November 18, 2025 • 41 mins
Dan Balcauski hosts Luca Carlucci, CEO and co-founder of BizAway.Luca shares BizAway's mission of simplifying business travel by integrating technology with travel agent services. From a humble beginning with just a booking platform, BizAway now caters to over 1700 corporate clients with over 300 employees. The episode explores the shift towards a comprehensive travel agency model, the acquisition of a machine learning company, and the challenges and opportunities faced during the COVID-19 lockdown. Luca emphasizes the importance of client feedback, maintaining a motivated team, and making informed, calculated risks in scaling a business. The discussion provides insights into the complexities of managing both tech and service-oriented operations, leveraging AI for efficiency, and prioritizing human touch in customer interactions.
01:51 BizAway: The Elevator Pitch
02:53 The Evolution of BizAway's Business Model
04:43 Scaling Challenges and Complementary Services
06:16 Operational Complexities and Customer Segments
15:51 Acquisition Strategy and Integration
30:21 Leadership and Growth During the Pandemic
Guest Links
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Luca Carlucci (00:00):
time is the most valuable asset.
(00:01):
We try to learn from eachexperience, especially the ones
that cost us more money that'swhy you really need to care and
do things without usingimpulsiveness or just gut
feeling.
But it has to be a compositionof tool.
Like maybe the gut feeling couldbe something that triggers you
to look into it, but then youhave to be diligent and
(00:22):
structured, to understand thatit makes sense.
It was good timing or very badit's a point of view, but in
2020, we were a team of 28people, 2.5 million at the time
could go a long way for thatsmall team.
that allowed us to look atthings in a rational way with a
cold head rather than beingscared about what is gonna be
(00:46):
happening next month.
It's been good to becounterintuitive keeping on
pushing in 2020.
listen to your clients, first ofall because you cannot have a
solution without understandinghow it's gonna benefit the
client.
Dan Balcauski (01:23):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestorage and the leaders of the
best scale up B2B SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeLuca Carlucci, CEO, and
co-founder of BizAway, abusiness travel management
platform that combinestechnology with human travel
agent services.
Luca has scaled BizAway to over300 employees across eight
international offices whileserving more than 1700 corporate
(01:45):
clients.
Luca, welcome to the show.
Luca Carlucci (01:48):
Thank you.
Dan Balcauski (01:51):
Luca, before we dive into your scaly journey,
give us the elevator pitch.
What does BizaWay do?
Who do you serve?
Luca Carlucci (01:57):
Well, BizAway is a solution that has been
designed to bring peace of mindto our clients.
as you may know, business travelis the second biggest voice of
cost in any p and l right afterthe payroll.
And it's something that westrive to make a breeze.
Both.
(02:18):
To the traveler, obviously, butalso to all the other
stakeholders involved into thisbusiness style function.
So you can imagine about hr, youcan think about all the cost
control, all the finance part,and this is what we tell about.
We really want to have businesstravel, something that is sorted
(02:39):
out by BI way, so that all theresources internally to the
company can focus on the core ofthe business.
Dan Balcauski (02:46):
And Bue correct me if I'm wrong, you operate as
both a technology platform and atravel agency.
Luca Carlucci (02:52):
Correct.
We have
Dan Balcauski (02:53):
So I'm curious when you decided to start
BizAway, how did you decide thatoperating model versus being a
pure play sort of technologyprovider, could you help walk me
through what that early decisionprocess looked like?
Luca Carlucci (03:05):
No, it was very organic and natural in itself.
Consider we started being just atechnology company, was me and
my co-founder, the CTO wecreated the initial booking
platform at the, at thebeginning was only for hotels.
All the other verticals werecoming along during our 10 years
after.
years from launch, we had allthe four verticals This way
(03:29):
because the clients were askingus for that.
But two years in into ourjourney, we became also a travel
agency because we saw that therewas a need, not just for a
booking tool that of course isthe heart of our technology,
also.
A, a complete solution would'vepassed to a service component
(03:54):
that is our travel agencyservice that goes along with the
technology itself.
So that's why BizAway is acomplete one-stop shop for
everything business travel.
Dan Balcauski (04:05):
So you started out as pure technology, and then
two years in you started addingthis, agency services component,
was there a, a specific customerexperience or set of experiences
that convinced you that that wasthe right approach?
I imagined if you're startingout as a pure play technology
platform, it sounds organic,maybe that's at the time it
might not have been so clearcut.
Luca Carlucci (04:24):
No.
It started just that because wewere two people and we didn't
have the resources to be attravel agency at the time.
But the more we got successful,I'm talking about attraction.
There was this request comingfrom the clients
Dan Balcauski (04:38):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (04:39):
we decided to satisfy it within umbrella of
Dan Balcauski (04:43):
So I'm curious, obviously this podcast is called
SaaS Scaling Secrets, and so,Scaling, pure technology
platforms has its set ofidiosyncrasies.
I'm curious, how did you findmanaging both, technology
platform and services side ofthe businesses you grew?
Were there any particularchallenges or turning points
along the way?
I, obviously it sounds like you,you'd made that initial pivot
(05:04):
two years in and then I imagine,that's grown significantly in
eight years since, what have youlearned about Scaling two sides
that and how they're, are theydifferent?
Are they complimentary?
Luca Carlucci (05:14):
They are definitely complementary and the
complementarity of it comes fromthe fact that you have to have
technology in order to be ableto scale a full fledged service
in a more than proportional way.
Compared to the team itself.
Because of technology we havemore than 90% of our bookings
(05:35):
that come within be way withoutany human intervention, also in
the post-booking management.
We have around 8% of ourbookings and it's still a lot,
but it's.
If you look at the big picture,not that much that require human
intervention that comes becauseof the complexity or because of
(05:57):
the limitation of APIs and such.
And so to have service includedin the solution actually gives
superpowers to the solutionitself and still maintains the
scalability of the tech solutionaltogether in our value
proposition.
Dan Balcauski (06:15):
Hmm.
As you've scaled both sides.
I'm curious, so you said likethe eight per like 10, eight,
10% around there is, requiressort of human in the loop.
Is that driven from differentlike customer segments in your
marketplace?
Or, or do you find that like, itjust depends upon the, the
specifics of a particularbooking of, of what drives that
(06:37):
that split.
Luca Carlucci (06:39):
the right answer is it depends, but let's say
it's more lenient to towards thesecond option.
So the one related to theidiosyncrasies of different
tips.
For example just to give you asense, if you have to manage a
group of more than nine people.
Generally APIs for hotelbookings don't allow managing
(06:59):
this.
And for example, if you wantedto decouple a group maybe of 18
people into two groups of ninepeople, the price for the first
group is gonna be different fromthan the price of the second
group.
So probably because of that,it's better to this manually as
a group working towards.
(07:20):
The final provider so that youcan have first of all, all the
service related to theguarantees of the full booking
because it might even happenthat they don't have enough
rooms to satisfy the secondbatch of nine people.
No.
To the APIs, that's why it's waybetter to manage good bookings
or complex bookings.
I'm talking about, for example,tickets with different point of
(07:44):
reliable, depending on thesegments.
These are things that as oftoday is still possible to
provide additional value toexpert a travel expert desk, as
we call it with Ivis.
Dan Balcauski (07:59):
So I'm curious, you made this decision, two
years into the company and thennow you've scaled, you've added
all these verticals.
I'm curious, like with theaddition of this human touch
component Scaling both sides,what operational complexities
emerged that you didn'tanticipate what you guys made,
that you and your co-foundermade that decision two years
into the company?
Luca Carlucci (08:20):
Nine years ago we were not yet thinking about
working around the clock for allthe time zones in the world.
So that's definitely somethingthat when we started with, use a
lot of ingenuity to satisfy.
And now of course, we are verywell structured to work around
the clock with people that are.
each time with all the languagesthat are needed, consider that.
(08:42):
We don't outsource any.
Part of our customer servicejourney, let's say.
So everything is in-house with avery high level of satisfaction
and quality.
So because of that, we arereally well managing the shifts.
The fact that of course, if Iwant to have serving somebody in
(09:04):
South America.
And it's the daytime.
I cannot use our night shift forthe emergency in Europe, but it
has to be somebody that locallycan provide the level of service
that they expect and that we
Dan Balcauski (09:18):
Hmm.
Yeah, I can imagine that'squite, quite a trick when you
have international, globaloperations with all the human
touch.
You've gotta yeah, have peopleon, on, on call when, when those
people's business hours.
It gives you our business focus.
Luca Carlucci (09:33):
the clock at the moment, like you
Dan Balcauski (09:35):
I.
Luca Carlucci (09:35):
it any time, and you will be served in any
language that we serve.
Dan Balcauski (09:39):
I'm curious as you look at your investments how
do you think about, hey, well,we're looking at going into a
space or, or solving a problemif you're going to solve this
technology first versus humanfirst.
Like you mentioned before, the.
APIs of some of the providersthat you interact with.
And, you mentioned things likesplitting groups, right?
(10:01):
And so obviously that presents,with your integration partners,
you're like, well, there's notreally a, a clean way to sort of
integrate this off the, off thebat.
Is the premise that like you'regoing to sort of lead with
humans and then figure out theway automated a after the fact?
How do you approach it with bothsides of the operation?
Luca Carlucci (10:18):
It's first of all, the main point is to
satisfy the client.
So we start with that first,with that understood and entire
eyes.
And that's something that isalso part of our culture to be
proactive and liable towards theclient.
We then figure out.
What is the best way in a morescalable way and the way that
makes sense business wise to doso like technology always comes
(10:44):
into the picture.
Nowadays with ai, it's alreadytwo years that we are playing
around with, we are using itespecially for the internal
processes rather than customerfacing because, we want to still
maintain a level of service andperfe perfection towards the
solution that now AI is stillnot providing not yet.
(11:06):
I'm sure is gonna arrive at somepoint, internally, processes can
be very much slim to ai.
And this is something that we'redoing with a few tools already
for two years at this point.
Dan Balcauski (11:21):
So yeah, putting these to the customer first
leading with technology even tomake the humans in the loop more
efficient.
So besides those operationalcomplexities, like what area
that's particularly complex,like when you get a humans in
the loop is pricing.
So I'm curious like when.
Running a, a tech and servicesbusiness.
'cause, humans have a, usually asignificant variable cost, much
(11:42):
higher than running additionalstorage, compute for an
additional customer.
I'm curious how has thatimpacted how you've approached
pricing and packaging forcustomers that need this
additional level of service?
Luca Carlucci (11:54):
There are different levels of SLAs.
So depending on the client andalso on the willingness of the
client to pay, there aredifferent level of service.
Consider our lowest level ofservice.
Is what in the market isconsidered already one of the
highest.
We are talking from a very highlevel of service to a white
glove kind of service, At thetop.
(12:15):
And this doesn't really dependonly on the account, but it
depends also on the personaswithin the account.
There are for example clientsthat we serve in pure Tech way
for the back of the company.
And then there is maybe some.
C-suite travelers that areserved in a different way
because they don't book forthemselves, but there is a
(12:36):
booker or a travel arrange thatmanages them.
So there is a different type ofrelationship in that case.
And maybe that might be even adedicated service team for that
particular number of travelarranges.
No.
We really care about making.
Everything that the clientwants, the way that is the most
(12:56):
efficient, but also the mostsatisfactory at the same time.
This also, as you just said hasan impact on the pricing, of
course.
If you want very white glovekind of service where we get the
booking requests from thetraveler danger, but then we
service the actual traveleralready with the boarding pass
(13:18):
with the information of theitinerary.
Of course they also have the appso everything gets pushed into
the app in the pockets.
So it's a very, completeexperience that
Dan Balcauski (13:30):
Mm
Luca Carlucci (13:31):
to different stakeholders in the same
customer journey.
Dan Balcauski (13:35):
mm.
Luca Carlucci (13:35):
course there is a higher price for that.
And the pricing, what we do isgenerally.
We have a price per booking thatis the price per booking that is
related to the main contract.
then there might be a packaging,like for example, you have for
these fixed amount per year anumber of travelers that might
(13:58):
be served with this level ofservice by this dedicated team,
and this as
Dan Balcauski (14:02):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (14:03):
price.
Dan Balcauski (14:04):
So within a particular account, let's just
make sure I was tracking whatyou said.
So you said there's you may haveperhaps a volume of customers
within that account who are, or,or employees within that account
who are just using, the, thetech enabled components of your
platform.
But then, there could be seniorexecutives who are more white
glove.
And so with your, you'reoffering, you're, you've been
(14:26):
able to sort of differentiateand say, Hey, there's, there's,
because oftentimes when youthink about some of those like
service enabled components, solike, professional services or
training or onboarding servicesor, cus named, customer success
management, like, you mightthink about that Scaling to the
entire, if you have a seat basedmodel to the entire seats per
account, but you've been able tojust.
(14:49):
Segment that within that accountand say, Hey, there's only 10
people who need white glove.
And so we're able to, to price,to that, to satisfy just that
executive.
I'm curious, was that was thatyour original understanding or
was that alerting that you guyshad to adopt and, and modify
over time?
Luca Carlucci (15:04):
Generally it's always an evolution of the value
proposition that comes fromlistening to the client and see
what we can do to satisfy themeven more.
Always.
Dan Balcauski (15:16):
Mm-hmm.
Luca Carlucci (15:17):
It's very important in my opinion to have
a continuous dialogue.
With the clients, me, myself I'mstill, involved with some of the
clients in a periodic calls orwe also have many points of
contacts and also structuredones that in order to receive
feedback not only by the users,but also by the responsible of
(15:39):
the accounts.
And we also have periodicalinterviews.
We really care.
And I think listening is alreadyof the solution when you have an
opportunity.
Dan Balcauski (15:51):
Well, I want to pivot a little bit'cause I know
that you had recently hadacquired a company called a
aveo.
Is that the, how you pronounceit?
Just tell us, tell me a littlebit about aveo and then I guess
what, walk me through what ledto that decision to acquire
them.
Luca Carlucci (16:05):
That acquisition was mostly led by an interest in
the technology.
They were one of the firstplayers to try to play around
machine learning in the businesslevel space.
I think they had done quite goodjob in.
this part the business model andapplication of this tech towards
(16:29):
that.
In fact we have incorporatedthis tech and we are working on
some quite interestingdevelopments that are gonna come
up in this part of the solution.
I cannot talk much about this.
Dan Balcauski (16:44):
Yeah.
Yes.
Understood.
Understood.
No, no, no need to announce yourroadmap on air.
So it sounded like you acquiredthem for mostly the technology
around what they were doing inmachine learning,
Luca Carlucci (16:54):
Totally.
Dan Balcauski (16:54):
artificial intelligence.
Luca Carlucci (16:55):
of course, within the acquisition there was also a
very good team that we added toours.
It was a good operations for usto carry out.
Dan Balcauski (17:05):
I'm curious the decision to acquire them is a
big one.
And so something that I'm suremany leaders face, opportunities
to acquire different companies.
I did, other.
Other approaches like buildingthe cap capability internally
or, partnering with them or, or,or companies like them come up
as potential alternatives.
Luca Carlucci (17:26):
Yeah, definitely.
The point is that to produceinternally what, we are looking
forward, let's say, because it'snot done yet.
it would've taken longer withoutthe acquisition in the meantime.
So it's still something thatdefinitely speed us up on the
production line towards thedelivery of that particular
(17:49):
feature that we are about tooffer to the clients.
Definitely we could have nothave done the acquisition and
instead of releasing suchfeature in Q4 this year, we
would've released it in Q3 nextyear.
But, time is the most valuableasset.
So, since we found that therewas a very good mix and fit
(18:12):
between the opportunity andourselves, so we went for it.
Dan Balcauski (18:17):
I'm curious.
So, yeah, timing sp speed tomarket often a big driver that
sort of pushes in folks in favorof acquisition.
I'm curious as a leader duringthat process like.
How did you I guess manage thatdecision process?
Like, did you guys have aninternal team that was, looking
(18:38):
at like, actually like scopingout, like the build and then is,
was it a very some of these.
Are like, yeah, we can put thespreadsheets together, but at
the end of the day, it's sort ofa, a, a, a gut feeling decision.
Was it the, did you have advicefrom like external advisors who
was helping you sort of shapethat decision?
I'm curious.
Like, I, I actually, I didn'task you, but was this your first
acquisition as a leader?
Luca Carlucci (18:58):
and not the last one.
We are now in the process ofanother, but, what we acquired
was a company that I knew and Iwas in touch with for a couple
of years already.
So it was not some last minutedecision, but it was something
that developed over a time.
And again, the the value of thisacquisition is to be faster
(19:23):
towards our goal.
So, to do that was a decisionthat involved, of course, the
alternative, we do it ininternally and we get to a
certain objective in a longertime period.
Or we take the risk of anacquisition because an
acquisition is always carryingrisks with it.
(19:45):
In the integration of thepeople, in the integration of
the technology, if there is atechnology in the integration of
the portfolio of clients, ifthere are, there is a portfolio
of clients to integrate.
So it's of course also somethingthat as.
Discrimination in terms ofdecision making on the feeling
(20:06):
that you have, that you can do,that you
Dan Balcauski (20:09):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (20:09):
overcome that risk, let's say.
but of course there are alsosome external that we use from
advisors from, due diligenceproviders, let's say that we
also do in order to de-risk thethis already risk operation.
So,
Dan Balcauski (20:29):
Yeah.
Well, yeah, the number ofacquisitions that don't like
everything looks really well onthe deck and everyone, pops the
champagne when the deal'ssigned.
But then the number that justend up not working out is,
monumental given, given, given.
Luca Carlucci (20:43):
that's probably one of the most likely outcomes.
Consider that BizAway wants tobe a consolidator in the market.
Properly because of this, we aregetting smarter about how to do
acquisition in a positive way,in a way that everybody that is
involved wins and in a way thatthe outcome is what we desire to
be.
Dan Balcauski (21:04):
Well, given that it was your second one I guess
any it sounds like you had anestablished relationship with
these this company for severalyears before, so it wasn't what
we'd say the us it wasn't ashotgun wedding by any, any,
stretch.
There's a long, long courtshipperiod perhaps.
I guess any, given it was yoursecond one, any surprises?
I think either in the, the dealprocess or in the sort of post
(21:25):
integration that was surprisingfor you as you went forward with
this, given it was your second.
Luca Carlucci (21:31):
Oh, generally like we try to learn from each
and every experience, especiallythe ones that cost us more money
than, I am quite, comfortablewith the second one because we,
for sure didn't make themistakes we did in the first one
for sure.
We made new mistakes that wewill not repeat in our third
one, so that's why also I reallycare about this because I can
(21:56):
tell you the first one that wemade was two years and a half
ago, and I can confidently saythat it was a success.
Dan Balcauski (22:04):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (22:04):
one that we did at the beginning of this year.
He's already looking good interms of return on the
investment.
And
Dan Balcauski (22:11):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (22:12):
that we are planning on doing and
potentially finalized before theend of the year is also
something that we've beenworking on for a very good
amount of time.
So it's a process that takestime is not.
Fast in itself.
Then of course if you compare toother tasks, it might be faster,
let's say.
(22:33):
But of course, like it requiresa level of diligence, due
diligence that is first to howmuch you pay.
Because that's also if you arepaying something that very
little, then you are willing totake more risks because you are
not spending that much.
But if something is quite,presenting presenting quite a
(22:56):
good chunk of money, especiallyin selective terms what you have
available, then you want.
To make that bullet Sure.
To hit the target.
No.
Dan Balcauski (23:07):
Yeah.
Luca Carlucci (23:07):
that's why you really need to care much and to
do things without usingimpulsiveness or just gut
feeling.
But it has to be a compositionof tool.
Like maybe the gut feeling couldbe something that triggers you
to look into it, but then youhave to be diligent and
structured, in order tounderstand that it makes sense.
(23:28):
As an.
Dan Balcauski (23:29):
That makes sense.
So earlier, you said you didacquire them because of their
technol, their ai, and naturallanguage processing
technologies.
I'm curious, as you'veintegrated that technology stack
into your company is.
Anything any challenges that youfound that have been unique to
integrating those technicalcapabilities?
(23:50):
Like one thing is obviously justeven from an engineering
perspective, these type ofsystems can have very different
profiles in terms of qualityassurance, right?
Because you, you can ask atleast I, I haven't, I haven't
played with your systemdirectly, but, folks have played
with some system like chat, GBTfor example.
You could ask the same question10 times and maybe it gives you
the same answer five times andthen five different answers the
(24:11):
other time.
I'm curious, like, and, andobviously that that's only from,
a QA perspective.
I'm sure there's other things,anything that's been surprising
as you've integrated that, thattechnology into your, your
company that has been useful ormemorable for you?
Luca Carlucci (24:25):
First of all, disclaimer, I'm not a technical
guy, so,
Dan Balcauski (24:27):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Luca Carlucci (24:28):
very deep on that.
But what I can tell you is thatwhat we acquired.
Was more than knowhow towardsthe application of machine
learning to business travel, tothe business, travel work, let's
say, rather than a piece of codethat we copied in, including our
stack.
Consider that also the languageswere different, so for sure we
(24:51):
are gonna do work it all.
And the company historically wassmaller than ours, and of course
was not having the level of QAon the product that we have.
So we have to make sure thateverything that we release is at
par with our standards.
So there is always the need torework or adapt potentially
(25:15):
also, change
Dan Balcauski (25:17):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (25:17):
You acquire in terms of technology.
I'm talking more on ageneralistic level rather than
this particular, experience.
But again, what speeds you up isthe talent that you get and the
know-how that you get.
Dan Balcauski (25:34):
That makes sense.
And, and yeah, I, this is not atechnical interview, so, will
won't will pass you that the soone thing that I'm curious about
kinda similar to, with, withservices, a big question folks
always have is, obviously thesemachine learning systems have.
Usually a, a different costprofile from, what they've been
used to running for, just likestorage and compute as well.
(25:54):
Not only the fixed cost, ifyou're actually developing AI
systems, which could be quiteexpensive as, as meta has noted,
having to just go, go highersort of baseline researchers
those, those, that's how it canbe quite expensive to acquire,
but even to, to run it can be,could be significant.
I'm curious like.
What, how you've approached,integrating these AI
capabilities in terms of yourcommercial strategy.
Are these things that you'veidentified customers are willing
(26:17):
to pay more for and thereforeare, are segmenting them in,
into areas or parts of yourproduct where you're trying to
use them to drive, upgrade?
Or like, how are you thinkingabout that set of components as
it pertains to your commercialstrategy?
Luca Carlucci (26:30):
So what I'm looking at, AI and machine
learning components.
It is more of a way to reducecost rather than a way to
increase marginality on a singleinstance, let's say.
Dan Balcauski (26:45):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (26:45):
I could potentially charge more for a
feature that has AI in it,especially in the moment of hype
as we are now.
And, but what I care about isthat the client is always
extremely satisfied with oursolution.
And if to be extremely satisfiedwith our solution, it goes for
(27:05):
me to make an investment in AIthat provides potentially an
additional layer of informationor whatever is gonna be the
case.
To in real time, to the client,to the traveler, to whoever the
stakeholder is.
It's a good investment.
It's an investment in detention.
It's an investment in maybefaster acquisition or these all
(27:29):
like I look at in a way that Idon't have to go and charge my
client more for something that Idecide to offer within the
umbrella of services that I dooffer.
I see it as a way, as a route bemore convenient on
microstructure
Dan Balcauski (27:48):
Mm.
Mm
Luca Carlucci (27:50):
let's say.
Dan Balcauski (27:51):
Yeah.
That's, that's fascinating.
'cause I, I, I think that'swe're seeing a lot of that.
I think there's a lot of theadoption right now at least in
production use cases, are aroundthese sort of cost saving
aspects versus revenuegenerating.
And I think it may be a, amatter of time before those,
those get tapped out.
But I think that's, we're, we'reseeing a lot of sort of customer
(28:11):
service type use cases, right?
That, that are traditionallymore like cost centers.
Like how do we get, let morehumans out of the loop?
Actually you provide a betterlevel of service on that because
oftentimes I don't know aboutyou, I don't want to talk to a
human if a machine can answer myquestion.
'cause there's usually a
Luca Carlucci (28:25):
on the easy questions makes a total of a ton
of sense.
So,
Dan Balcauski (28:29):
hmm.
Luca Carlucci (28:30):
That where we have to be very good at
discriminating, which kind ofservice level we want to offer,
at which point in the valuejourney of the client how so,
consider, like there are manyservices out there already that
you already get.
Maybe frustrated not to sayanother word with the machine
(28:53):
that you just repeat three orfour times.
I want to talk to a human.
I want to talk to a human.
I want to talk to a human also.
And you end up putting talkingto, actual service
representative of the company.
That's a bad ai.
Application, in my opinion.
it's something that on the paperokay.
(29:16):
We had instances that have beenanswered by our machine learning
or by our ai, let's say.
But in reality, the fifthinstance is still the first one
was waiting for the human totalk to.
So that's also.
The complexity that we have nowwhen AI is still at its
(29:37):
beginnings and still there is aton of value in the human
interaction.
Dan Balcauski (29:43):
Yeah, I, there's yeah, I think there used to be a
website where you have thosephone trees for, you dial a
customer support number, andthere used to be a website that
listed for every corporation,like how you, the numbers you
need to press to get to a humanfaster.
I think.
You, we, we have, yeah.
We, we learned that lesson withthose phone trees.
It seems like we may need to, alot of companies may need to
relearn them again with these AIcustomer service bot.
(30:04):
But I, I applaud your approach.
I think that's a, that's ahealthy perspective and very
customer-focused.
So I, I wanna pivot a littlebit.
Just so you know, you've beenrunning BizAway for 10 years
now.
That's a lot of longevity inthe, in the tech world
especially.
No, no overnight successes,right?
10 year, 10 year overnightsuccess.
I'm curious how has yourapproach to leadership changed
during that time?
(30:25):
I'm sure you know you, or you'resaying like zero to zero to two
years, you and your co-founder,I'm sure very different company,
very different dynamics thanwhat you're, the organization
you're leading today, over 300employees and multiple
international offices.
I'm curious, like how has yourapproach to leading the company
changed?
And, and maybe that's in termsof like the different eras that
you've experienced of like Yeah,it was, it was, it was one
(30:47):
thing, one to 10, another, 10 toa hundred.
It's been very different, aftera hundred, I dunno how you think
about it, but kinda curious of,of how you've, you've needed to
adopt your style to the growingof the company.
Luca Carlucci (30:57):
Definitely consider that is the first time
that I built a company to thisstage.
Like, what people would call aserial entrepreneur.
This is my third company, but,of the other company were even
close as successful as BizAwaysdefinitely.
With size, there are changesthat are to size itself I
(31:19):
enjoyed, would say, every stepof the way so far and I'm
looking forward to the next witheven more enthusiasm.
But I can tell you already thatof course, the phase zero to
one, the one where I was justwith me technical co-founder
pushing, be away.
And doing everything that wasnon-technical while micro
(31:41):
founder was coding the basics ofwhat BizaWay is today.
It's extremely satisfactorybecause you are having an impact
that is at extremely noticeableday by day.
Of course, this changes alreadywhen you are in the phase one to
10.
That we've been, with theparenthesis of the pandemic that
(32:03):
you can imagine for a travelcompany is not an easy thing to
navigate.
We've been lucky.
But also strong into thatparenthesis properly because it
could have been the end of BIway.
And so I would say two things.
We've been lucky on the sensebecause we had raised some money
(32:24):
just before the pandemic inNovember, 2019, so
Dan Balcauski (32:28):
Whew.
Luca Carlucci (32:29):
yeah.
Dan Balcauski (32:29):
timing.
Luca Carlucci (32:30):
It was good timing or very bad it's a point
of view, but we could face atthe time in 2020, we were a team
of 28 people, 2.5 million at thetime could go a long way for
that small team.
And that allowed us to look atthings in a rational way with a
(32:51):
cold head rather than beingscared about what is gonna be
happening next month.
No
Dan Balcauski (32:57):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (32:58):
with a very strong creed and belief business
hours would've come back.
remember perfectly when in themiddle of the whole, complexity
of the times in 2020.
Even the gates came out with aneditorial saying a business
table is done, or something inthe line.
(33:18):
like, of course I have a ton ofrespect for that personality.
And I would say oof.
Like even this guy says, thisdidn't die, but I don't believe
it.
No.
And it was based on conviction.
On belief of put to the test.
At the end we are social animalslike we are having now a
(33:38):
conversation to a screen and itworks and it's fine, but if we
had to do more, the screen wouldnot be enough.
We would
Dan Balcauski (33:46):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (33:46):
meet, we would need, like, if we were to
cooperate on a project it wouldbe very beneficial for us to
meet in person.
Like I have advisors that arefrom the Valley and the likes,
and we meet every three or sixmonths because otherwise the
relationship goes still in away, so.
With that strong belief, I wouldsay that that was the other
(34:10):
component other than luck, thatmade us persevere and to plan,
for the worst, while hoping forthe best.
And we managed to go on actuallyin 2020.
We more than our base ofclients, though.
They were not booking, theystarted booking in 2021 when the
(34:31):
lockdowns and the bordersblockage got lifted and 2021
also, we continued sailingselling to the clients.
So.
Steady balance for us has beenex extremely strong, and since
then we've been doublingorganically year over year,
every year.
So that's very strong on theperformance side.
That's why also we managed toraise the money that we have
(34:53):
done so far and we are keepingon going very strong on that.
Dan Balcauski (34:58):
That's fascinating.
So you just said that 2020, youdoubled the number of clients
during 2020.
Luca Carlucci (35:05):
correct.
Dan Balcauski (35:05):
Seems that's incredibly surprising.
I guess what was the, what, likewhat are the conversations like
at that time?
Like they're signing up withthis idea that like, Hey, we're
gonna, we're gonna book travelwith you next year when this all
ends.
Like I just,
Luca Carlucci (35:19):
It was funny.
It was
Dan Balcauski (35:20):
yeah.
Luca Carlucci (35:21):
Consider half of the calls they would say, call
me back in six months.
Call me back in next year.
Call me back when this finishes,whatever.
And of course.
You respect that and go on.
But also there were tons ofprofessionals that have
responsibility of the businesslevel budget that they were
doing nothing during those days.
So they were very willing tolisten.
(35:43):
also we had very little to nocompetition at the time because
everybody made furlough.
Everybody made, it costreduction plans and whatever.
So like we were competingagainst little to nobody.
No.
It's been I think good to becounterintuitive keeping on
pushing in 2020.
(36:03):
Consider that.
We started 2020 with 28 people.
We finished the year with 62people, remember it's very
clearly, properly because it wasa very big bet on my side.
a calculated bet, first of all,because we had.
The resources to do that.
Dan Balcauski (36:18):
Mm-hmm.
Luca Carlucci (36:19):
because the belief that come back was very
strong into our, mind.
And then of course, in if youremember, in Europe at least has
been already some freedom oftraveling at the end of Q3, and
then by the end of Q4.
Also there been lifts around,around the border and stuff, so
(36:43):
there were already the signalsof COVID, let's say,
Dan Balcauski (36:47):
So you not only didn't have furloughs, you grew
headcount almost doubled duringthat time period.
Luca Carlucci (36:53):
and
Dan Balcauski (36:53):
I'm curious and you said you had this belief you
made this, obviously that's abet.
I guess what, what made you soconfident or like, was there,
like, I, I imagine a lot ofpeople were just like, the sky
is falling.
Uh uh, I.
Luca Carlucci (37:07):
we had some investors that were saying,
look, you have to do, furloughis a responsibility.
You have to protect all the cashthat you have.
And stuff.
And luckily no, it was not allthe investors like this.
Most of the investors actuallysupported me in my decision.
And again, like it's a beliefthat is rooted in our way of
(37:27):
being like can you imagine nottraveling?
Can you imagine not meeting newpeople in their life?
Can you imagine?
I think it was difficult to saythen.
But if we think about ourselves,again, we are social animals.
We really need to not beingreduced to talking to a screen
(37:47):
all day,
Dan Balcauski (37:48):
yeah.
Yeah.
No, I, I, I definitely feelthat.
And I just remember, during thattime period, I, there were,
plenty of, not only Bill Gates,but I, I saw plenty of op-eds of
like.
It's the end of New York City,for example, like the New York
City is, New York City is over,right?
No one's gonna wanna live inlike these close cities anymore.
Everyone's gonna flee.
And like, yeah, now their, rentsare back through the roof and,
(38:09):
it's causing other politicalproblems.
But we'll we'll leave thatalone.
Look, this has been fascinating.
Just wanna start wrapping thingsup ask you a few rapid closeout
questions.
Are you up for it?
Luca Carlucci (38:18):
Of
Dan Balcauski (38:19):
Awesome.
When you think back, all thepeople, spectacular people
you've had a chance to workwith.
Anyone who pops to mind that'shad a disproportionate effect on
the way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Luca Carlucci (38:29):
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
I didn't.
Dan Balcauski (38:32):
yeah.
Okay.
No worries.
Yeah, so when you think aboutall the spectacular people that
you've had a chance to workwith, is there anyone who pops
to mind who's had a PRpronounced effect on the way
that you think about buildingcompanies?
Luca Carlucci (38:44):
Yeah, one of my tutors or sorry, one of my
mentors that is gon that iscurrently the global CEO and
president of the group.
I'm lucky enough that I knowhim.
From his experience before evenwhen he was CEO of DNH group, he
always said, how much importantis to have a team that is not
(39:09):
only aligned, but also not tohave, And I quote the word
assholes in the team.
something that he has also putin the s of his current group.
And it's something that makes aton of sense, not only on the
headline, of course, becauseit's surprising to read in the
backlog policy, but in terms of.
(39:32):
What stands behind this phrase?
It makes a lot of sense that youwant to have an environment that
is positive that each andeveryone contributes to and is
happy to be involved in.
And that's something thatreally, really resonates with
me.
I've been working in environmentthat were not the best in terms
of, of toxicity, let's say tosay that in my employee
(39:58):
experience before, like manyyears ago at this point
generally when I was into makinga company, I always didn't, I
knew what I didn't want tocreate as an
Dan Balcauski (40:09):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (40:10):
And when somebody that is so, relevant and
especially so, an authority thespace says the same it goes a
long way.
I'm actually very thankful tohim.
Like, plus he's a verysupportive and pleasant person,
so I'm thankful for that.
Dan Balcauski (40:30):
Awesome.
Well shout out to Frederico.
Was that his name?
Frederico if I gave you abillboard, you could put any
advice on there.
For other B2B SaaS CEOs tryingto scale their companies, what
would it say?
Luca Carlucci (40:42):
It would say, listen to your clients, first of
all because you cannot have asolution without understanding
how it's gonna benefit theclient.
And that would be one.
And the other would be make surethat your colleagues aligned
with you and that they're happy.
Dan Balcauski (41:01):
Make sure your colleagues are aligned with you.
And no assholes.
Luca Carlucci (41:04):
And also it
Dan Balcauski (41:05):
no assholes.
Luca Carlucci (41:06):
If they're not aligned, they shouldn't be.
At least, I hope I'm not.
Dan Balcauski (41:10):
Awesome.
Luca, this has been great.
If our listeners wanna connectwith you, learn more about
BizaWay, how can they do that?
Luca Carlucci (41:16):
They can come to our page www.BizAway.com to
learn more about the serviceoffering that we have, they can
just tie us out, and I'm surethey're gonna be satisfied with
the solution in the service.
Dan Balcauski (41:32):
Awesome.
I will put that link in the shownotes for our listeners that
wraps up this episode of AskScaling Secrets.
Thank you to Luca for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners who foundLuca's Insights valuable, please
review and share this episodewith your network.
It really helps the podcastgrow.
time is the most valuable asset.
(00:01):
We try to learn from eachexperience, especially the ones
that cost us more money that'swhy you really need to care and
do things without usingimpulsiveness or just gut
feeling.
But it has to be a compositionof tool.
Like maybe the gut feeling couldbe something that triggers you
to look into it, but then youhave to be diligent and
(00:22):
structured, to understand thatit makes sense.
It was good timing or very badit's a point of view, but in
2020, we were a team of 28people, 2.5 million at the time
could go a long way for thatsmall team.
that allowed us to look atthings in a rational way with a
cold head rather than beingscared about what is gonna be
(00:46):
happening next month.
It's been good to becounterintuitive keeping on
pushing in 2020.
listen to your clients, first ofall because you cannot have a
solution without understandinghow it's gonna benefit the
client.
Dan Balcauski (01:23):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestorage and the leaders of the
best scale up B2B SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeLuca Carlucci, CEO, and
co-founder of BizAway, abusiness travel management
platform that combinestechnology with human travel
agent services.
Luca has scaled BizAway to over300 employees across eight
international offices whileserving more than 1700 corporate
(01:45):
clients.
Luca, welcome to the show.
Luca Carlucci (01:48):
Thank you.
Dan Balcauski (01:51):
Luca, before we dive into your scaly journey,
give us the elevator pitch.
What does BizaWay do?
Who do you serve?
Luca Carlucci (01:57):
Well, BizAway is a solution that has been
designed to bring peace of mindto our clients.
as you may know, business travelis the second biggest voice of
cost in any p and l right afterthe payroll.
And it's something that westrive to make a breeze.
Both.
(02:18):
To the traveler, obviously, butalso to all the other
stakeholders involved into thisbusiness style function.
So you can imagine about hr, youcan think about all the cost
control, all the finance part,and this is what we tell about.
We really want to have businesstravel, something that is sorted
(02:39):
out by BI way, so that all theresources internally to the
company can focus on the core ofthe business.
Dan Balcauski (02:46):
And Bue correct me if I'm wrong, you operate as
both a technology platform and atravel agency.
Luca Carlucci (02:52):
Correct.
We have
Dan Balcauski (02:53):
So I'm curious when you decided to start
BizAway, how did you decide thatoperating model versus being a
pure play sort of technologyprovider, could you help walk me
through what that early decisionprocess looked like?
Luca Carlucci (03:05):
No, it was very organic and natural in itself.
Consider we started being just atechnology company, was me and
my co-founder, the CTO wecreated the initial booking
platform at the, at thebeginning was only for hotels.
All the other verticals werecoming along during our 10 years
after.
years from launch, we had allthe four verticals This way
(03:29):
because the clients were askingus for that.
But two years in into ourjourney, we became also a travel
agency because we saw that therewas a need, not just for a
booking tool that of course isthe heart of our technology,
also.
A, a complete solution would'vepassed to a service component
(03:54):
that is our travel agencyservice that goes along with the
technology itself.
So that's why BizAway is acomplete one-stop shop for
everything business travel.
Dan Balcauski (04:05):
So you started out as pure technology, and then
two years in you started addingthis, agency services component,
was there a, a specific customerexperience or set of experiences
that convinced you that that wasthe right approach?
I imagined if you're startingout as a pure play technology
platform, it sounds organic,maybe that's at the time it
might not have been so clearcut.
Luca Carlucci (04:24):
No.
It started just that because wewere two people and we didn't
have the resources to be attravel agency at the time.
But the more we got successful,I'm talking about attraction.
There was this request comingfrom the clients
Dan Balcauski (04:38):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (04:39):
we decided to satisfy it within umbrella of
Dan Balcauski (04:43):
So I'm curious, obviously this podcast is called
SaaS Scaling Secrets, and so,Scaling, pure technology
platforms has its set ofidiosyncrasies.
I'm curious, how did you findmanaging both, technology
platform and services side ofthe businesses you grew?
Were there any particularchallenges or turning points
along the way?
I, obviously it sounds like you,you'd made that initial pivot
(05:04):
two years in and then I imagine,that's grown significantly in
eight years since, what have youlearned about Scaling two sides
that and how they're, are theydifferent?
Are they complimentary?
Luca Carlucci (05:14):
They are definitely complementary and the
complementarity of it comes fromthe fact that you have to have
technology in order to be ableto scale a full fledged service
in a more than proportional way.
Compared to the team itself.
Because of technology we havemore than 90% of our bookings
(05:35):
that come within be way withoutany human intervention, also in
the post-booking management.
We have around 8% of ourbookings and it's still a lot,
but it's.
If you look at the big picture,not that much that require human
intervention that comes becauseof the complexity or because of
(05:57):
the limitation of APIs and such.
And so to have service includedin the solution actually gives
superpowers to the solutionitself and still maintains the
scalability of the tech solutionaltogether in our value
proposition.
Dan Balcauski (06:15):
Hmm.
As you've scaled both sides.
I'm curious, so you said likethe eight per like 10, eight,
10% around there is, requiressort of human in the loop.
Is that driven from differentlike customer segments in your
marketplace?
Or, or do you find that like, itjust depends upon the, the
specifics of a particularbooking of, of what drives that
(06:37):
that split.
Luca Carlucci (06:39):
the right answer is it depends, but let's say
it's more lenient to towards thesecond option.
So the one related to theidiosyncrasies of different
tips.
For example just to give you asense, if you have to manage a
group of more than nine people.
Generally APIs for hotelbookings don't allow managing
(06:59):
this.
And for example, if you wantedto decouple a group maybe of 18
people into two groups of ninepeople, the price for the first
group is gonna be different fromthan the price of the second
group.
So probably because of that,it's better to this manually as
a group working towards.
(07:20):
The final provider so that youcan have first of all, all the
service related to theguarantees of the full booking
because it might even happenthat they don't have enough
rooms to satisfy the secondbatch of nine people.
No.
To the APIs, that's why it's waybetter to manage good bookings
or complex bookings.
I'm talking about, for example,tickets with different point of
(07:44):
reliable, depending on thesegments.
These are things that as oftoday is still possible to
provide additional value toexpert a travel expert desk, as
we call it with Ivis.
Dan Balcauski (07:59):
So I'm curious, you made this decision, two
years into the company and thennow you've scaled, you've added
all these verticals.
I'm curious, like with theaddition of this human touch
component Scaling both sides,what operational complexities
emerged that you didn'tanticipate what you guys made,
that you and your co-foundermade that decision two years
into the company?
Luca Carlucci (08:20):
Nine years ago we were not yet thinking about
working around the clock for allthe time zones in the world.
So that's definitely somethingthat when we started with, use a
lot of ingenuity to satisfy.
And now of course, we are verywell structured to work around
the clock with people that are.
each time with all the languagesthat are needed, consider that.
(08:42):
We don't outsource any.
Part of our customer servicejourney, let's say.
So everything is in-house with avery high level of satisfaction
and quality.
So because of that, we arereally well managing the shifts.
The fact that of course, if Iwant to have serving somebody in
(09:04):
South America.
And it's the daytime.
I cannot use our night shift forthe emergency in Europe, but it
has to be somebody that locallycan provide the level of service
that they expect and that we
Dan Balcauski (09:18):
Hmm.
Yeah, I can imagine that'squite, quite a trick when you
have international, globaloperations with all the human
touch.
You've gotta yeah, have peopleon, on, on call when, when those
people's business hours.
It gives you our business focus.
Luca Carlucci (09:33):
the clock at the moment, like you
Dan Balcauski (09:35):
I.
Luca Carlucci (09:35):
it any time, and you will be served in any
language that we serve.
Dan Balcauski (09:39):
I'm curious as you look at your investments how
do you think about, hey, well,we're looking at going into a
space or, or solving a problemif you're going to solve this
technology first versus humanfirst.
Like you mentioned before, the.
APIs of some of the providersthat you interact with.
And, you mentioned things likesplitting groups, right?
(10:01):
And so obviously that presents,with your integration partners,
you're like, well, there's notreally a, a clean way to sort of
integrate this off the, off thebat.
Is the premise that like you'regoing to sort of lead with
humans and then figure out theway automated a after the fact?
How do you approach it with bothsides of the operation?
Luca Carlucci (10:18):
It's first of all, the main point is to
satisfy the client.
So we start with that first,with that understood and entire
eyes.
And that's something that isalso part of our culture to be
proactive and liable towards theclient.
We then figure out.
What is the best way in a morescalable way and the way that
makes sense business wise to doso like technology always comes
(10:44):
into the picture.
Nowadays with ai, it's alreadytwo years that we are playing
around with, we are using itespecially for the internal
processes rather than customerfacing because, we want to still
maintain a level of service andperfe perfection towards the
solution that now AI is stillnot providing not yet.
(11:06):
I'm sure is gonna arrive at somepoint, internally, processes can
be very much slim to ai.
And this is something that we'redoing with a few tools already
for two years at this point.
Dan Balcauski (11:21):
So yeah, putting these to the customer first
leading with technology even tomake the humans in the loop more
efficient.
So besides those operationalcomplexities, like what area
that's particularly complex,like when you get a humans in
the loop is pricing.
So I'm curious like when.
Running a, a tech and servicesbusiness.
'cause, humans have a, usually asignificant variable cost, much
(11:42):
higher than running additionalstorage, compute for an
additional customer.
I'm curious how has thatimpacted how you've approached
pricing and packaging forcustomers that need this
additional level of service?
Luca Carlucci (11:54):
There are different levels of SLAs.
So depending on the client andalso on the willingness of the
client to pay, there aredifferent level of service.
Consider our lowest level ofservice.
Is what in the market isconsidered already one of the
highest.
We are talking from a very highlevel of service to a white
glove kind of service, At thetop.
(12:15):
And this doesn't really dependonly on the account, but it
depends also on the personaswithin the account.
There are for example clientsthat we serve in pure Tech way
for the back of the company.
And then there is maybe some.
C-suite travelers that areserved in a different way
because they don't book forthemselves, but there is a
(12:36):
booker or a travel arrange thatmanages them.
So there is a different type ofrelationship in that case.
And maybe that might be even adedicated service team for that
particular number of travelarranges.
No.
We really care about making.
Everything that the clientwants, the way that is the most
(12:56):
efficient, but also the mostsatisfactory at the same time.
This also, as you just said hasan impact on the pricing, of
course.
If you want very white glovekind of service where we get the
booking requests from thetraveler danger, but then we
service the actual traveleralready with the boarding pass
(13:18):
with the information of theitinerary.
Of course they also have the appso everything gets pushed into
the app in the pockets.
So it's a very, completeexperience that
Dan Balcauski (13:30):
Mm
Luca Carlucci (13:31):
to different stakeholders in the same
customer journey.
Dan Balcauski (13:35):
mm.
Luca Carlucci (13:35):
course there is a higher price for that.
And the pricing, what we do isgenerally.
We have a price per booking thatis the price per booking that is
related to the main contract.
then there might be a packaging,like for example, you have for
these fixed amount per year anumber of travelers that might
(13:58):
be served with this level ofservice by this dedicated team,
and this as
Dan Balcauski (14:02):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (14:03):
price.
Dan Balcauski (14:04):
So within a particular account, let's just
make sure I was tracking whatyou said.
So you said there's you may haveperhaps a volume of customers
within that account who are, or,or employees within that account
who are just using, the, thetech enabled components of your
platform.
But then, there could be seniorexecutives who are more white
glove.
And so with your, you'reoffering, you're, you've been
(14:26):
able to sort of differentiateand say, Hey, there's, there's,
because oftentimes when youthink about some of those like
service enabled components, solike, professional services or
training or onboarding servicesor, cus named, customer success
management, like, you mightthink about that Scaling to the
entire, if you have a seat basedmodel to the entire seats per
account, but you've been able tojust.
(14:49):
Segment that within that accountand say, Hey, there's only 10
people who need white glove.
And so we're able to, to price,to that, to satisfy just that
executive.
I'm curious, was that was thatyour original understanding or
was that alerting that you guyshad to adopt and, and modify
over time?
Luca Carlucci (15:04):
Generally it's always an evolution of the value
proposition that comes fromlistening to the client and see
what we can do to satisfy themeven more.
Always.
Dan Balcauski (15:16):
Mm-hmm.
Luca Carlucci (15:17):
It's very important in my opinion to have
a continuous dialogue.
With the clients, me, myself I'mstill, involved with some of the
clients in a periodic calls orwe also have many points of
contacts and also structuredones that in order to receive
feedback not only by the users,but also by the responsible of
(15:39):
the accounts.
And we also have periodicalinterviews.
We really care.
And I think listening is alreadyof the solution when you have an
opportunity.
Dan Balcauski (15:51):
Well, I want to pivot a little bit'cause I know
that you had recently hadacquired a company called a
aveo.
Is that the, how you pronounceit?
Just tell us, tell me a littlebit about aveo and then I guess
what, walk me through what ledto that decision to acquire
them.
Luca Carlucci (16:05):
That acquisition was mostly led by an interest in
the technology.
They were one of the firstplayers to try to play around
machine learning in the businesslevel space.
I think they had done quite goodjob in.
this part the business model andapplication of this tech towards
(16:29):
that.
In fact we have incorporatedthis tech and we are working on
some quite interestingdevelopments that are gonna come
up in this part of the solution.
I cannot talk much about this.
Dan Balcauski (16:44):
Yeah.
Yes.
Understood.
Understood.
No, no, no need to announce yourroadmap on air.
So it sounded like you acquiredthem for mostly the technology
around what they were doing inmachine learning,
Luca Carlucci (16:54):
Totally.
Dan Balcauski (16:54):
artificial intelligence.
Luca Carlucci (16:55):
of course, within the acquisition there was also a
very good team that we added toours.
It was a good operations for usto carry out.
Dan Balcauski (17:05):
I'm curious the decision to acquire them is a
big one.
And so something that I'm suremany leaders face, opportunities
to acquire different companies.
I did, other.
Other approaches like buildingthe cap capability internally
or, partnering with them or, or,or companies like them come up
as potential alternatives.
Luca Carlucci (17:26):
Yeah, definitely.
The point is that to produceinternally what, we are looking
forward, let's say, because it'snot done yet.
it would've taken longer withoutthe acquisition in the meantime.
So it's still something thatdefinitely speed us up on the
production line towards thedelivery of that particular
(17:49):
feature that we are about tooffer to the clients.
Definitely we could have nothave done the acquisition and
instead of releasing suchfeature in Q4 this year, we
would've released it in Q3 nextyear.
But, time is the most valuableasset.
So, since we found that therewas a very good mix and fit
(18:12):
between the opportunity andourselves, so we went for it.
Dan Balcauski (18:17):
I'm curious.
So, yeah, timing sp speed tomarket often a big driver that
sort of pushes in folks in favorof acquisition.
I'm curious as a leader duringthat process like.
How did you I guess manage thatdecision process?
Like, did you guys have aninternal team that was, looking
(18:38):
at like, actually like scopingout, like the build and then is,
was it a very some of these.
Are like, yeah, we can put thespreadsheets together, but at
the end of the day, it's sort ofa, a, a, a gut feeling decision.
Was it the, did you have advicefrom like external advisors who
was helping you sort of shapethat decision?
I'm curious.
Like, I, I actually, I didn'task you, but was this your first
acquisition as a leader?
Luca Carlucci (18:58):
and not the last one.
We are now in the process ofanother, but, what we acquired
was a company that I knew and Iwas in touch with for a couple
of years already.
So it was not some last minutedecision, but it was something
that developed over a time.
And again, the the value of thisacquisition is to be faster
(19:23):
towards our goal.
So, to do that was a decisionthat involved, of course, the
alternative, we do it ininternally and we get to a
certain objective in a longertime period.
Or we take the risk of anacquisition because an
acquisition is always carryingrisks with it.
(19:45):
In the integration of thepeople, in the integration of
the technology, if there is atechnology in the integration of
the portfolio of clients, ifthere are, there is a portfolio
of clients to integrate.
So it's of course also somethingthat as.
Discrimination in terms ofdecision making on the feeling
(20:06):
that you have, that you can do,that you
Dan Balcauski (20:09):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (20:09):
overcome that risk, let's say.
but of course there are alsosome external that we use from
advisors from, due diligenceproviders, let's say that we
also do in order to de-risk thethis already risk operation.
So,
Dan Balcauski (20:29):
Yeah.
Well, yeah, the number ofacquisitions that don't like
everything looks really well onthe deck and everyone, pops the
champagne when the deal'ssigned.
But then the number that justend up not working out is,
monumental given, given, given.
Luca Carlucci (20:43):
that's probably one of the most likely outcomes.
Consider that BizAway wants tobe a consolidator in the market.
Properly because of this, we aregetting smarter about how to do
acquisition in a positive way,in a way that everybody that is
involved wins and in a way thatthe outcome is what we desire to
be.
Dan Balcauski (21:04):
Well, given that it was your second one I guess
any it sounds like you had anestablished relationship with
these this company for severalyears before, so it wasn't what
we'd say the us it wasn't ashotgun wedding by any, any,
stretch.
There's a long, long courtshipperiod perhaps.
I guess any, given it was yoursecond one, any surprises?
I think either in the, the dealprocess or in the sort of post
(21:25):
integration that was surprisingfor you as you went forward with
this, given it was your second.
Luca Carlucci (21:31):
Oh, generally like we try to learn from each
and every experience, especiallythe ones that cost us more money
than, I am quite, comfortablewith the second one because we,
for sure didn't make themistakes we did in the first one
for sure.
We made new mistakes that wewill not repeat in our third
one, so that's why also I reallycare about this because I can
(21:56):
tell you the first one that wemade was two years and a half
ago, and I can confidently saythat it was a success.
Dan Balcauski (22:04):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (22:04):
one that we did at the beginning of this year.
He's already looking good interms of return on the
investment.
And
Dan Balcauski (22:11):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (22:12):
that we are planning on doing and
potentially finalized before theend of the year is also
something that we've beenworking on for a very good
amount of time.
So it's a process that takestime is not.
Fast in itself.
Then of course if you compare toother tasks, it might be faster,
let's say.
(22:33):
But of course, like it requiresa level of diligence, due
diligence that is first to howmuch you pay.
Because that's also if you arepaying something that very
little, then you are willing totake more risks because you are
not spending that much.
But if something is quite,presenting presenting quite a
(22:56):
good chunk of money, especiallyin selective terms what you have
available, then you want.
To make that bullet Sure.
To hit the target.
No.
Dan Balcauski (23:07):
Yeah.
Luca Carlucci (23:07):
that's why you really need to care much and to
do things without usingimpulsiveness or just gut
feeling.
But it has to be a compositionof tool.
Like maybe the gut feeling couldbe something that triggers you
to look into it, but then youhave to be diligent and
structured, in order tounderstand that it makes sense.
(23:28):
As an.
Dan Balcauski (23:29):
That makes sense.
So earlier, you said you didacquire them because of their
technol, their ai, and naturallanguage processing
technologies.
I'm curious, as you'veintegrated that technology stack
into your company is.
Anything any challenges that youfound that have been unique to
integrating those technicalcapabilities?
(23:50):
Like one thing is obviously justeven from an engineering
perspective, these type ofsystems can have very different
profiles in terms of qualityassurance, right?
Because you, you can ask atleast I, I haven't, I haven't
played with your systemdirectly, but, folks have played
with some system like chat, GBTfor example.
You could ask the same question10 times and maybe it gives you
the same answer five times andthen five different answers the
(24:11):
other time.
I'm curious, like, and, andobviously that that's only from,
a QA perspective.
I'm sure there's other things,anything that's been surprising
as you've integrated that, thattechnology into your, your
company that has been useful ormemorable for you?
Luca Carlucci (24:25):
First of all, disclaimer, I'm not a technical
guy, so,
Dan Balcauski (24:27):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Luca Carlucci (24:28):
very deep on that.
But what I can tell you is thatwhat we acquired.
Was more than knowhow towardsthe application of machine
learning to business travel, tothe business, travel work, let's
say, rather than a piece of codethat we copied in, including our
stack.
Consider that also the languageswere different, so for sure we
(24:51):
are gonna do work it all.
And the company historically wassmaller than ours, and of course
was not having the level of QAon the product that we have.
So we have to make sure thateverything that we release is at
par with our standards.
So there is always the need torework or adapt potentially
(25:15):
also, change
Dan Balcauski (25:17):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (25:17):
You acquire in terms of technology.
I'm talking more on ageneralistic level rather than
this particular, experience.
But again, what speeds you up isthe talent that you get and the
know-how that you get.
Dan Balcauski (25:34):
That makes sense.
And, and yeah, I, this is not atechnical interview, so, will
won't will pass you that the soone thing that I'm curious about
kinda similar to, with, withservices, a big question folks
always have is, obviously thesemachine learning systems have.
Usually a, a different costprofile from, what they've been
used to running for, just likestorage and compute as well.
(25:54):
Not only the fixed cost, ifyou're actually developing AI
systems, which could be quiteexpensive as, as meta has noted,
having to just go, go highersort of baseline researchers
those, those, that's how it canbe quite expensive to acquire,
but even to, to run it can be,could be significant.
I'm curious like.
What, how you've approached,integrating these AI
capabilities in terms of yourcommercial strategy.
Are these things that you'veidentified customers are willing
(26:17):
to pay more for and thereforeare, are segmenting them in,
into areas or parts of yourproduct where you're trying to
use them to drive, upgrade?
Or like, how are you thinkingabout that set of components as
it pertains to your commercialstrategy?
Luca Carlucci (26:30):
So what I'm looking at, AI and machine
learning components.
It is more of a way to reducecost rather than a way to
increase marginality on a singleinstance, let's say.
Dan Balcauski (26:45):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (26:45):
I could potentially charge more for a
feature that has AI in it,especially in the moment of hype
as we are now.
And, but what I care about isthat the client is always
extremely satisfied with oursolution.
And if to be extremely satisfiedwith our solution, it goes for
(27:05):
me to make an investment in AIthat provides potentially an
additional layer of informationor whatever is gonna be the
case.
To in real time, to the client,to the traveler, to whoever the
stakeholder is.
It's a good investment.
It's an investment in detention.
It's an investment in maybefaster acquisition or these all
(27:29):
like I look at in a way that Idon't have to go and charge my
client more for something that Idecide to offer within the
umbrella of services that I dooffer.
I see it as a way, as a route bemore convenient on
microstructure
Dan Balcauski (27:48):
Mm.
Mm
Luca Carlucci (27:50):
let's say.
Dan Balcauski (27:51):
Yeah.
That's, that's fascinating.
'cause I, I, I think that'swe're seeing a lot of that.
I think there's a lot of theadoption right now at least in
production use cases, are aroundthese sort of cost saving
aspects versus revenuegenerating.
And I think it may be a, amatter of time before those,
those get tapped out.
But I think that's, we're, we'reseeing a lot of sort of customer
(28:11):
service type use cases, right?
That, that are traditionallymore like cost centers.
Like how do we get, let morehumans out of the loop?
Actually you provide a betterlevel of service on that because
oftentimes I don't know aboutyou, I don't want to talk to a
human if a machine can answer myquestion.
'cause there's usually a
Luca Carlucci (28:25):
on the easy questions makes a total of a ton
of sense.
So,
Dan Balcauski (28:29):
hmm.
Luca Carlucci (28:30):
That where we have to be very good at
discriminating, which kind ofservice level we want to offer,
at which point in the valuejourney of the client how so,
consider, like there are manyservices out there already that
you already get.
Maybe frustrated not to sayanother word with the machine
(28:53):
that you just repeat three orfour times.
I want to talk to a human.
I want to talk to a human.
I want to talk to a human also.
And you end up putting talkingto, actual service
representative of the company.
That's a bad ai.
Application, in my opinion.
it's something that on the paperokay.
(29:16):
We had instances that have beenanswered by our machine learning
or by our ai, let's say.
But in reality, the fifthinstance is still the first one
was waiting for the human totalk to.
So that's also.
The complexity that we have nowwhen AI is still at its
(29:37):
beginnings and still there is aton of value in the human
interaction.
Dan Balcauski (29:43):
Yeah, I, there's yeah, I think there used to be a
website where you have thosephone trees for, you dial a
customer support number, andthere used to be a website that
listed for every corporation,like how you, the numbers you
need to press to get to a humanfaster.
I think.
You, we, we have, yeah.
We, we learned that lesson withthose phone trees.
It seems like we may need to, alot of companies may need to
relearn them again with these AIcustomer service bot.
(30:04):
But I, I applaud your approach.
I think that's a, that's ahealthy perspective and very
customer-focused.
So I, I wanna pivot a littlebit.
Just so you know, you've beenrunning BizAway for 10 years
now.
That's a lot of longevity inthe, in the tech world
especially.
No, no overnight successes,right?
10 year, 10 year overnightsuccess.
I'm curious how has yourapproach to leadership changed
during that time?
(30:25):
I'm sure you know you, or you'resaying like zero to zero to two
years, you and your co-founder,I'm sure very different company,
very different dynamics thanwhat you're, the organization
you're leading today, over 300employees and multiple
international offices.
I'm curious, like how has yourapproach to leading the company
changed?
And, and maybe that's in termsof like the different eras that
you've experienced of like Yeah,it was, it was, it was one
(30:47):
thing, one to 10, another, 10 toa hundred.
It's been very different, aftera hundred, I dunno how you think
about it, but kinda curious of,of how you've, you've needed to
adopt your style to the growingof the company.
Luca Carlucci (30:57):
Definitely consider that is the first time
that I built a company to thisstage.
Like, what people would call aserial entrepreneur.
This is my third company, but,of the other company were even
close as successful as BizAwaysdefinitely.
With size, there are changesthat are to size itself I
(31:19):
enjoyed, would say, every stepof the way so far and I'm
looking forward to the next witheven more enthusiasm.
But I can tell you already thatof course, the phase zero to
one, the one where I was justwith me technical co-founder
pushing, be away.
And doing everything that wasnon-technical while micro
(31:41):
founder was coding the basics ofwhat BizaWay is today.
It's extremely satisfactorybecause you are having an impact
that is at extremely noticeableday by day.
Of course, this changes alreadywhen you are in the phase one to
10.
That we've been, with theparenthesis of the pandemic that
(32:03):
you can imagine for a travelcompany is not an easy thing to
navigate.
We've been lucky.
But also strong into thatparenthesis properly because it
could have been the end of BIway.
And so I would say two things.
We've been lucky on the sensebecause we had raised some money
(32:24):
just before the pandemic inNovember, 2019, so
Dan Balcauski (32:28):
Whew.
Luca Carlucci (32:29):
yeah.
Dan Balcauski (32:29):
timing.
Luca Carlucci (32:30):
It was good timing or very bad it's a point
of view, but we could face atthe time in 2020, we were a team
of 28 people, 2.5 million at thetime could go a long way for
that small team.
And that allowed us to look atthings in a rational way with a
(32:51):
cold head rather than beingscared about what is gonna be
happening next month.
No
Dan Balcauski (32:57):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (32:58):
with a very strong creed and belief business
hours would've come back.
remember perfectly when in themiddle of the whole, complexity
of the times in 2020.
Even the gates came out with aneditorial saying a business
table is done, or something inthe line.
(33:18):
like, of course I have a ton ofrespect for that personality.
And I would say oof.
Like even this guy says, thisdidn't die, but I don't believe
it.
No.
And it was based on conviction.
On belief of put to the test.
At the end we are social animalslike we are having now a
(33:38):
conversation to a screen and itworks and it's fine, but if we
had to do more, the screen wouldnot be enough.
We would
Dan Balcauski (33:46):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (33:46):
meet, we would need, like, if we were to
cooperate on a project it wouldbe very beneficial for us to
meet in person.
Like I have advisors that arefrom the Valley and the likes,
and we meet every three or sixmonths because otherwise the
relationship goes still in away, so.
With that strong belief, I wouldsay that that was the other
(34:10):
component other than luck, thatmade us persevere and to plan,
for the worst, while hoping forthe best.
And we managed to go on actuallyin 2020.
We more than our base ofclients, though.
They were not booking, theystarted booking in 2021 when the
(34:31):
lockdowns and the bordersblockage got lifted and 2021
also, we continued sailingselling to the clients.
So.
Steady balance for us has beenex extremely strong, and since
then we've been doublingorganically year over year,
every year.
So that's very strong on theperformance side.
That's why also we managed toraise the money that we have
(34:53):
done so far and we are keepingon going very strong on that.
Dan Balcauski (34:58):
That's fascinating.
So you just said that 2020, youdoubled the number of clients
during 2020.
Luca Carlucci (35:05):
correct.
Dan Balcauski (35:05):
Seems that's incredibly surprising.
I guess what was the, what, likewhat are the conversations like
at that time?
Like they're signing up withthis idea that like, Hey, we're
gonna, we're gonna book travelwith you next year when this all
ends.
Like I just,
Luca Carlucci (35:19):
It was funny.
It was
Dan Balcauski (35:20):
yeah.
Luca Carlucci (35:21):
Consider half of the calls they would say, call
me back in six months.
Call me back in next year.
Call me back when this finishes,whatever.
And of course.
You respect that and go on.
But also there were tons ofprofessionals that have
responsibility of the businesslevel budget that they were
doing nothing during those days.
So they were very willing tolisten.
(35:43):
also we had very little to nocompetition at the time because
everybody made furlough.
Everybody made, it costreduction plans and whatever.
So like we were competingagainst little to nobody.
No.
It's been I think good to becounterintuitive keeping on
pushing in 2020.
(36:03):
Consider that.
We started 2020 with 28 people.
We finished the year with 62people, remember it's very
clearly, properly because it wasa very big bet on my side.
a calculated bet, first of all,because we had.
The resources to do that.
Dan Balcauski (36:18):
Mm-hmm.
Luca Carlucci (36:19):
because the belief that come back was very
strong into our, mind.
And then of course, in if youremember, in Europe at least has
been already some freedom oftraveling at the end of Q3, and
then by the end of Q4.
Also there been lifts around,around the border and stuff, so
(36:43):
there were already the signalsof COVID, let's say,
Dan Balcauski (36:47):
So you not only didn't have furloughs, you grew
headcount almost doubled duringthat time period.
Luca Carlucci (36:53):
and
Dan Balcauski (36:53):
I'm curious and you said you had this belief you
made this, obviously that's abet.
I guess what, what made you soconfident or like, was there,
like, I, I imagine a lot ofpeople were just like, the sky
is falling.
Uh uh, I.
Luca Carlucci (37:07):
we had some investors that were saying,
look, you have to do, furloughis a responsibility.
You have to protect all the cashthat you have.
And stuff.
And luckily no, it was not allthe investors like this.
Most of the investors actuallysupported me in my decision.
And again, like it's a beliefthat is rooted in our way of
(37:27):
being like can you imagine nottraveling?
Can you imagine not meeting newpeople in their life?
Can you imagine?
I think it was difficult to saythen.
But if we think about ourselves,again, we are social animals.
We really need to not beingreduced to talking to a screen
(37:47):
all day,
Dan Balcauski (37:48):
yeah.
Yeah.
No, I, I, I definitely feelthat.
And I just remember, during thattime period, I, there were,
plenty of, not only Bill Gates,but I, I saw plenty of op-eds of
like.
It's the end of New York City,for example, like the New York
City is, New York City is over,right?
No one's gonna wanna live inlike these close cities anymore.
Everyone's gonna flee.
And like, yeah, now their, rentsare back through the roof and,
(38:09):
it's causing other politicalproblems.
But we'll we'll leave thatalone.
Look, this has been fascinating.
Just wanna start wrapping thingsup ask you a few rapid closeout
questions.
Are you up for it?
Luca Carlucci (38:18):
Of
Dan Balcauski (38:19):
Awesome.
When you think back, all thepeople, spectacular people
you've had a chance to workwith.
Anyone who pops to mind that'shad a disproportionate effect on
the way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Luca Carlucci (38:29):
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
I didn't.
Dan Balcauski (38:32):
yeah.
Okay.
No worries.
Yeah, so when you think aboutall the spectacular people that
you've had a chance to workwith, is there anyone who pops
to mind who's had a PRpronounced effect on the way
that you think about buildingcompanies?
Luca Carlucci (38:44):
Yeah, one of my tutors or sorry, one of my
mentors that is gon that iscurrently the global CEO and
president of the group.
I'm lucky enough that I knowhim.
From his experience before evenwhen he was CEO of DNH group, he
always said, how much importantis to have a team that is not
(39:09):
only aligned, but also not tohave, And I quote the word
assholes in the team.
something that he has also putin the s of his current group.
And it's something that makes aton of sense, not only on the
headline, of course, becauseit's surprising to read in the
backlog policy, but in terms of.
(39:32):
What stands behind this phrase?
It makes a lot of sense that youwant to have an environment that
is positive that each andeveryone contributes to and is
happy to be involved in.
And that's something thatreally, really resonates with
me.
I've been working in environmentthat were not the best in terms
of, of toxicity, let's say tosay that in my employee
(39:58):
experience before, like manyyears ago at this point
generally when I was into makinga company, I always didn't, I
knew what I didn't want tocreate as an
Dan Balcauski (40:09):
Hmm.
Luca Carlucci (40:10):
And when somebody that is so, relevant and
especially so, an authority thespace says the same it goes a
long way.
I'm actually very thankful tohim.
Like, plus he's a verysupportive and pleasant person,
so I'm thankful for that.
Dan Balcauski (40:30):
Awesome.
Well shout out to Frederico.
Was that his name?
Frederico if I gave you abillboard, you could put any
advice on there.
For other B2B SaaS CEOs tryingto scale their companies, what
would it say?
Luca Carlucci (40:42):
It would say, listen to your clients, first of
all because you cannot have asolution without understanding
how it's gonna benefit theclient.
And that would be one.
And the other would be make surethat your colleagues aligned
with you and that they're happy.
Dan Balcauski (41:01):
Make sure your colleagues are aligned with you.
And no assholes.
Luca Carlucci (41:04):
And also it
Dan Balcauski (41:05):
no assholes.
Luca Carlucci (41:06):
If they're not aligned, they shouldn't be.
At least, I hope I'm not.
Dan Balcauski (41:10):
Awesome.
Luca, this has been great.
If our listeners wanna connectwith you, learn more about
BizaWay, how can they do that?
Luca Carlucci (41:16):
They can come to our page www.BizAway.com to
learn more about the serviceoffering that we have, they can
just tie us out, and I'm surethey're gonna be satisfied with
the solution in the service.
Dan Balcauski (41:32):
Awesome.
I will put that link in the shownotes for our listeners that
wraps up this episode of AskScaling Secrets.
Thank you to Luca for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners who foundLuca's Insights valuable, please
review and share this episodewith your network.
It really helps the podcastgrow.
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