Eric Gnock Fah (COO & Co-founder, Klook) was recognised as a ‘next gen leader’ at the WiT Hall of Fame 2018, for Klook’s rapid success, growth and expansion over the last three years, since winning the WiT Japan & North Asia Startup Pitch back in 2015.
Reflecting on his early beginnings on the Main Stage at WiT Singapore 2018 with Rod Cuthbert (former chairman & CEO, Viator), Gnock Fah believes Klook’s victory helped build their momentum as a business.
“As an early stage startup, it’s all about being hungry for the eyeballs of investors and customers… It was about finding all channels possible to get the name and platform out there and [showing] what we’re doing,” said Gnock Fah.
“It’s definitely good training to refresh the business model every time you pitch [to different audiences].” Applying for both travel-specific and general tech pitch competitions kept Klook’s thinking about how it presented itself agile and adaptive to different perspectives.
Needless to say, their approach has worked. In fact, just a few months ago, Klook closed $200 million in Series D funding, raising its total financing to date to US$300 million.
Cuthbert asked how Klook intends to use that funding, and whether the vast amount might actually be difficult to spend. Gnock Fah said the business’ key focus is to expand the team. So far, it has expanded from a three-member team to 800 people across 18 locations globally.
“At the end of the day, everything comes down to the people… whether it’s building bigger sales networks or new advertising channels.”
There is a challenge, however, when it comes to hiring engineers, who he says are increasingly harder to find and getting more expensive. “Attrition rate is quite high because different technology firms are paying more… I would love to spend a bit more to build a bigger team but it’s still moving steadily.’
“Four years in the making, we just set up our HR team… but the best manager is our best recruiter… I’ve realised it’s always been good managers who bring the right people on board.”
Eric Gnock Fah sat opposite a pioneer of the tours & activities space, Rod Cuthbert (former CEO & Chairman, Viator)
In that respect, as it grows, Gnock Fah considers Klook to be the category leader, claiming that it is the most funded and one of the strongest contenders in terms of traffic and bookings. “We are a full-stack player in supply and demand.”
“Expansion is ongoing and it has to be fast… I believe in being the fast fish,” said Gnock Fah, arguing that it’s not actually the big fish that win in the end.
Challenging him on this point, Cuthbert compared Klook’s website interface with that of Viator and GetYourGuide, demonstrating a stark similarity across all three… so, how exactly is Klook attempting to set itself apart?
“A consumer seeing the platform won’t see the difference right away… with suppliers, we get involved a lot to advise how to make their experiences better.” For example, Klook works with their suppliers to provide a ‘pre-experience’, like a welcome drink, before the activity.
The underlying idea is to provide a privilege for Klook customers, differentiating its service through offering something extra for what is otherwise be an identical product on multiple platforms.
While that simple move is easy to expand across mass experiences that see high volumes of travellers, Klook must also anticipate how it adapts to the growing trend of more niche or bespoke experiences.
“There are two problems. First scalability, specifically in supply. If one tour guide does very well and has good reviews, you can’t scale that person. Once you replicate the experience, [the experience] loses its flair.”
Secondly, there is a trust issue. Many travellers are hesitant to trust ‘experience hosts’ without a business or travel guide license to provide a reliable experience. “As a startup, using P2P without trust is hard.”
However, that is where a giant like Airbnb and its Experiences arm can really make a difference. By cultivating a massive travel community can help enhance that trust, because of how it shines the spotlight on more idiosyncratic tour and activities ideas.
Cuthbert also asked how Gnock Fah felt about watching two of Klook’s biggest retail competitors –FareHarbor and Bokun, both SaaS players – get acquired and now exist on much larger platforms.
“The way to look at it is, it’s great news. If you look at the space, it was lacking investment. We’re one of two players that have raised a bit more money but other than that, it’s been very quiet… [the acquisitions] are bringing the entire industry online and making our pie bigger. It’s getting easier and better to sell to consumers.”
While perceptive about the competition, very few travel providers are staying sanguine as Google enters the travel space with a suite of products across virtually every vertical. In tours and activities, businesses are coming up against Google Reserve, Google Trips and Touring Bird.
But in Gnock Fah’s eyes, “It’s just new form of search… the way to look at Google is as a channel that’s heavily used, but those channels are also changing. Tomorrow, or in a year, maybe Alexa will be our key channel to acquiring users.”
“We are glad Google is innovating but at the same time, we just see it as an evolving channel.”
