited about a destination?
Really excited about a brand that you are obviously going to capitalize on at some point. I think it starts with that audience. It starts with that community that's building fandom and within that fandom, it takes time to build, I think that credibility and authority and trust with the audience. And so when we went out, I knew how difficult it would be to start, a brand.
And so lost in is actually an acquisition and they've done these physical guidebooks. For a number of years, but they're very analog, but they're not your, , not , your mother's guidebook or your Rick, Steve, Rick Guidebook. Through all the respect to them, these, their brand. The Lost in Brand, which is now, , our brand goes a layer deeper.
We're talking about the gastronomy, we're talking about the art scene. The Paris book doesn't talk about the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, and there's obviously those are great places, right? But there's plenty of information on that, and we go to find that subculture and that heartbeat of a city.
And so we're talking about the Parisian wrapper that's up and coming, and this is actually where you have to go check 'em out. And so it's coming at it from a much more, I think, millennial lens. We like to say our audience is the premium economy traveler. They are working professionals. They have discretionary, income and they prioritize that their income and lifestyle around travel and travel culture.
And so that's really the audience we're going after. They're not quite, they're not the one percenters. They're also not , the bottom feeders discount. Let's do travel on a budget. They're willing to spend a little bit more for that lag room and comfort. And so , it's this working professional , that, that is, articulate around travel.
They know travel, and they want to, they consider travel's part, really part of who they are. Yeah. Yeah. You're obviously defining a specific demographic, a specific target, which is. I get it. They're probably underserved at this time and you guys are filling in the gap and in terms of the type of content, it's really off the beaten path, to say the least or Absolutely.
(00:43):
It's not the places that you could always kind of Google or find on TripAdvisor. Yeah. , Sure some of them could be there, but we also like talking about like popups, you can't necessarily find that on Google. And so we really go ask the locals and I think what's some of the proudest moments?
So far my editorial career has been when I launched a book and the locals say, oh my God, I've been here for 20 years. I've never heard of this place. I've never seen this. I didn't know this happens on Wednesday nights. And , that's like the ultimate compliment if you can get there. And I think people, , wanna go beyond just the regular places.
And I'm would say off the beaten path is we're going in the middle of the jungle, but it's off the main street and you have to go, , through some cobblestone alley to get to this underground pub. , It matches , with that demographic, right? , You want something that's cool, shareable, something that is not necessarily, , commonplace that you maybe your parents or your uncles or whoever had done before, you wanna stand out.
Totally. So that's really interesting. I don't, I. Personally, I don't see anybody kind of playing in that space right now. , So it makes complete sense. You'd go to Africa. But here's the other thing, , you're talking to an audience of people who are from the travel industry.
I've been in the travel industry for over 20 years. , Ticketing live events. , I. So what have you noticed, because you're entering from a media lens, right? And coming into the travel industry, I know you're going to certain conferences and events and such, but what's the main difference between,, traditional sort of brand media partnerships that you have and with travel suppliers or companies or technology providers that you would most likely speak to now?
I think at a high level there's a lot of, there's a lot of differences and there's a lot of similarities as well. But I would say what I've learned and what I find so fascinating, just my, very early in my career getting into the travel world, but I'm in inundated, I'm knees deep, I. I've realized how super fragmented the industry is.
There's a, it's a huge industry, but it's super fragmented and I don't think I ever really understood that. And I think where the similarities is coming from being a produced TV producer is really about packaging. And so trying to find the package, trying to find the pieces of the puzzle and how all those.
P pieces fit together. And so within travel you have the OTAs, , the technology, the online agencies. You have the in-kind agencies, , travel agencies. You have the hospitality, you have the tour operators, you have the d os, you have tourism board. So it's all inter, they're all separate, interconnected.
They don't necessarily love playing together or working together, but you have to find your path and find your way in to package it all together. Yeah. And so that's what I found ex extremely fascinating and , like the media industries today, a lot of it is legacy and I think travel's even more.
Legacy is the way from, folks that have been doing this for a very long time. I think once you're in travel, you stay in travel, it's hard to get out of travel. Totally. And so you have a lot of, I think this and I. I wanna be respectful because it is a great industry, but it's some archaic kind of thinking, that goes behind that.
. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think there's a, I think people who think that they're being disruptive actually aren't, they're staying safe , and then there're with these different companies that enter the space, it's, , I have the opportunity to work in ticketing as well, so let's take, , a large company like a Live Nation
Total ticketing is probably about 60 billion versus if you look at travel, it's like 9 trillion a year, annual. And you're right, it's very fragmented. I, break it down more simply in a lot of ways.
It's like it's suppliers and distributors and then the platforms in between. Sure. And so that , when you look at it. In that realm, it allows you to develop a better strategy to hit each side of that, and find who the major players are. In terms of marketing in general, what we find is that a lot of brands in particular, I.
On the travel side, can't compete with the big guys out there in the space. So if you look at Expedia and you look@booking.com, they're literally the biggest clients of Google. Yeah. They drive a majority of the traffic. So a lot of, , whether it's a hotel group or airline, whatever, they have to partner with them.
And so I think I mentioned this to you when we first talked, it's like the fact that you have distribution. Is key. Totally. It's key to working with these suppliers, whether it be an airline or a hotel or a destination. And so has that really has that shaped your strategy a bit of what the value proposition are to these travel suppliers?
I think we can go deep into the open web and SEO and how these guys are, you're right. Are absolutely paying Google and , you're not gonna outspend. I think the OTAs, when I see like a lot, we looked at a lot of startups to acquire. And essentially, , what they were just trying to build is a another OTA, , and they might build , a better looking mousetrap, but they can't keep the M in because in order to keep the M in, you have to keep putting cheese out there and you're spending a lot of money on ads.
And so your customer acquisition costs through the roof. So a lot of these companies don't make it, I'm sure. You've, uh, seen a lot of that, A lot of Com startups say, Hey, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna disrupt the OTA business. But it's super hard when they have such a strong hold the hotels.com Expedias.
Yeah. My thing is I do think this world is changing pretty quickly and with AI and with, I think, SEO being less and less important. That's why we wanna establish a more one-on-one connection with our user and fan base and create that, that, that fan equity and brand equity, because I think SEO is gonna be obsolete or gonna be, , less important obste, maybe not obsolete, but less important in the coming years.
And so our strategy is totally different. We're not even gonna try to compete on an SEL game. Let's not even play in that ballpark. But you know what? Let's build a different ballpark. We'll start off with the sandbox, but let's build a different sandbox over here and start developing over there and start developing those tools and start inviting those kids to come over and play with us.
And the bigger, more kids come, the bigger and bigger, field that , we're gonna build. And because it's important to have that one-on-one relationship and knowing that our audience, which is mostly younger, , their eyeballs are on social, and we wanna take advantage of social and leverage those platforms, those free platforms By the way.
To build an audience and community. Yeah, no, , it's a huge point because, , if you're, if you have to go with that sandbox analogy, , the big kids in the sandbox are spending two to 3 billion a year to, , to drive that traffic, right? So that's, , definitely disruptive in terms of finding new distribution, and there's no reason to even try to compete with them.
(01:04):
You know? Right. It's, it's like moving mountains because mm-hmm. To your earlier point, yeah. I, , as a consultant, I talked to lots of startup founders and, encountered them. And a lot of them can be very precious about the product, John, they wanna make sure that it converts in this way, or it, the buttons look this way and whatever it might be.
But it always comes down to, all right, that's great. You're gonna get all this investment and it's gonna be a perfect product, but. Still gonna market it. Yeah. Uhhuh, how are you gonna drive traffic to it to get all the conversions that you're looking for? And so that's where, , deer in headlights, , oh, it's a realization.
Yeah. , It's. It's true. And so there might be opportunities for others to, as you said, drive traffic through, , content. , One of the things I was curious about too is like using your old sort of methods, is there something in particular that you've seen can go viral very quickly? On the travel content side, is it the way it's edited or is it a certain type of content or maybe it's just the event itself, it's piggybacking off of other, , marketing stuff.
, It's, at one point I was called the King of Viral videos, , and I really lived in that world for a very long time, and. I also think there's a much different world where actually viral videos existed. I think they don't exist as much today where you had a viral video, it became that zeitgeist moment.
It became that cop. Yeah. Pop culture kind of a icon. , We talked about the pizza at Yeah. I we're still talking about it today, but I don't think there's any videos. That are coming out today, we're gonna be talking about five, six years down the road because it's such a commodity for reality.
Yeah, that, that's a huge call out. Actually, I can't think of the last exactly. Real viral video because people just spend. Yep. , I've seen other, , whether it's , a music artist or , a show, they're putting equal amounts of their marketing dollars into these channels to get these views rather than just organic, authentic virality where if someone shares it and another person shares it and it goes crazy.
But to your point, I haven't. Really seen anything lately. Jukin was a great, , company at a great time and a great moment in time in internet culture and history. And , you don't see that type of reality. It's now the company's now evolved, as it should. But I think when I look at it differently is that I don't necessarily don't wanna be.
Shoving clickbaity, , headlines or thumbnails. I, the lost in brand is more about discovery and so I'm also like pushing back. So everything that I did before, I'm almost pushing back a little bit and focusing more on the quality of the content. Working with influencers that, not the big, not the ones with the biggest names.
And you mentioned earlier, and I want to touch on that. It's the ones that really meet our brand ethos , and our talking, through our lens, , who have similar like-minded 'cause that's what a community is., It's , it is this like-minded individuals that share this kind, same values.
And so I. Those are the kind of the folks , and people we wanna partner with. It's less about , let's get the most viral video in the world. 'cause I actually think there's a huge problem with influencers and travel. I think it's a freaking mess out there. Yeah, I was gonna fragmented. It's super fragmented there.
No, I was gonna go there because yeah, , it's a big topic of conversation because a lot of, , if you have 10,000 followers, , you gotta, , up to a million, they, it almost, they feel like they have license to. To go and call a hotel and get a comp, , or go to a bigger brand and get a comp.
And then they, you're displaying their, , their lifestyle, which again, to our earlier part of our conversation could be purchased, right? That the followers that could be around them. And so there's actual companies now who authenticate. The followers for certain influencers so that a hotel or a destination or whoever it might be, can at least feel a little bit more peace of mind in terms of what type of ROI that they're gonna get if they do offer a comp room or whatever it might be.
And , yeah. What sort of your. Way , of looking at qualifying. , You said it earlier actually, like you, you want like-minded individuals, authenticity, but I think maybe , there's an opportunity here for you to provide a little bit of advice to travel, , industry people to say, here's what you should look for and here are the best type of influencers to work with.
Yeah, no, I don't know if I could be helpful on the vice, but I can tell you exactly what we're , looking for and what I like and don't like. , I think actually traffic creators are some of the most annoying people on the planet, to be honest with you. That's my pure honesty.
I think there's nothing authentic about it. A lot of it, and you're right, they're absolutely, they just wanna barter. And by the way, these guys staying. Power isn't that long. It's just a few years. , These guys get burnt out. It's hard to travel to be on the road. I'm about to head to Europe. , I'm about to do a multi-city.
, I'm preparing myself mentally and physically for it. That's a lot. Before I go, , these travel creators, they don't stick around that long, so it's hard to build that loyal following. They give up quickly. It's hard to maintain that, their lifestyle. And you're right, a lot of the time it's inauthentic and it's not organic.
And so they're just going out there to promote a hotel or because they're staying there for free. And by the way, they may necessarily like it and they'll just do it at, they'll just, they're just trying to, they're making calls every day just trying to get free airline tickets, free stays. And you can't really, it's hard to build that one-on-one connection with somebody when you know.
That this is all fake and phony. Yeah. And , we're really trying to find a couple, meaning like a husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, a travel couple who travels together. I would love to find that the problem. All of 'em, all I see are these guys happy and smiling and saying how great of a trip they are.
Trust me, I tell, and I love my wife to death, but we're arguing about getting lost, losing the room key. , Certain times you have to be somewhere. I wanna see that. To me, that is actually the realness and the au the, you talk about authenticity. That's what I really find. So if you find a travel creator, a couple out there, let me know.
There's definitely good times. There's also some bad times. But what, that's real drama that people care about because people do get lost, , on vacation. They miss things and they lose things and, . The airlines lose things. And yeah. , I'm trying to find that authenticity at the end of the day.
And so I think travel creators and influencers are really bad for the industry at the end of the day. And I know the hospitality folks, , it's a gift and a curse for them. Totally. It's an almost a necessarily evil to, to deal with. But if I think , if everything being equal, they would choose not to deal with them.
(01:25):
, At least not to tip field, the phone call. Yeah. , Because they get a lot of them. That's the whole, yeah. That's the whole thing. Totally. And I'm not saying they're all like this, but 90% of them , are like this. Yeah. , If you need a family, , I , to follow my wife and I, we argue all the time, especially about what we're gonna do.
And then when you put a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old into the mix, , you're right, there's a lot of smiling faces, a lot of like cute stuff out there. But it's a matter of. , The reality of travel is, is tough. Yeah. Like getting from, one flight to another. , Getting the right car to take you someplace.
Language barriers, John. , Totally. It's, my son and I are in Duolingo right now. We're on a 50 day streak. You know what I mean? Because ultra barriers too and etiquette. Yeah. , Is super, , important. Yeah, absolutely. But let's get the cameras rolling. Let's go. You know what, on the next one I'll let you know.
We'll get a couple of shots for you. Sounds great. No, that's amazing, man. You've got a set of books that you're already. In. . So what are your, your highlighted destinations currently and where you're going next? Where are you headed next? With lost in? Yeah, great question.
, So we've done 28 different cities, , at this point. And , lost in Paris, lost in London This year we did some new additions of our Tokyo book, our Amsterdam and Stockholm. I. So we have a few more new additions out. I think I can say. We're gonna do Milan and we're partnering, , with Milan there and their local tourism board.
So we're super excited about fantastic that will come later this year. Also tied into the Olympics that they have in 26. And, . I think for us is, , they've done some of the, like London kind of being a big city itself. , Los Angeles has been done, New York has been done, but now we're trying to go and we're coming out with a new collection and we're focusing on some of the neighborhoods.
'cause I think within the city, within a city, a big city, each neighborhood. Has its own uniqueness and has its own kind of people. And so we did our first kind of neighborhood edition late last year, which was Venice Beach. We're also headquartered in Venice Beach. It was our first book under our banner.
So it's a great way to test in our own, , sandbox if you want. Keep using that analogy, and that was super successful. , It was hugely successful and it was awesome to see , the community rally behind it. Working with the Chamber of Converse, working with the local tourism board. It's really awesome to see it come together.
And so we're gonna do that on the east coast with a major city. We're focusing on a, , on a neighborhood that I can't quite pronounce yet, but. We do a few of these neighborhoods and then you have a collection , of the whole city. And , as , each neighborhood is unique, has its own, , style.
And , we wanna go deep, a little bit more deeper and a little bit more localized. , Is really our goal. Yeah, , this speaks to the demographic again. I take anybody who's millennial, gen Z, they're really missing because it's so digital everywhere. They're really missing something to hold.
And I like this to music, right? Buying vinyl is off the charts. And , that authentic sort of analog feeling , is missing the authenticity of the experience. And so when you're going to. When you're going to Venice, which I saw some of your stuff, and I stayed at the Hotel Irwin a couple times, and so great to see how you guys shot it and pulled that all together.
I think it's a really cool advantage, one for the hotel to, to keep that book inside of , the property right. In every room or in the lobbies. Yep. But for the destination itself to have this bridge from digital to real life . And so what is , what are like , the top line, value prop que or.
Points you would say to any destination at this point to look at lost in as a partner or just to liken back to that authentic experience , within their market or destination? , I think what's really amazing I think is, , I talked about that credibility.
, We'll never undercut. , Something because someone's throwing some money at us. You, we actually turn, we actually turned down a lot of partnerships with some hospitality groups because it just doesn't make sense and we would never cover it. And so right now you mentioned different. Cities and different destinations.
It's really cool to see people come pitch us and say, Hey, do our city now, , we'll help support this, we'll help do this, , and , I think that's awesome and that's flattering, but at the same time, we'll never do it if it doesn't make sense for our audience. And it's not authentic , to our community.
And that's the top tier for us when we're thinking about the destination. Would we do this on our own and if we can get help along the way. Absolutely. And it's awesome to see people come to pitch, pitch us. And I do think for a majority though, we can find our own unique lens.
It may not be exactly what kind the destination wants, but like you're coming to us 'cause we're lost in, we have this great audience that's super passionate about travel and we have this very unique, unique and particular lens. And , we avoid the tourist traps. We just don't show them. There's plenty of information where you can get tourist traps or some landmarks.
We like to keep, we like to show the locals and like I said, if the, this is a, , if we can editorialize a place. And socialize a place that the locals are proud of that, that's like kind of the ultimate, , yeah. That's the secret sauce right there. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , That's what you would consider on Brandand for Lost in, as well as, , creating an authentic experience for that destination to market themselves.
Yeah, absolutely. You can get their level approval on a local level, , that, that's the ultimate credibility. So are you looking at collecting this content and doing, something maybe even bigger, like creating television shows or other things that would. Drive, , I guess destination marketing.
'cause I do think that needs to be disrupted a bit as well. , Is this kind of in the long-term vision? I understand if you're like, ah, I can't really say right now. But it sounds like with your background, John, , you could do a number of things. I'm sure there's a much bigger vision in Absolutely.
Of course. , We want, we see this as a multimedia, , company. And with that is short form. We have to be that platform agnostic. And , which that is short form, which that is books, who's that? Events, which is that long form. And we wanna reach our audience, where those eyeballs are. And I think the content might be slightly different.
(01:46):
'cause a 32nd video on Instagram is gonna be different than a long form series. But the long form series is still gonna have the DNA from lost in. We're still gonna have that through line. We're still gonna have that lens. And absolutely. In fact, after this podcast, I'm jumping on a call, talking about a,
an episodic series I think would do really well, , with the, with this partner we're talking to. Awesome. One thing I, one of the last things I wanted to mention too is just, what Tickets of Travel is all about is really focused on the travel demand that's created through live events.
So whether that's sports or music festival or concert series or a tour, and I know you guys deal in live events as well, is, are there partnerships, not just on the travel side, but also on the live events side that you'd look to do, or are you mainly looking at this as creating your own live events to drum up, eyeballs for the brand?
, All the above. How we look at like kind of events and meetups is like we will, we like to eventize when we drop a new book. So for like Venice Beach, we did some, , some great popup dinners leveraging the places that we covered, which is amazing, where we did a big open to the public party where have 400 people show up and that place was in the book.
And , we wanna support, , our partners there. , And so an event could be around a book drop, it could be around a meetup that we're doing in a particular city. We're just starting to talk to, have city ambassadors to help us throw these meetups at the Lost and Meetup and build that community.
, We're also doing events around partnerships that we have, and so we've been very successful partnering with some CPG brands and you're like, , that's not necessarily travel. , They have similar brand alignment as far as the values in that lens. They also have a lot of brand alignment around kind of audience and who the target audience and mar and market they're going after.
And so we did, we're invented speech. We did an event with a fragrance company, this hot. D two CCPG company that did live activations at Coachella, which again is part of our audience too. Yeah. , Younger music lovers. And we did this big event, , over here in on Venice Beach, off Abu Kinney. And so we created content, we promoted together.
I'm finding these up and coming partners and up and coming D two CCPG companies where our brands, , where there's a lot of synergy and overlap and so we're doing events , and programming with them. And so it's , just to specify for anybody who wants to follow your progress and,, evolution Lost in is the main brand, but what are the other ones that we should look out for?
That are related to lost. Yeah. So we're really pushing out, lost. But it's, my kind of. Growth hacking and digital chops. A little bit comes from, , seeding and other distribution. And so we have a few other brands that we're able to cross pollinate audience and send people to Lawson and vice versa.
And so there's one called View For My Window, which is a Facebook group, about 4 million fans. It's huge, hugely, highly engaged. A hugely passionate audience that love taking photos from anywhere in the world That's. A view for my window, and so that's really awesome and amazing. We have another one on Instagram called Travel Gram, which is more kind of general travel, but again, younger, slicker content that we're able to cross pollinate with the lost in brand.
Awesome. , John, I. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time today. , We are gonna continue to keep an eye on, , lost in and the related brands and really watch you grow. I do believe you guys are, , disrupting in your own way in terms of creating this type of content, viral content in some cases.
But I really appreciate you, sharing your story and some of your vision for Lost in Travel. Thanks. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. .
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