Radha Vyas: Co-founder of Flash Pack

0:00Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishkondorea. What you're about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM. However, the music has been cut due to rights issues. The world's greatest jazz, soul and blues. From the world's greatest artists. This is Jazz FM. Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with a musician shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Radha Vias, co-founder of Flashpack, the adventure travel company for like-minded solo travelers.

0:41Having fallen in love with travel in her childhood, it was while on a generic group trip in her early 30s that Radha saw an opportunity for a game-changing brand that would transform the group travel sector by matching people of a similar age with immersive moments of adventure. Pitching her idea to her future co-founder and future husband, I should add, Lee Thompson, on their very first day, the pair launched Flashback together in 2014 and gained global attention after a selfie at Brazil's Christ the Redeemer statue went viral. More on that shortly. If you haven't looked it up, go and look it up.

1:14It's amazing. And despite being brutally hit by the COVID pandemic, forcing their businesses into administration and Radha and Lee into near bankruptcy, they decided to go again with Flashback 2.0. Flashback have since surpassed their pre-pandemic revenue of£20 million and are booming with 100 % year-over-year growth, over 50 trip destinations, and over 200 ,000 friendships created and counting. Why the travel thing, Radha? Why do you love travel? Because I read you love travel, and I read that age seven, you were packed off with your older sister who was age nine to go and see family in Kenya that you'd never met before?

1:51Yeah, that's right. That's quite a thing. Yeah, I didn't realize it was a thing until my daughter just turned seven. You were like, how could you do that? Yeah, it's a bit crazy. We got up to so much mischief on the plane and in Africa. We were there for two months. It was a, you know, it was the best time of my life. I don't remember missing my parents. I absolutely loved it. Went on safari, camping, all sorts. But it definitely cemented my love for travel. My parents are also adventurers. They still are. You know, they travel the world. And so we travelled. We were lucky. We travelled a lot when we were younger.

2:25And then as I grew up, I lived in Madrid for a year. I went to Complutense University in Madrid. I lived in France. I lived in Chile. So I lived around the world before I settled in London. So it's in my veins. And yes, you studied European politics and Spanish at the University of Hull. Yes, I did. I did a very similar course at Leeds, Parliamentary and Political Studies with Spanish at Leeds. But we're not going to talk in Spanish. That would not be good. Partly because you're going to be much better and partly because we go, why are you talking in Spanish? It's Jazz FM and the music, fine, but not this.

2:57And then we go forward to this, I hope you don't mind me saying, Match.com match with Mr. Lee, Lee Thompson. And on your first day, you decide you're going to set up a business. Yeah, I was... I mean, that's kind of, is that really true? Yeah, it's actually true. So I thought I better sort out my love life. I was in my early 30s and being an Asian woman... So practical, I was going to say. It's on the list. I'm just going to do it. Forget love and romance. It says here I need to find a husband. Yeah, well, I did actually view it like a project, which is probably why I met him quite quickly. But the algorithms matched us for our love of business and travel.

3:34He was a photojournalist and actually lived 10 minutes away from me in Brixton. But we would never have met if it wasn't for Match.com. he had a totally different life to me and we spent the entire night drinking, eating, talking about travel and business and after a few too many glasses of red I divulged this business idea I had and he just got it he completely got it he was single in his 30s he'd just persuaded his married friends to go on holiday in Thailand with him didn't know what he was going to do for his next holiday and he got it we didn't quite start the business that day we dated for a year we took a crazy holiday to Sierra Leone which we survived and then after about a year we set up the business did you know you were going to marry him that night?

4:19I was you have to give me the honest answer she's flickered the eyes are telling me maybe not so sure Elliot yeah no I mean he was he was definitely good looking well I've seen the pictures he's very good looking and we got on really well marriage you know I'm a practical person I love it head and heart stay with me for much more for my business shaper it's Radha VS and she is the co-founder of Flashpack. And that is the business that enables you to go and travel, whether you're in a relationship or not, but it's for people that want to go on their own and meet lots of other people. One of the key things that happened, and I alluded to it at the beginning, was this photo that Lee took.

4:55And there's also a two-minute film of Lee climbing up a very famous monument in Brazil. The, what's it called? Christ Redeemer statue. It's enormous. And this thing went viral in 2014. Sounds like because you both agree that this would indeed be a thing that people would be interested in. It was a great way of bringing to life the brand and the business. Amazingly simple idea. I mean, how did you happen upon that as a thought? Yeah, it was out of desperation, in all honesty. What are we going to do? No one's heard of us. We had£15 ,000 to invest in the business and we were running out of those funds very quickly.

5:33we were six months in and we had no bookings so we were we were desperate we went on a very cheap holiday to Egypt at the time nobody was traveling to Egypt because of the Arab Springs we got a budget holiday and Lee was reading I think Mashable or something at the time and the statue was being fixed because of lightning damage and the World Cup was approaching and Lee just came up with the idea just had this harebrained idea and he said do you know what I know how to get eyeballs on our website. We knew we had a good business idea through gut instinct, but we had no proof and we were running out of money.

6:11So it was just, I don't know, maybe it was luck, maybe it was preparation. I don't know. Lee flew to Brazil with our last thousand pounds. He doorstepped the archdiocese and said, look, Brazil's getting loads of bad press. You may remember they were pacifying the favelas for the football and they were getting loads of bad press and he said look i can turn it around give me access to the statue and he said you're mad but meet me at the statue tomorrow at two o 'clock and lee was at the foot of the statue waited for three hours the archdiocese turned up and told the workman to let him up and so he climbed the statue from inside i saw the video and there's an amazing film on youtube it's like two minutes and nine seconds or something yeah and it's i mean is that actual climbing yeah how do you yeah i mean i think there's a ladder halfway up and then i saw the work there was a workman that was with with him at the time with his helmet, his hat on, what do you call it?

7:02Yeah, the safety helmet. So that's the one, the safety helmet. Thank you. My language is slightly suffering today. And then he gets through, he pops up, and suddenly there's this photo, which is just awesome. Without having realized I'd seen that photo, I'd seen that photo. I think that's the point. It is a brilliant photo, a selfie. And the film itself is like, oh, my Lord. But how did he hold on? It looks so scary. Yeah, I mean, it's terrifying. And that's why it went viral, because when you look at it, your stomach churns, right? Well, he talks about suffering from agoraphobia. I mean, he says, you know, he was brave and all that, but you're up there.

7:34It's not claustrophobia because he doesn't suffer from that, but the agoraphobia and just the sheer awesomeness of it all in one go is crazy. Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't have been able to do it. I think my legs would have been shaking. But that whole thing then catapults, the website goes down because so many people are going on it. And then did it recover? And then suddenly, genuinely, the business started to tick up? Yeah, we started getting monthly traction. So we started getting 10, 15, 20 bookings a month, and then it went to 50 bookings a month. And that's how we got going. And suddenly everyone knew Flashpack was a company that would take you to places that wouldn't be accessible on your own.

8:11So yeah, it worked, it got us off the ground. And it gave us that conviction that we had a good idea. And probably just in terms of pressure, must have relieved the pressure at the time, because I can't imagine, we'll come on to pressure point two in a bit, but that pressure point one was, what if this fails? And what if it had failed, Radha? What would you have done? Yeah, I mean, we were on the edge, definitely. We were running out of funds, we were running out of ideas, we were running out of energy and hope. So we were very much on the edge. And I think sometimes these things do happen out of desperation, right?

8:43You come up with some of your best ideas when you're constrained, when you don't have money to chuck at an agency or you don't have time. And that was definitely one of those moments. desperation is not a bad thing always. And I love your, I think there's a favorite quote of yours, which I then looked up from Seneca the Stoic. Luck is opportunity meets preparation. Stoing me for much more from my business shaper, it's Radavias, and she is the co-founder of Flashback, and they enable people to go on brilliant holidays, but with a bit of a twist. She's coming back shortly. Right now, though, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms.

9:19Mishcon to raise Emily Knight, talks to Charlotte Young, a fund manager at Troy Asset Management, about why women historically invest less than men and what's being done to change it. The Mishkan Academy Digital Sessions. Conversations on the legal topics affecting businesses and individuals today. So we know that diverse investment teams are scientifically shown to result in better fund performance. Why do you think that's the case? Yeah, it's a great question because that's what the data does show and there's lots of data to back it up. I think it's intuitive and I think Matthew Syed's books are great on this.

9:53I really recommend Rebel Ideas if you haven't read it about why you need not only diverse people around the table, but you need to invite all of those perspectives to come to the fore. Don't just have one person autocratically stating what the conclusion is. Make sure that you, particularly with women who, again, sometimes there's a stereotype which can hold true, which they just hold back a little bit until they've got all the information and they don't necessarily speak as stridently. So make sure all voices are heard. But it makes sense. If you're trying to make good decisions, you need good challenge and you need different perspectives.

10:28And gender is one of the most obvious ways to get that diversity of thought. There are loads of other forms of diversity. As Gain, we're really conscious of socioeconomic as well as ethnic diversity. And for that reason, the cohort of women that we have coming up through our programs is really diverse on those two counts as well. But gender's such an obvious and very easily quantifiable one. We're over half the population. Why are we only 10 % of the people who are making some of, in my opinion, the most important decisions in society, in our economy, i.e. where money goes? You and I are going to be investing our savings.

11:07We want people who are deciding where that goes to also be diverse and ultimately make better decisions because that is that breadth of thought around the table where the decision is being made. The Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions. To access advice for businesses that is regularly updated, please visit mishcon.com. This is Just Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishcon Dorea, it's business, but it's personal. You can enjoy all our former business shapers if you're lucky on the Jazz Shapers podcast. You can do this very program again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favorite podcast platform.

11:45My guest today is Rada Vies. She's co-founder of Flashpack, the adventure travel company for like-minded solo travelers. I always move into my, and now coming up next, it's another commercial for the company, but it's not like that. So things are going swimmingly and then this thing called a global pandemic hits and things are suddenly thrown into chaos. I understand that in and around 2020, many venture capital firms were circling very happily, saying, oh, this looks juicy, looks wonderful. You've got lots of people around the world and then there's a global lockdown of travel. What happened?

12:19What was going through your mind as literally you watched your business implode? It was devastating. And it was particularly brutal because we had been flying so high for four years all I knew was growth growth growth and we were making hay while the sun was shining I mean it was fantastic we didn't think anything could stop us I just had a baby came back to work to an inbox full of VCs in the UK and America saying ah we've heard about you we don't know any business that's bootstrapped to 20 million in four years we'd like to invest And so I came back and thought, okay, well, maybe we should take some money.

13:00This could be a good idea. So at that point, had anyone else invested? We'd taken 250 ,000 in 2016. And that's when Lee and I went full time into the business. Friends and family type stuff? No, a seed investor who'd made some money in the travel industry himself, invested in us. And that's the only money we'd taken in four years. Okay. And then so chaos ensues. Suddenly, the inbox of the highs of the we want to invest in you is replaced by you can't fly around the world now. You've got lots of people who are stranded, literally stranded. Yeah, we could see it coming. You may remember. I do. That February moment, we were in Copenhagen for a couple of days, my wife and I.

13:40And then suddenly, people are wearing masks and suddenly, about three weeks later, there's a lockdown. Exactly. So we were just trying to get the fundraise done as quickly as possible. because at the time in February, end of Jan, beginning of Feb, not many people were taking COVID seriously. We thought it was an Italian thing. You might remember that. Do, yeah. So we were just trying to get the fundraise done. But on, I think it was 20th of March, no, it was Friday, 13th of March, I think. That's right, it was. Trump closed the borders. Yeah. And that was the beginning of the end of Flashpack.

14:13Revenue dropped overnight. It just switched off the lights. Bookings just dried up. Phones were ringing off the hook. Customers stranded in Costa Rica, stranded in Morocco. What were you feeling at the time? Just absolute sheer panic. And was it physical? Yeah, it was visceral. When I'm stressed, it's like it is visceral. But how do you carry on going when you're feeling literally sick? I think I just went into operational mode. I set up a room in the office, which we called the war room. and we got together every hour on the hour to report on what customers were saying, who was stranded, where, you know, and then for the team members who weren't in the room, you know, they'd call in every hour and then we continued that for about two to three days until we got most of our customers home and then we kind of dealt with the fallout of, okay, what happens now?

15:09We're a bootstrap business. We don't have lots of reserves, you know, we don't have loads of money in the bank and we were living kind of, you know, hand to mouth each month. And yeah, we just realized very quickly that we had to either find the money or sell the business. So we started doing both. We tried to sell the business and tried to carry on with the fundraising. Obviously, all the investors dropped out. And everyone was in kind of panic mode, self-preservation mode, right? We carried on doing that, tried to save the business. We furloughed everybody, tried to save the business for about six months.

15:48We were having lots of conversations with our competitors who were kind of feigning interest in buying the business. But obviously, I now know that they obviously didn't have the funds to buy a business, but it was a good opportunity to kind of find out what our secret sauce was. So I went around doing lots of meetings. And then in October, realized that we weren't going to be able to save the business. and I had to do my fiduciary duty as director and put the business into administration, which we did in November. The reality is you have to shutter this business. It goes into administration. Miraculously, you are able to buy back your business.

16:25What's the time, the distinction between when you have to go into administration to when you then are able to buy it back? How long was that period? It was quite quick. I mean, the entire process took over a year, but that piece was about a month. So the business gets marketed for sale and there are bidders and we... Were there other bidders? There were other bidders. There were three other bidders and we remortgaged our house and scrambled together as much money as we could from friends and family. So the administrator then has a duty to say what's the best bid and then we go from there. And at that point you were the best bid.

16:59Luckily we found out a few weeks later that we were the highest bidder. Yeah, and it was a very, very difficult few weeks. What are you buying at that point, actually? So I understand. Yeah, it's a good question. It's the assets of the business. So the website, the technology, the customer database, social media assets, that kind of thing. Okay, so then you go again. And again, I read a lovely quote here from you. If you're going through a crisis, do not hide, face it. Where's that strength come from for you, Radha? honestly there are a couple of things i i love the business i love it so much and i honestly couldn't think of another business idea that was so good not even a tea business and not even the tea we we know about theology yeah this is the business didn't quite happen that's right i wrote the 70 page business plan but couldn't get it off the ground no i couldn't it was it's an amazing business um in terms of the product the people the community but also the economics of the business are really strong.

18:03So I couldn't think of another business idea I wanted to do. And I just wasn't ready to give up. And I think I'm just that kind of person that I can't, I just cannot give up. Where'd you get that from, do you think? I'm not, I'm not sure. I think maybe my parents were immigrants. They came here in the 70s with nothing. And they built a life through sheer hard work and determination. And I just saw them, you know relentlessly every day building a better life for themselves and for us and not kind of accepting the hand that they've been dealt so maybe from that i think some of it's um i've got a point to prove i'm a woman i'm asian i'm a mother you know i'm kind of feel that though are you actively when you're in battle as it were and i use that phrase thoughtfully is it like they need to know they need to know they're not dealing just because i'm asian just because i'm a woman just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm going to be any kind of pushover or not be thinking through this or whatever it might be what what why is there this point to prove yeah I think I'm used to being overlooked I'm used to being underestimated I grew up in a town which wasn't very diverse Milton Keynes in the 80s lots of roundabouts though lots of roundabouts but not not lots of diversity wasn't in the 80s now now there is very much yeah so I think um I think it comes from that like a point to prove that I can do it even if I don't look like the typical kind of business person entrepreneur and then some of it's just my daughter honestly now it's my daughter I just want her to grow up knowing that women can build empires they can you know they can do whatever they need to do and they can be really strong and so I think it's a bit of everything stay with me for my final chat with my guest there it's Radha Villas and we've got some soul for you too from Mika Miller.

19:53That's in just a moment. This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss in partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. Radha Vyas is my business shaper just for a few more minutes. She's the co-founder of Flashback. I still love that name. I say it every time and I surprise myself. Such a cool name. So from the ashes, this thing gets reborn. It happens. You've saved it. You've put your money in, when did you know you hadn't made a mistake doing that? How soon after putting the money in, remortgaging the house were you going, Lee, I think it's going to be okay? It took a while. So we couldn't bootstrap the second time round because we had a sizable business with thousands of customers.

20:36So we couldn't really bootstrap again. So did you fundraise at that point? So I had to fundraise. So I went out to find an investor and we found a massive fund who saw the vision of community travel was going to be massive after covid right because suddenly everyone understood that the quality of your connections the quality of your friendships is really important for your health and longevity so they backed our vision and they gave us some money to start again and what was your relationship like with lee at this point without us going into marital therapy you've gone through a lot you start off with the dream and the fun he's up on the top of the statue, things go, all hell breaks loose in a good way.

21:13You're about to make loads of money, then you almost disappear. I mean, this is one hell of a ride. Where are you and Lee by the time things are okay again? Is everything, you know, is it tough being married to your co-founder? Yeah, it's really tough because our entire net worth was in flashback. We didn't pay ourselves properly in the first edition of flashback. You know, we had that kind of martyrdom mindset that founders shouldn't pay themselves very well. And, you know, we didn't have a pension. And so when Flashpack died, we had nothing to show for it. So we were almost personally bankrupt.

21:47We had a toddler at home. She had just turned one before the pandemic. It's good timing. We were in a flat in Brixton. It was tough. It was really tough. And how did you get through it? Honestly, we're probably, Lee and I are probably best when it's just the two of us in the trenches together. But after, when we'd kind of rebooted, I think we had to deal with all of that. So at the time we were just you know heads down Lee and I had um distinct roles so we would he would look after my daughter in the morning and um I would go down into the basement and fundraise try and save the business and then we'd swap in the afternoon and he would save the business and the brand and help customers get refunds and things like that and I would look after my daughter and so we're a really good team when you know we have to be and we don't have any other choice when we rebooted the business we'd got the fundraise uh we had to deal with all of that trauma because it was traumatic and you worked through it we did work through it we're still married i was gonna say without me asking but you you you told me and i think i read somewhere about the impact the hidden impact of there's the husband and wife relationship the two of you have but actually when founders and i'm very close some of my closest friends are founders and they're going you know they're all always all going through stuff at different times there's an impact on your friends and your family and I think you've talked about that before just just explain what when did you realize that actually they were worrying about you yeah without the obvious I mean of course we all know our friends worry but was was there were there moments when you went hold on a second I'm impacting other people's lives here yeah so I'm I'm very close to my family I have two sisters and I'm very close to my mom and dad and we share a lot and I think I realized a few years into the journey that I was sharing too much because they were going on the roller coaster with us and the highs and lows and you know the constant battles and the disappointments and getting back up and I realized that it was really hard on them because they can't they're not in control of it they can't actually do anything to help but they're just going on this emotional roller coaster with you so after a few years I stopped sharing so much obviously the COVID journey, I had to lean on them.

23:56My sisters had to swoop in and look after my daughter for two weeks because we couldn't cope with trying to repatriate hundreds and thousands of customers. So I did lean on them. But now I would say I talk to them less about the business. I tell them about specific milestones, but I don't take them on the journey. I think it is that thing that when you as you get older, you realize that you need boundaries, especially with family because you're sharing because you need to share, but also you think they want to know. And I think there's the realization that maybe not so much, maybe not so healthy.

24:27And right now, just before I ask you a song choice, it looks really positive. Things are going absolutely in the right direction. What's underpinning the success? Is it the original idea? Is it just as simple as that? Yeah, nothing's really changed. The whole premise of bringing groups of people together, the community, building friendship through travel, the entire business model is exactly the same. I think COVID has made everyone realize that making friends in your 30s 40s and 50s is tremendously difficult and it's a skill you need to redevelop and actually flashbacks here making it easier much easier you can develop friendships in 10 days rather than you know over a period of months or years and you've extended the age group haven't you I think you've just recently gone from it was up to 49 and now you can even talk to old people like me Yeah.

25:14I mean, and Stu, who, you know, is now careering through his 50s along with me. Well, I didn't want to age out of my own product, so I had to extend it. It's totally self-interested. It sounds brilliant. I'm so happy that it kind of had the reboot. And for someone who's been through the ringer, you look incredibly positive and not weighed down. Thank you. It's good. Really good. Just before I let you go, what's your song choice and why have you chosen it? It's I Fall In Love Too Easily by Chet Baker. I've chosen it because my husband Lee is a trumpet player and he sang this song to our daughter every single day when she was first born and so it's one of my fondest memories but also I think it captures something about the way Lee and I live our lives we fall in love very easily with ideas and places and people but most of all I think it's all about my daughter Anya and none of this makes sense without her so that's the reason chet baker with i fall in love too easily the song choice of my business shapers day rada vs she talked about some of the best ideas coming out of desperation and actually being constrained you don't need money sometimes when there's pressure better ideas come out she talked about having a point to prove as a woman as an asian woman as a mom that she's felt underestimated and sometimes unseen so watch out do not underestimate people especially not rada and she also really interestingly talked about sharing too much and the pressure that unintentionally puts on your very closest friends and family especially in these really high-stakes situations when you're a founder and so much is going on and so much that's stressful is going on really interesting point i thought that's it from jazz shapers have a lovely weekend jazz shapers on jazz fm in partnership with mishkondorea it's business but it's personal we hope you enjoy that edition of Jazz Shapers.

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