My Hamilton Island - Mini Break

I was just taking a moment to reflect on how amazing my week was last week. I feel pretty lucky to be invited to Hamilton Island as a speaker. Literally a few hours from Sydney and I am on a tropical island – sipping a cocktail.

I bumped into some friends whilst I was there and they mentioned that they fly to Hamilton Island every 3 weekends or so for a four day weekend. They said while it sounds ‘luxurious’ the reality is with direct flights – and discount airfares – it simply just is not that much more than driving to south coast NSW from Sydney.

Whilst I was on the island of course I took the opportunity to familiarize myself with the range of experiences that RedBalloon has listed (there will be more coming soon too) – I’m glad to see that RedBalloon do have short stays listed at the Beach Club which is where I stayed with the Corporate RedBalloon team last visit – So I can attest to the fact that when you stay here – you instantly feel relaxed and in holiday mode.

One of my other favorite, completely indulgent (but life is short) experiences is the Helicopter Picnic on Whitehaven.

I left after my few days on Hamilton Island thinking – how lucky Australians are to have paradise so close, we can take a mini break at a tropical Island.

Sometimes just reflecting for a few moments and being grateful for our experiences and the things we have around us is enough to give us a sense of peace and harmony. Of course that is a bit easier on a mini-break.

One of the businesses that we invented was to solve a particular ‘problem’ that we had at RedBalloon – some 30% of our customers are self purchasers, another words they really like the activities we offer and want to do them themselves. Friday afternoons were frantic as people called our customer experience team wanting to know if they could book an activity for the weekend.

At the same time we were approached by two separate but large travel agency groups – saying that the wanted to include RedBalloon activities in their ground content offering – however a voucher system would not work for them – they wanted real time booking ability.

We saw this as a business opportunity to grow another business. So we invented GoDo.com.au – a real time booking engine for activities in Australia and New Zealand. We already had the relationship with the best activity suppliers in the country, and because of that relationship we built an intranet which enabled suppliers to publish their availability in real time. This had never been done before anywhere on the planet. The technology won awards for it’s innovation. It is an amazing aggregator and resource for Australian tourism.

We then took this technology and embedded it into the major tourism sites in Australia: Lastminute, Virgin Blue, Stayz to name just a few GoDo gives activity suppliers an online voice way beyond what they could do individually. We did not try to build a brand for GoDo – it was about the cleverness of the technology to aggregate supply and demand.

There is a brilliant opportunity for this technology to operate in markets other than Australia and New Zealand. It is amazingly flexible and exciting platform. But I knew, as did my business partner that there was an organization who would take this business to the next level. I am so committed and excited by RedBalloon and what it is doing – GoDo has much bigger potential.  It should have the opportunity to capitalise on its full potential. And new ownership will allow it to realize this opportunity. I wanted to do it all, but alas I was not the best person to continue to grow GoDo at the pace it could. There is a fabulous committed team that have made GoDo amazing, they too are looking for career and growth opportunities.

But when you build something, work with the team – believe in what you’re doing, to find the best next place for a business and it’s technology can be a challenge. We needed to find someone who had the vision and resources to truly capitalise on what has already been created.

So today Wotif.com announced to it’s stakeholders the acquisition of GoDo. It is such an obvious fit. Both businesses are focused on tourism and travel, both businesses are entrepreneurial and innovative – there is a wonderful cultural fit. And I know that the business goes to a place where it will truly thrive, beyond what we could ever do for it.

I’m sure as an entrepreneur I still have many more businesses that I will start… the ones that I have started in the last eight years since founding RedBalloon have all come from listening to customers, seeing an opportunity and going for it.

One thing that I know has put us on this amazing projectory of growth has been the single minded purpose we have – supported by an amazing team. We are all aligned to the business of giving amazing gifts.