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Episode #140: Danielle Finch

Founder & CEO

Equera

Episode #140: Danielle Finch
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Guest Bio

Danielle Finch is the founder and CEO of Equera, a digital platform reimagining community-based tourism through equity, technology, and local empowerment. With a background that spans global operations, product management, and customer experience, Danielle brings over a decade of experience building initiatives that connect people across borders. Her career has taken her from corporate roles at Michelin to launching a purpose-driven startup that gives communities more ownership in how tourism impacts their lives. Rooted in empathy and shaped by her own cross-cultural journey, Danielle’s work reflects a belief that travel should be as transformative for hosts as it is for visitors.

Show Summary

In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins sits down with Danielle Finch to explore how a global upbringing and a bold leap into entrepreneurship led her to build Equera — a SaaS platform focused on community-based tourism. From growing up surrounded by international students to making her first solo trip to Kenya at 22, Danielle’s life has been shaped by deep curiosity and cross-cultural connection.

She shares how studying sociology and business helped her think more holistically about systems, people, and purpose — and how working in digital transformation at Michelin taught her the power of thoughtful customer experience. Moving to Berlin in the middle of a pandemic pushed her to embrace vulnerability, lean into uncertainty, and ultimately find clarity around the kind of impact she wanted to make. Danielle opens up about the hard decisions behind leaving corporate stability, the challenges of ethical volunteerism, and why building trust and equity are essential in the future of travel.

Key Takeaways

  • ✓ Equera is designed to give local communities more control and benefit from tourism economies
  • ✓ Danielle’s passion for travel was sparked by growing up around international students
  • ✓ A solo trip to Kenya at 22 changed how she saw the world — and herself
  • ✓ Her studies in sociology and business gave her a dual lens on systems and people
  • ✓ Corporate roles at Michelin taught her how to lead digital transformation with empathy
  • ✓ Moving to Berlin during COVID required resilience and vulnerability
  • ✓ Building Equera meant stepping away from security and into purpose
  • ✓ Community-based tourism isn’t just meaningful — it needs professionalization to scale
  • ✓ Volunteerism can unintentionally cause harm without equity and structure
  • ✓ Mentorship and community are vital for any entrepreneur building something new

What You’ll Find on Equera

  • ✓ A platform that supports ethical, locally led tourism experiences
  • ✓ Tools that connect travelers with vetted, community-driven initiatives
  • ✓ Guidance for hosts to professionalize and scale their offerings
  • ✓ Resources for navigating the ethics of volunteer travel
  • ✓ A mission rooted in equity, empowerment, and shared ownership
  • ✓ A growing network of partners who believe in travel as a force for good

Learn more about Equera and connect with Danielle at:

https://www.equera.ai/

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Podcast Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.

Jason Elkins (00:01.212)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Got a wonderful guest today. Super excited to hear what she is up to making this big world feel a little bit smaller. We’ve got Danielle Finch. Danielle is the founder and CEO of Equera. Danielle, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.

Danielle (00:20.805)
Hey, thanks so much. I’m very happy to be here.

Jason Elkins (00:23.334)
It’s we’re going to have a fun conversation. had the pleasure of speaking with you, I guess, a weeks ago now. You kind of gave me a little bit of a teaser of what you’re doing in the world and was super excited to have you come back on. So here we are. Danielle, just real quick, where are you physically located right now?

Danielle (00:39.3)
Yeah, so right now I am in Berlin. Yep. Yep, I do. I have lived here since 2020, so.

Jason Elkins (00:41.812)
You’re in Berlin. Do you live in Berlin?

Jason Elkins (00:46.746)
All right, cool. We’re gonna hear more about that story. But before we do that, let’s give our listeners kind of an idea. I mentioned that you’re the founder and CEO of Equera, and if they don’t know what that is, let’s give them kind of the 30, 60 second elevator pitch so they can put it into context a little bit, and then we’re gonna do the fun stuff and discuss your childhood and all that good stuff. So what’s Equera?

Danielle (01:09.226)
Yeah, sure. So, Equera is a SaaS platform that makes community based tourism online bookable in order to ultimately make the travel industry more equitable. And what it is is it’s a platform like a connectivity platform that enables community based tourism organizations, which are locally led and socially sustainable because they reinvest a percentage of their revenue back into the development of their communities.

These types of organizations can use our products to onboard all of their products, accommodations, experiences, and package travel onto the platform using Gen.ai. Actually, we have a very cool process there. And simultaneously then distribute these offers across B2C channels and B2B channels to reach the right audiences and ultimately bring in bookings, which they can then centrally manage from the Acura platform as well.

We also provide them with training and product development and upskilling so that they can deliver a seamless guest experience. And that’s basically the goal is to really take this, quite frankly, overlooked travel segment that’s also quite in demand if we look at where travel appetite’s going these days and integrate them into the global travel supply chain.

Jason Elkins (02:22.782)
Very cool. Lots of questions came up about that, but I’m going to try and hold off on them because I want to make sure we hear your story to figure out how you got from where you are to where you are now. But I think just in all fairness to the listeners, there were a couple acronyms in there that we have a wide range of people listening. You mentioned SAS. Can you just tell, what does that mean?

Danielle (02:24.044)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Danielle (02:41.122)
Yeah. Yeah, that software as a service. So generally like, yeah, exactly.

Jason Elkins (02:47.518)
Okay. And so what I, what I got out of that was your operators on the ground, community-based, sustainable operators that maybe have had a hard time getting their products or their services in front of people in the past. this the goal is that they’re then able to get their products out there more in a modern way and connect with other tour operators, maybe online travel agencies.

Danielle (02:59.288)
Yeah.

Danielle (03:07.916)
Yep, exactly.

Jason Elkins (03:15.94)
and direct to consumer as well. that correct? All right. Very cool. Then I guess I heard it right. You did a great job. just sometimes I’m slow on the uptake. So thank you for sharing that.

Danielle (03:18.254)
Exactly. Yep. Yeah.

Danielle (03:25.01)
No, I get it. yeah, no problem. We can go kind of more into the story too of why they’re offline and what are their challenges today. But I think that’s a bit part of kind of the origin story of Equera as well. yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (03:36.724)
I figured it was. So we’re definitely going to work our way back to that point. let’s pause and go back in time a little bit. And you usually ask people, how far back should we go? And they say, well, when I graduated from college. But then when we go a little further, we find out there’s other things that happened before that. So how far do you think we need to go back, Danielle, for our listeners to kind of understand why the heck we’re having this conversation today?

Danielle (03:54.488)
Yeah.

Danielle (04:01.674)
Yeah, I think we need to start at seven and I promise I won’t go year by year because I’m not, I’m not a young spring chicken anymore so it won’t take every year but let’s start at seven. Yeah. So I grew up in the US and I was born in North Carolina but when I was six we moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan for my dad’s job and Ann Arbor is the home of University of Michigan, super international diverse college town with people coming in from all over the world and so

Jason Elkins (04:04.648)
good for you.

Jason Elkins (04:11.262)
All right, that’s good age. What was going on at seven?

Danielle (04:31.586)
When I was in first grade, there were two presentations that really stuck with me. So one was about Kenya and we were learning, think probably about the animals and the climate and whatnot in the desert. And I really got it in my head. Like, hey, I wanna go to Kenya when I’m older, it looks amazing. And that’s it. Like I decided that. And then a classmates dad came in and gave a presentation about the Great Wall of China. He had been to China for work. I forget what his job was.

and had like these cool pictures. mean, again, to show how much of a boomer I am, it was like a projector, right? Like where he had the projector and was rolling the pictures. And I was like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I wish I could tell you. Exactly. I wish I could tell you like he was on his MacBook and doing airplay, but I mean, I’m not that old, but I’m not that young. So yeah. So saw some slides about the Great Wall of China and yeah, when I was young.

Jason Elkins (05:09.616)
A slideshow, like where the little slides drop into the canister and projected on the screen. know a lot of people listening don’t know what we’re talking about, but.

Jason Elkins (05:21.199)
huh. huh. Yep.

Danielle (05:28.93)
I was like, hey, this is super cool. Like I want to go to Kenya and China. And so when, when I was seven, I made that goal. And then I would say that goal got stronger as I grew up because my parents, didn’t have any family in Michigan. So they opened up their home to the international students that were studying there for holidays. Cause we sometimes we would go to my grandparents, but they were quite far. So we started having like quite an influx of people from all over the world come in. And I really liked it as a kid. Like I.

I remember a lot of people would say, is American high school really like the movies? You know, cause that’s kind of the story. And I love those conversations and it helped me see like, Hey, there’s a whole different world out there. So that kind of continued to fuel my, my desire for that. and then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (06:12.806)
I have a couple of questions before we go any further. The first question is, do you remember who gave the presentation on Kenya? You told us a little bit about the gentleman that had been to China, but tell me more about the Kenya presentation.

Danielle (06:25.1)
Yeah, I think it was just our teacher and maybe we were doing some module about different parts of the world. I remember I went through this cool kind of, I hired a coach with Acquair for branding, to be honest, because it’s not my expertise. And we went through this very cool experience. That’s why I actually can link my seven year old self to what is now Acquair.

Jason Elkins (06:45.938)
Nice.

Danielle (06:47.15)
And we talked about, we had this like paper, I guess, I don’t know if this is the US thing or we had it other places, but it was black. And then when you kind of drew on it, it would reveal a rainbow surface underneath. And so this is very strange, but I just remember doing that exercise and then reading probably like a National Geographic Kids book and just being like, man, this just looks so different than like my suburban Michigan house that I would love to go and like.

Jason Elkins (06:58.612)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (07:11.881)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (07:13.224)
what it’s like there and what it just was starting this idea that I still love about travel is like simultaneously so many lives are going on at the same time and I think that was the first time that that helped me be like wow I want to see like what it is like somewhere else.

Jason Elkins (07:27.636)
That’s very cool. You mentioned a couple influences around school, where you had these presentations, but also I’m guessing I’d love to learn more about kind of your parents and your upbringing because if they are inviting international students into the house for the holidays, something tells me they’re pretty open-minded and pretty into that shared experience type of thing. So what can you tell us about that?

Danielle (07:31.63)
Yeah.

Danielle (07:49.74)
Yeah, it’s kind of funny because I mean, my travel wasn’t a part of my life. International travel wasn’t a part of my life growing up. It was just never, we were three kids and my parents were both working and we were working a lot, know, like when we were, we could, and doing school and sports and all that stuff. So it was never really a thing, but yeah, exactly. I think it actually started, it started with kind of a religious angle. So they worked with this organization, Campus Crusade. I think some of their friends were working with that.

Jason Elkins (08:05.854)
You

Danielle (08:18.828)
and just said, hey, we’re looking for volunteers to open their home. And so that’s a lot of times how they got connected to campus. But yeah, I think, you my parents have, and they’re still doing this to this day. Like they live in outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, and they, again, another big university town. It’s like the triangle. And they’re just always inviting people from around the world to their house. And I think it comes from a curiosity and openness to build community because they really…

You know, again, they moved to Michigan, not knowing anybody. And by the time we left, which was, I think 18 years later, I was already gone, but they left and they had built up quite some communities, right? With these, actually, in fact, one of the very first students that came to our house for Thanksgiving, I’ve gone and visited her in Japan. And this year, my dad, brother and mom went and visited her in Japan. it’s, it was quite, I think it’s quite relational focused because if it was anything else, they wouldn’t still be in contact with them. But I think they also have this curiosity.

Yeah, cool.

Jason Elkins (09:17.736)
I love that it’s interesting how many guests I’ve had on the show that kind of got this started with some sort of foreign exchange type of arrangement. Maybe they had somebody visit them or they did a semester abroad or they went somewhere and stayed with a host family, that type of thing. And I always hope that with the show it’ll spawn some ideas. People have some ideas about, know, geez, we’ve got a couple of kids at home, you know, we can’t afford to travel, but we could certainly.

Danielle (09:26.508)
Yeah.

Danielle (09:34.636)
Yeah.

Danielle (09:40.332)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (09:47.54)
invite somebody in because like you, I was gonna ask you, I was gonna ask you, was like, is there a student or young person that you remember and then you mentioned the story of this person in Japan and how you visited and that’s super cool. So when was the first opportunity you had to leave the country?

Danielle (09:49.228)
Yeah.

Danielle (09:59.483)
Yeah, definitely.

Danielle (10:07.022)
Yeah, so when I was 22, I think I graduated, I went to Purdue University and I graduated and had still this bucket list of Kenya, China. And so right after I graduated my senior year, I went to Kenya with an uncle of mine. He had been there and built some relationships in the past. So we did a bit of a, I have to say volunteering, which I have some strong opinions about now, but a bit of a volunteering and also sightseeing. And yeah, that was my first time

out of North America. So it was, yeah, that was the first time I left.

Jason Elkins (10:42.844)
You said specifically out of North America. So I guess I need to ask because North America does have some other countries involved. Were you able to go to Canada, Mexico, or when you say out, it sounds like you had done some traveling a little closer to home.

Danielle (10:58.828)
Yeah, I had gone up to Canada for school sports. mean, we lived in Michigan. So the border was, think, 40 minutes away and I used to row. And so we had, yeah. And then I went actually down to Mexico once with my grandparents when we were out in California. So, which I guess would be.

Jason Elkins (11:12.788)
Okay. What did you study? I mean, you had this bucket list. You wanted to go to Kenya. You wanted to go to China from like the age of seven. So I’m curious, what were your subjects in like high school and university? What did you study? What did you kind of envision yourself doing with your life at the time?

Danielle (11:19.959)
Yeah.

Danielle (11:32.95)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I always when I was young, said I wanted to work in a cubicle, which I guess meant business. And that’s what I did. So my my studies slanted. I know it’s kind of weird and nerdy. But like that is the truth also. So there’s that.

Jason Elkins (11:40.756)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (11:49.652)
So, well, let’s, if you don’t mind, let’s explore that a little bit more. You mentioned I wanted to work in a cubicle, which I haven’t heard too often. Um, but there was, but that represented something else. So you mentioned business. So what did, what did working in a cubicle, let’s dig a little deeper. What did working in a cubicle mean? Do you, do you think?

Danielle (11:52.214)
Yeah.

Danielle (11:57.006)
Yeah.

Danielle (12:03.009)
Yeah.

Danielle (12:08.567)
I mean, I don’t think I could have told you at that time. think it was just having like a structured job and working like in, you know, I don’t even remember in high school what my like passion topics were. was definitely in college. I mean, I enrolled them at Purdue in their business school. And like, I would say college was a time of like, why has nobody ever told me I like this, which I guess is exactly what college is for, or at least what my experience was. I, one took a, so you have to take a socialist,

class, a sociology or a psychology class. And I took sociology and I was like, wait, I love this. And so practically it doesn’t really support my cubicle dream, but I took a minor, I decided to minor in sociology because I like the interaction of people and society. Like, I just love that. And I think it’s, and I can talk more about how all these threads have gotten me where I am. And then I also actually took an entrepreneurship certificate, which is super funny because

Yeah, I mean, I’m I’ve now like reconnected with.

Jason Elkins (13:09.618)
That’s the opposite. That’s the opposite of cubicle entrepreneurship.

Danielle (13:12.59)
Yeah, exactly. it’s also, yeah, and also, again, it’ll it’s kind of funny how this you can see in my career how I started in big corporate behemoths and slowly, slowly, slowly like went away. And so it’s just it’s just funny because, when I was a kid, too, my dad went to Purdue and I was visiting a lot of different schools and I wanted to be anything but my parents when I was 17. And so I visited Purdue and I loved it. And I remember calling my mom and being like, don’t tell dad, but I really like Purdue.

And it’s just my whole life’s been like that, right? I’ve always been like, I want to be something different. And then I end up like, I mean, in the end I am, but I end up taking like, like the most predictable paths for me. So it’s just kind of like funny this internal, I think I’m a lot less prideful than I used to be. So that helps. But yeah, so I studied entrepreneurship and business and I got into project management actually through an internship. So I didn’t study abroad in school. And if we talk about like,

I always go back and forth because I don’t really have too many regrets in life. I actually don’t really have any. But if you have to say what is a regret in life, I did always dabble with this idea of should I study abroad in college or not? And quite frankly, I didn’t necessarily have the means to in terms of like, I could have done it, but then I wouldn’t have worked over the summer and then I would have not, you know, I was kind of, I wasn’t working. was fortunate enough to not have to work during school, but in the summer, it like that was kind of what happened. So.

I never studied abroad, but that meant that I jumped into the corporate world quite soon. So after my sophomore year, I had an internship at all state insurance. That was like perfect. That was dream cubicle, like living in a suburb of Chicago, going to a cubicle. and I, I was a project manager for it systems. And I was like, wait, I like this. Like, I like this like organizational components. I had done a lot of like organizational leadership stuff in high school, like organized different charities, for like relay for life was a big one.

Unfortunately, one of our friends had cancer, so we did a lot of stuff around that or student involvement and stuff. So yeah, so that’s kind of, so after I would say the first two years of school, I was like, okay, I’m majoring in business, I’m minoring in sociology and entrepreneurship, and I like project management and IT. So I didn’t actually have, again, the time or money to stay longer and switch my major to IT, but I started then pursuing job opportunities that ultimately

Jason Elkins (15:26.258)
Hmm?

Danielle (15:30.08)
landed me in this GEIT leadership program, which I started after graduation and had to work pretty hard to like close the gaps of coming out of a non-technical program and being in a technical job. But yeah, that’s kind of how I shape shifted into like a technical business career path at the beginning.

Jason Elkins (15:51.252)
All right, so let’s help me tie this into other than you’d always wanted to go to Kenya and China. I got that. And then you went at 22, I think you said, was your first trip out outside out of North America. So how did what what happened that sparked the light bulb to be doing what you’re doing now?

Danielle (15:57.068)
Yep.

Danielle (16:10.528)
Yeah, so there’s a couple things. Kenya was awesome. Kenya was the first time again, I really realized that like, life happens simultaneously, which sounds silly. But I don’t know, for me, it was just like the things like, I had grown up a lot in the same similar circumstances, I would say in similar environments. It was really cool to see like, I don’t know, my my belief system stayed the same, or my, you know, communication stayed the same. Or when we were talking to people and meeting people like

sometimes our problems were the same, know, and sometimes they were different. so was very cool. And then in this GE program, actually the next year I had the chance to go to China. So that was super cool. We, yeah, exactly. And I would have thought, so that was amazing. We all spent like a month together or three weeks together in Shanghai, but then traveled around a bit, made it to the Great Wall. And when I came home and I was, it was funny, I love college football, which is ironic because Purdue stinks, but.

Jason Elkins (16:40.116)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (17:06.502)
I remember we were gone at the kickoff of football season and I was like, okay, traveling is okay, but I cannot ever be gone during college football season, which is funny now. Yeah, so that tells you, but then when I got back, I was like, wait a second, I loved this and why would I not do this more? And so basically what happened over the next several years is my roles at companies, I switched companies a couple of times, they kept getting more and more international and I kept traveling more and more with work.

Jason Elkins (17:14.036)
interesting, okay?

Danielle (17:33.454)
Plus I started prioritizing it more and more on my personal life. So I was optimizing for going abroad as much as possible or when I had a work trip, I would stay and maybe go somewhere for the weekend before flying home or actually take a weekend of vacation off afterwards. And so I got to the point before I moved to Berlin in 2020, where I was working for Michelin, the tire and restaurant company, traveling almost every other week with them.

Jason Elkins (17:57.428)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (18:01.844)
Hmm.

Danielle (18:02.222)
I, somewhere along the way, I was like, I love this and I actually want to live abroad because living abroad is, is again, this like different community on steroids, right? It’s, yeah. So that’s kind of what got me to Berlin at least. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (18:18.046)
What did your parents think of all this? Were they supportive as you got more and more into travel? Because sometimes parents have different responses. Sometimes it’s like, why do you have to go there? Why do you have to be there? Why aren’t you closer to home? We want, you know, so I’m just, I’m curious. Cause you grew up, like I want to work in a cubicle and they’re probably like, yeah, sweet. She’s not going anywhere. I shouldn’t say that. There’s nothing wrong with working in cubicle. I worked in the travel business in a cubicle for a long time. you know.

Danielle (18:25.953)
Yeah.

Danielle (18:30.294)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle (18:37.55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Danielle (18:45.932)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (18:46.846)
doesn’t mean anything, but I was just curious kind of what feedback did you get from your family, friends, that type

Danielle (18:52.546)
Yeah, I mean, I think it was all positive, to be honest. I’m sure we had moments that maybe I’m not remembering that were a bit, but I lived at the time, especially when I started traveling more in Charlotte and they moved back down to Raleigh. so, you know what, and this is also what’s happened since I’ve moved abroad. So my biggest concern of moving abroad, my biggest concern of traveling a lot was I am super relational and I love my friends and family and I don’t want to compromise that. But I think it’s a false truth to think that that always compromises that because for example, like,

My life was pretty fluid in that time. And there was a time where I actually went and lived with my parents and grandparents for a couple of weeks while I was looking for a house in Charlotte and traveling so much. Same with being abroad, right? So I was, you I’ve been here for five years now and I can confidently say that I have the luxury of going back to the U.S. like once a year for a couple of weeks. I spend like super quality time with them, you know? when I’m, we…

Jason Elkins (19:31.614)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (19:46.284)
We maybe even see each other more than we did when I was in Virginia and they were still in Michigan or whatever that was. So, and they’re really great. Yeah, we can talk more about them as well, but they’ve, they’re really open-minded. And so they’ve really, if they don’t understand something, they’ll ask, but they try and understand and not think like this, she’s crazy. Why is she doing this? If that makes sense. That’s not their default.

Jason Elkins (20:11.988)
Do they have the opportunity to visit you in Germany? Okay. All right. And do they kind of get why you’re there? Yeah.

Danielle (20:16.214)
Yeah, they’ve come a couple of times. So, yeah.

Yeah, they do. totally do. Berlin can be interesting in the sense that you can come and you can see the graffiti or the totally mismatch of buildings wherever you are in the city. But the first time they came, they stayed here for a bit and we got to know some of my friends and the communities I’m a part of. And by the time they left, they were like, yeah, I get it. And they’ve come back a couple of times. yeah, they’re super, it’s been…

been really cool to see. They know how much I love it here.

Jason Elkins (20:54.196)
There’s, think a lot of our listeners and myself, I’ve been traveling four years. I’m not sure I call myself an expat because I keep, but I guess so. just kind of move a little bit more. And I think there’s a lot of our listeners are either interested in the same thing or even a lot of our guests have kind of gone and lived overseas. So I think it’s relevant. It’s like, what was the biggest sup? I don’t know how we want to go with this, but what are the biggest surprises?

Danielle (21:03.052)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (21:22.056)
challenges, what advice would you give to somebody that’s, you know, is like you but hasn’t quite picked up and moved to Germany yet or wherever. I’m just curious kind of what insights you would give to somebody.

Danielle (21:27.31)
Yeah.

Danielle (21:35.84)
Yeah, a couple things. So the caveat is that I had a especially challenging move. So I signed my offer to move here, end of January 2020. And my move date was March 16 2020. So to that, yes. So my fun like party story is always that basically two days before I was supposed to fly the US band inbound flights from Europe, and I’m super courageous, but I’m not flying somewhere where I can’t

fly back during a pandemic if somebody gets sick, blah, blah. So I called my boss and we both were like, it’s now, because we were talking every couple of days, like, yeah, it still seems fine. And now we’re like, let’s not do this. So I started working actually from the US for two months until I made it over in May. And that was a whole, quite frankly, that was super challenging. It was working during European hours, so super early mornings till the mid-afternoons. And then in the evenings trying to like liquidate everything in the US, cause I moved over just with a couple of suitcases.

Jason Elkins (22:13.076)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (22:33.076)
And it was exhausting to be super honest and then also like getting over here and quarantining and all this stuff. So, and then the first year here was a pretty rough lockdown, I know in a lot of places, but in Germany that meant no social contact. Everything was closed on top of a Berlin winter, which that in of itself is like, yeah, it was a lot. really had a, I’m a spiritual person. like logistically and spiritually, I was pretty convinced that I was supposed to be here, but I had one Sunday, right? Because Sundays are always the worst.

Jason Elkins (22:49.662)
Gosh.

Danielle (23:01.102)
Sundays are always the worst when you’re like traveling or not home. They’re always the ones, at least for me, and I think other people have said this. And so, I had a Sunday in January and I was just like, I can’t do this. And I walked outside at the time I was living by the super cool park in Berlin called Maurer Park. It’s just a lot of people gather there on Sundays to grill out and stuff. And even in the winter, there were people from all over the world grilling out and enjoying themselves even though was kind of cold and gray. And I just like, again,

I hope it’s okay to talk about spirituality, but for me, like I’m a Christian and I really felt God saying like, no, this is why you’re here and you will miss this if you go home basically. And not in a like legalistic way, but just in a loving way, like I know what I’m doing. And so I was like, okay. And Berlin’s like, so I now have a love story about Berlin, right? I love Berlin so much. I’m so glad I got through that first year. So, close there, yeah.

Jason Elkins (23:41.299)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (23:53.032)
Well, it’s really tough because even, you you set that aside, that your particular experience, even if you just go when the world is operating normally, you just show up in a new place with, you know, no friends, maybe a few colleagues that you’ve just met that have their own family and friend networks. And just to show up in a place alone can be very, very, trust me, I know, because

Danielle (24:03.82)
Or not.

Danielle (24:12.587)
Yeah.

Danielle (24:16.247)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (24:20.946)
been doing it for four years every month or so I’m in a new place and trying to make connections and you had mentioned that you’re kind of a connection person so that could be tough in a perfect world and I just can’t even imagine yeah that’s so hopefully hopefully our listeners don’t need to take your advice about the COVID thing hopefully that doesn’t happen for a long long time

Danielle (24:24.704)
Yeah.

Danielle (24:28.896)
Yeah, yeah.

Danielle (24:34.966)
Yeah, it was a

Danielle (24:41.814)
Exactly. yeah, exactly. So my general advice I would say is a couple of things. First, I think the preparation starts before you move. So I kind of have this goal and I really made some like lifestyle choices leading up to that to make it easier when this happened. And sometimes, you know, that meant like not investing in, I don’t know, furniture for the house or something like that, or just kind of, and sometimes it always felt a bit like I belong.

like everywhere and nowhere, if that makes sense, because again, moving abroad can take some time. for me, like, again, it’s a whole crazy story. I was planning to move with Michelin and then all of those stores closed and gratefully so. I mean, I love Michelin so much still to this day, but it wasn’t the right move for me for abroad. So I’m glad it worked out the way it did. But there was a long time where I was like, not really getting roots in Charlotte, cause I’m never here, but I’m not really sure where I’m going yet. but I do think you need to prepare.

like wherever you’re coming from before, at least, you know, and because otherwise you can, there’s, do know a lot of people that say, Hey, I want to do this and then never do. And that’s totally fine. And I don’t mean it at all from a place of judgment, but I think it’s a little bit harder than, than you think to maybe like go through all of the things that need to be done. And then also like emotionally be able to like take the stuff to do it. So maybe just like, whatever that looks like for you, like for me, that meant not growing more roots, to be honest, because I know myself.

and I get comfortable in roots, right? So I had to be like, look, so I think that helped a lot. I also think I put way too many expectations on myself when I moved here. I wanted to be like, I would definitely say like be vulnerable and have your crew around you, whether that’s a crew in a new place or your old place. I was not vulnerable enough. I was not open to say like, hey, I wanted to be like the person that was like, yeah, I moved abroad and this is part of my identity and blah, blah.

And I wish I would have not done that so much because it prevented, like in the end, yeah, it’s cool that you move abroad, but it’s not the end of your story. You know what I mean? I just took it too much as my identity. Thought I was, I mean, it is cool. But I, again, I took, was a little bit prideful to be super honest. So I would definitely recommend being a bit more vulnerable in that phase.

Jason Elkins (26:57.522)
I think you bring up a few interesting points. One is just, let’s touch on the one you just mentioned is that kind of identity. Kind of the same thing with anybody that decides, I’m going to be a digital nomad. And that’s one of the things I learned is, you you tell everybody, Hey, I’m going to go be a digital nomad. You put it all over your Facebook and da da da da da. And then you go and then you’re like the first, like you mentioned the Sunday in January. You’re like, my gosh, what am I doing here?

Danielle (27:00.524)
Yeah.

Danielle (27:14.327)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Jason Elkins (27:27.508)
And I can’t go backwards. you know, I don’t even want to, I don’t even want to admit that I’m homesick because the minute I admit that I’m homesick, then that calls, it creates an identity crisis. And. Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I sold all my stuff. I don’t even have an apartment. If I go home, I’m going to have to live with my mom for three months until I get settled in. And, and that can be a real challenge. So I agree with you. think it’s kind of try not to let it become your identity. Maybe just, um,

Danielle (27:46.956)
Yup. Yup.

Danielle (27:55.01)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (27:57.076)
take maybe smaller bites, you know, maybe you don’t have to sell everything or you don’t have to tell everybody what you’re going to do because, you know, another example is I was just in, um, in Georgia. Georgia is one of those places when I was young, the country of Georgia was someplace that I’d always really wanted to go. And I was there recently and for about two months and the first month I was there, I was like, Oh my gosh, this was amazing. And it wasn’t a great fit for me. It’s great country. Wasn’t a great fit for me. Um,

Danielle (27:59.416)
Yeah.

Danielle (28:12.93)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (28:26.58)
And it took me a while to kind of figure that out. It’s like, you know, until just actually recently, a couple of days ago, I got on a plane to go to Bangkok because I like smiling people and you know, Thailand’s Delanda smiles. So anyway, it’s, kind of unrelated, but, but I also, thing you mentioned is there’s kind of a fine line between preparing and not taking action. It’s, it’s that, you know, there’s a lot of people, especially if you’re in like expat groups on social media every day.

Danielle (28:49.392)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (28:56.51)
There’s somebody I’ve been planning. I’m going to move to Berlin. I’m sure you’ve got the same thing there. I want to move to Germany someday. I’ve been planning for eight years and I’ve got three more years until I retire. they’re constantly thinking about it. And you wonder how many of those people actually do it. And then you’ve got the flip side of it is somebody wakes up on a Saturday and on Monday they’ve taken everything to Goodwill and they bought a one way ticket.

Danielle (28:58.957)
Yeah.

Danielle (29:03.361)
No

Danielle (29:08.653)
Yeah.

Danielle (29:24.833)
Yeah

Jason Elkins (29:26.004)
And I’m not sure either one of those are a great approach, but.

Danielle (29:30.636)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a tricky one, you know, because like, especially so the to your question of do people think that I was crazy? I mean, there was a time like when I left in May, yes, a lot of people were like, Are you sure you know what you’re doing? And I was like, to be honest, no, I don’t know what I’m doing. But nobody knew what they were doing in May of 2020. Right? Like it was a totally like uncharted territory. And, you know, I just again, for me, what was really important is I had any time with big transitions like this.

I have a deep spiritual sense of contentment with the path, right? And it’s not like I wish I wish God worked in a way where he’s like, here’s your plane ticket and here’s when you’re gonna go and he doesn’t do that. So there’s like a lot of faith involved, but I knew that this was the move and that was enough to be like, and there were plenty of times, know, where and not the story that I always say is that there were no garage sales at that time, right? So I had to sell everything like one piece at a time. So then when people would come over, it would be like, okay, do you wanna buy anything else? And then

Jason Elkins (30:21.992)
Yeah.

Danielle (30:28.558)
you’d have to tell your story because people would say, why are you selling stuff? Okay, yeah, because we’re moving, blah, blah. And then everybody would be like, what are you doing? And there are many times where I was like, I’m moving, you know? And there’s so many things. But you know, at that point, look, like it was a, I was safe. I had a job, I had people on it. That was actually really, so honestly, one thing, so Berliners, you know, don’t have the best reputation for being like kind, let’s just put it that way.

Jason Elkins (30:31.27)
yeah.

Danielle (30:57.644)
And that was totally the opposite for me because like I had people in the company that I had started working with that had never met me that were like calling the airport police being like, Hey, if she comes on this day, like, are you guys going to let her in? Like, how does the quarantine work? she get like, people were calling left, right and center and doing stuff for me. And that was so, that was just so cool. You know, I was able to exactly, and a super deep and sincere way.

Jason Elkins (30:57.876)
you

Jason Elkins (31:19.802)
It’s nice to feel welcome, isn’t it? It’s nice when you’re going somewhere when people are like, we can’t wait to see you. What can we do to help? That’s pretty cool. Do you think that the responses you got about, I know it’s hard to say because your experience is your experience and it combines a lot of things, but I’m wondering when you’re selling your pieces one at a time and you’re talking to your friends and family and they’re like, are you crazy? What are you doing?

Danielle (31:28.206)
Exactly. Yeah, so… Yeah.

Danielle (31:39.534)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (31:49.652)
Do you think it was mostly because of just the global environment pandemic? Okay. Because so it’s probably hard to guess, but like I did it after, um, after all of that, things had really settled down quite a bit. And I saw it as an opportunity. Like, well, geez, I don’t want to ever want to get stuck in my house again and feel like I can’t go wherever I want to go. So it influenced me to go. But even then people thought I was crazy. You know, it’s, uh, I, know, I started with Columbia at the first place, you know, I bought a one way ticket to Columbia.

Danielle (31:53.656)
Totally. Yeah.

Danielle (32:01.634)
Yeah.

Danielle (32:11.149)
Yeah.

Danielle (32:15.074)
Yum.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (32:19.752)
And it’s like, what are you doing? And my mom’s like, can’t you just go to Seattle? And I’m like, I don’t know. So I don’t know, it’s exciting. So I would love to discuss what you were doing with Michelin because that’s something, here’s everything I know about Michelin is it was a tire company and they figured out how do we get people to drive more? So they came up with a guide to different places and.

Danielle (32:30.243)
Yeah.

Danielle (32:35.032)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (32:44.882)
You one star was if you’re in the area anyway, two stars is, I don’t know. You probably tell me, but tell us a little bit about Michelin and what you did for them, because I think that’s interesting.

Danielle (32:55.746)
Yeah, so that was also cool. Like I think the best part of my life has always been the unplanned ones and Michelin was unplanned. I was living in Charlottesville. I loved Charlottesville. And again, I got a spiritual sense in July, like, you’re too comfortable here. You’re going to move. And I was like, no way. I love it here. So sure enough, I got a call in September and I got recruited for to join Michelin to lead their digital customer service transformation. And this was a worldwide project. was a startup within Michelin, right?

I kind of had been making my way. I started at GE, a big conglomerate, but in this very cool IT program. Then I went to a company called CFA Institute and that was pretty stable, but I was like building something, building the Salesforce platform new. I worked with Salesforce a lot. I loved Salesforce back then. And then I, so I’m slowly getting into the more entrepreneurial scene, right? So I moved to Michelin. They have a startup within Michelin.

Jason Elkins (33:37.736)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (33:49.57)
and we’re, there were basically like five of us that were responsible for digitizing a different part of the entire operation. So I was customer experience. One of my friends was now we’re all friends because we had such crazy experiences together. So one was in charge of digitizing the sales processes, one, the marketing one, are like B2B and one are more like the services side. So. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (34:12.968)
I’m curious because I don’t know. Michelin, do they have two kind of separate divisions? Like one is we do tires, we sell tires. And then one is we work with, I don’t know, is it two separate divisions? Did you work for one over the other, both? What does that look like?

Danielle (34:23.595)
Yeah.

Danielle (34:33.23)
Yeah, I worked 99 % with tires. We always were joking that we wanted, it’s like the tire side of the business and the maps and guides and they’re all headquartered out of Clermont-Ferrand, but they’re kind of operated in different places. And we were always trying to work our way into the maps and guides. we always, I don’t know, I think it’s fine to say this, where we had the most crossover. So this project was crazy intense, right? So we mostly worked on the tire side and my job was to digitally transform the customer service of all of Michelin.

Which is a big undertaking. Michelin is around the world and such a powerful brand. Honestly, I fell in love with the brand. I fell in love with the story. Like you said, that’s the story where it’s two brothers. Michelin just has a history of innovating for the customer. Our premise was like, guys, we got to do that, but in a digital way. Imagine, yeah, I was implementing tech, but 90 % of my job was implementing people change. I’ll spare you the details, but yeah, exactly. Our customer service process was a bit…

Jason Elkins (35:03.836)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (35:26.76)
Right, systems and yeah.

Danielle (35:31.522)
product focus. had a very good product and so we were very strict on when we would like accept returns and stuff like that. That doesn’t work in a customer experience society. And you know, we talked about this, like for example, yeah, 50 years ago, I cared a lot about my tires, but when I moved here, I sold my car. I may never buy a car again. Therefore I don’t care about my tires. I don’t care what tires are on the Ubers that I take. So that means that Michelin needs to change that. And they were proactive about that, right? That’s why they’re investing in this transformation. So,

Jason Elkins (35:32.754)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (35:40.286)
Yeah.

Danielle (36:01.014)
So yeah, so we, but this project was intense. had tons of, tons of stakeholders, tons of our, like, man, it was crazy. And the first time that we launched our very, like our big, our biggest first launch, we went out to a Michelin star restaurant for dinner. And our boss was like, that’s fine, but don’t ever do that again. Cause it’s not the cheapest. But we were like, you know, we’ve been, yeah.

Jason Elkins (36:16.818)
Nice, yeah.

You guys, you guys don’t get a deal at a Michelin star restaurant. would think it’d be like, yeah, it’s part of the deal.

Danielle (36:25.458)
No, it doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. Yeah, and we never, you know, everybody’s like, did you ever meet the, what do they call them, the critics? And we’re like, no, unfortunately, they do a good job of like putting them, you know, that’s not public knowledge. So, but it was a great company.

Jason Elkins (36:38.354)
That’s like a super like they’re like in the witness protection program, the people that go do these. Cause I suspect that especially now we’re looking back on it. We’re like, you’re working in tourism and travel. And so you say to me, I worked for Michelin for a while and I was traveling every week. I’m thinking, you know, my mind goes, wow. What were you, you know, you must’ve been going out, checking out these restaurants, but it wasn’t quite that sexy. It was sexy, but not that sexy.

Danielle (36:42.368)
Yeah, something like that, right? Yeah.

Danielle (36:51.886)
Yeah

Danielle (37:03.45)
Yeah, unfortunately I was not under, yeah. I mean, it was, but you know, I, again, I still to this day love Michelin. I get together with people when, like, I just got together with one of my old colleagues back in the US. we made, because we honestly traveled so much. had, it was rough. We had our, you know, come to Jesus moments where we just had to get along as a team. But it was amazing. And that brand, I still like, like I said, if,

If Michelin was my path to keep going, absolutely would have stated that it wasn’t my path, but I would wear my Michelin gear in the airport and people at Customs would stop to tell me how much they respect Michelin or how Michelin saved their life because they almost got in an accident or something like this. And it’s just a really, I really liked it. It invested in its people. You could.

They basically created our division to challenge everything. You know what I mean? And what big brand does that? And yes, it definitely had its challenging moments. And that’s for sure. It was also the most stressful. mean, there were a couple of days, again, in the spirit of vulnerability, where I would wake up and I would be like, I can’t do this. Like, I can’t convince this person to do this. I can’t fix how this seems upset. can’t. And every day I would manage and get through.

Jason Elkins (38:00.329)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (38:21.78)
it during that time, I also always felt I was like, this is preparing me for something. And so obviously, now what I’m doing is, 5 million times more intense than Michelin. And I can totally see that, but how that prepared me for it. But man, was, and maybe just a couple more anecdotes, like the average, like Michelin has a very strong employee engagement and average tenure. So a lot of people were there for a very long time. And I’m at like, I remember one time I flew to Melbourne and I

Jason Elkins (38:32.574)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (38:51.446)
I flew overnight and went to the hotel, showered and went into the workshops. And we were supposed to go live with our product on Monday. And this guy pulled me aside and he was like, this is not good. Like nobody is going to go live. They all hate it, blah, blah, blah. So imagine. So I was like, okay. So I got up in front of a room of 20 dudes that have all been working at Michelin mostly longer than I’d been alive. And was like, what’s going on guys? Like, we got to fix this. Like, unfortunately, like I’m not leaving until we…

And so one by one we talked through, yeah, but you don’t know this. Yes, we do. Because we did it here. You don’t know this. Yes, we do. So that really got me, I don’t know, a lot of that stuff, being resilient, working on the change, pushing something because you believe in it. And even though people are saying it’s not going to work, it’s not going to work, and even in the back of your head, you’re like, is this going to work? Of course it’s going to work. So it was quite a cool, I’m so grateful for that time, again, to work for such a great company like that.

It was an amazing experience and it was very, cool.

Jason Elkins (39:55.058)
I think their HR team, their marketing team over at Michelin should share a copy of this podcast episode with their, or at least some, some clips. Cause that’s, that’s, it’s great though. love to have conversations with somebody like, loved it. It wasn’t my path, but I loved, I loved what I got out of it and what a great opportunity. So, so tell me about the job that you moved to Berlin with.

Danielle (40:03.079)
I think so. I think so.

Danielle (40:12.086)
Yeah

Yeah.

Danielle (40:19.52)
Yeah, so I moved to our company called Home to Go and they at the time were starting to implement Salesforce or they had actually already implemented Salesforce, but they wanted to bring it in-house a little bit more and kind of shake it to the next level. So Home to Go is a vacation rental marketplace and also working on the solution side as well. so we

I started to build up, started there to build up Salesforce. And then I had fallen in love with customer experience at Michelin, right? And how I had become convinced that experience wins over product. And now I was in this like super now Michelin would dabble a little bit in travel and mobility, of course, but a bit in travel. And now I was fully in it. And so I probably like 18 months in.

Jason Elkins (41:02.121)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (41:09.43)
started talking to my boss, like, Hey, like the CX thing, like, it’s not going away. And like, really want to like work in it. And at the time, actually the director of customer experience role opened up. And so we both again, had this kind of phone call where we were like, wait a second, like, could I do this? And he was like, yeah, I think so. And so again, super grateful. Like I had never worked in customer. I had been digitalizing customer service for the last three years at Michelin, but I had never worked in customer service and experience. And so I got that role. And then for the last

two and a half, almost three years that I was there, led the customer support for what ended up being all of our products, right? Not only the marketplace, but a couple of other solutions. And so I got deep into the travel tech space. working in, Michelin was French, and so that was working for a French company, but working directly for a German company in Germany. It was cool. Like it was very, again, like I really,

I really liked it and I really grew a lot there and in a lot of different ways. Again, that all prepared me for where I am now. So, it’s quite cool. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (42:15.486)
Yeah, so let’s discuss that. What was the next step to get you where you are now? What transpired in the last couple years or so?

Danielle (42:24.494)
Yeah, so it’s a cool story. I was kind of at a crossroads in like, March of last year. So what would that have been? March of 2024. was like, I had really started digging a bit into like, what’s my purpose? This is a question that’s kind of, I think a lot, I love this conversation. So I could have 17 podcasts on this alone, but it’s just something that kept coming up. And I decided to dig into it a bit more again, started reading some books and just asking some questions about like,

Jason Elkins (42:43.923)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (42:54.254)
What am I supposed to do with my life, basically?

Jason Elkins (42:57.676)
I think that’s question a lot of people have, so I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t. Is there a particular book that pops into mind if our listeners are thinking? Because probably a lot of people listening to this show are like, what’s my purpose? So feel free to drop some suggestions as long as we go.

Danielle (43:00.396)
Yeah

Danielle (43:05.706)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s…

Danielle (43:15.464)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff I really like. So again, from a spiritual aspect, John Mark Comer has a book called Garden City. And he’s approachable even if you don’t share Christian beliefs. He’s I really think, yeah, of course, there’s a God component. he also this is crazy, like that church had this like session many years ago on their website where it actually walked you through a couple of things to do like take Myers Briggs and it helped you kind of look at like how that translates the Enneagram is something they use a lot as well.

Garden City and then I just was listening to a lot of content from John Mark Homer because I really I liked it I I believe so like my belief is that everybody has a purpose and it’s not about like creating it again This is where like when I was in the past a bit prideful about my identity and stuff I’ve kind of come away from that and it’s more about discovering it and we have like and that that was really freeing to me because I don’t need to create my purpose I actually like I’m definitely here for a reason you’re here for a reason everybody’s here for a reason and and

Jason Elkins (44:01.726)
Yeah.

Danielle (44:12.366)
Christianity has helped me see that I just need to then uncover that and I always was scared that going deeper into Christianity would like make me sit I Need to be careful about defend anybody but like make my life very small like okay I might need to go work in the church for a while But actually the more I’ve dug into that the bigger I’ve seen like I feel like what I do now every day is like I’m like I get it This is my purpose. Yeah, yeah

Jason Elkins (44:37.3)
It’s so important and what I hear you saying is, and I can relate to it, is a lot of people, because of maybe something someone told them when they were young or parents that were like, need to, I’m gonna say work in a cubicle. There’s nothing wrong with working in a cubicle. But some people don’t do well in cubicles. So you take that, maybe that young child that maybe somebody would say has ADHD or whatever.

Danielle (44:49.014)
Yeah!

Danielle (44:55.003)
Sorry.

Yeah.

Jason Elkins (45:06.912)
and you pound on them to accept the idea that they need to work in a cubicle the rest of their lives. And they may try really, really, really hard because that’s what they were told they’re supposed to do, but it’s just not the right fit. So trying really, really hard to figure out how do I work in a cubicle or figuring out, no, what is it that I should be doing? What’s a good fit with who I am? You mentioned Myers-Briggs.

you know, and other things like that. It’s like figuring out who you kind of naturally are and figure out what aligns with that. So for like me, my highest values are shared experiences, which makes perfect sense that I would have anything to do with tourism and travel. Shared experiences for me, that’s what it’s all about. And it took me a long time to finally accept that, you know what, that’s my thing.

Danielle (45:36.232)
Yeah.

Danielle (45:39.916)
Yeah.

Danielle (45:45.613)
Yeah.

Danielle (45:49.678)
Sure. Yep.

Danielle (45:58.123)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (45:58.164)
Um, so if, if whatever I’m doing doesn’t contribute to shared experiences, then it’s a, it’s kind of a waste of time and I’m just going to be banging my head against the wall. So yeah. What did, so what did you determine? I mean, if you were to put it in a nutshell, what’s your purpose?

Danielle (46:05.738)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah

Danielle (46:16.788)
So my purpose, no, I can’t. basically what kind of happened is I was at this crossroads and I knew that I wanted to use tech for impact, right? So one of the things we didn’t talk about is equity has also been a big theme in my life. So growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U of was one of the first schools to practice affirmative action. And I loved the concept of this. I was like, this makes sense.

Jason Elkins (46:19.176)
You can’t put it in a nutshell.

Danielle (46:40.62)
this will right the wrongs of past, like the gaps that were created by bad things in past generations. And the idea was that affirmative action would take care of itself. It helps everybody get on the same playing field. then within one to two generations, we’ve kind of closed the gaps that some of this like not so great things have created. And then I remember being totally like, would you say like disenfranchised or like in unbelief when they stopped the program because it’s not working. And I went down this rabbit hole and started to see like, my gosh, like equity.

And the lack of equity, it’s not okay, right? It just like, I mean, I was born in a white middle-class family in America. And sure, I’m female, I’m sure I’m middle-class, but still the amount of opportunity that I had was ridiculous compared to people with different demographics that I just mentioned than I have, right? And then I also saw it, being a woman in manufacturing, tech, okay, so.

Jason Elkins (47:30.633)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (47:37.75)
Yeah, I’m also like, I also saw that played out, right? And so, and, also how I liked being part of those things that did acknowledge like, hey, like, let’s just, it’s not, it’s not polarizing, it’s not political, but let’s just be honest about the fact that like, we did this amazing exercise in college, we all start on the line and you take a step forward or back based on circumstances, right? And so that is an amazing exercise because it helps you understand that sometimes you have a head start and

Jason Elkins (47:57.123)
yeah,

Danielle (48:06.24)
I don’t know, I just felt responsible for that head start. Like what should I do with that? Right? And so I had been doing stuff like that all along, volunteering. I was always volunteering in different organizations that help with mentoring or help women in tech or help migrants in tech or whatever. And so I basically got at a crossroads of like, okay, I want to keep doing this. And do I do this by keeping my career ladder and increasing my salary and philanthropically investing my money because I don’t have time and just stuff like that. Or

Do I go and start my own thing? And so at that time, literally, again, I got recruited for a role that would have taken me down that path to go to the next big thing, the next big paycheck, the next big title. And I was like, cool, answered, easy. And I liked it because it was comfortable, because this job would have been like up the street from my house. It would have been with people I know. It would have like been like a higher salary. Like that was amazing. So I was like, I’ve got my answer. And so I didn’t get it.

Jason Elkins (48:51.165)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (49:04.302)
And so I didn’t expect that because I got recruited. And basically what had happened in between is I discovered community-based tourism. And so literally in between my first and second interview, I didn’t take an interview because I was in the Malaysian Borneo jungle. And people that have heard my story before know this, but I went to this organization called Tunggag Eco Camp and I had found it randomly. I knew I wanted to go into the Kinbatagin River.

And I kept looking and I was like, I don’t know, these lodges look like not great. And then I found this little pin on Google maps. It was 4.9 stars and everybody was like, this is the most amazing authentic thing I’ve ever done. And so I literally booked that place and you know, we call it for Freud in German, like anticipation excitement, I guess. And that was so high. Like anytime I thought about my trip to Malaysia, I was like, but I can’t wait to stay in the rainforest. And again, spiritually I got this sense like something’s going to happen in the rainforest. What is happening? So.

Jason Elkins (49:49.512)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Danielle (50:00.598)
I went and it was amazing. They explained to me how it works and this is a community in the middle of a place that’s kind of been devastated by the palm oil industry and a lot of foreign investment. They started by offering homestays and then they made enough money to buy a boat. Then they took the boat on safaris and made enough money to build these basic huts that were like the coolest things I’ve ever stayed in. I got back and then they’re like, it’s community-based tourism. I was like,

Like I’ve been traveling so much off the beaten path. Like people would always say, you go to cool remote places. Like I’m not going to the coast of Italy every summer. I’m going to really unique places and I never heard of this. So I literally got back to my hotel room and I Googled like what is community-based tourism. And then I started learning more about it. And so, and I had had the idea in between these two interview processes to say, okay, well, why don’t we make a…

a platform at the time I thought more of a marketplace, which is not what we’re doing now, but why don’t we make a marketplace for these types of experiences? And so when I didn’t get the job, I was like, well, what does that mean? You know, and also like, I have this idea. so then my friend, again, around the same time sent me a con like this contest where you can submit your, your social entrepreneurship and tourism idea. I think it’s run by travel massive and coordination with Amadeus. forget how it works.

So I was like, okay, I’m gonna like build out this idea, submit it to the contest in June, wait to get my feedback in September, October, and then decide. By the time I submitted the idea in June, I was like, actually, I’m pretty convinced this is gonna work. I had been spending some time, yeah, exactly. I, well, I would have, but again, the spiritual thing, I was like feeling it all practically and I was like, okay, spiritually, and I got this crazy sense of like,

Jason Elkins (51:34.334)
You were going to sit and wait for someone else to tell you. Yeah.

Danielle (51:46.636)
Yes, this is gonna be, it’s a cool story, but it’s a bit long, I’ll save it for another time. it’s basically I got the sense of like, this is gonna be scary and unknown, but I’ve got you, and this is what you’re supposed to do. And literally the next day I quit my job after that. So that’s how we got to what is now Aquairon. That’s kind of crazy.

Jason Elkins (52:07.582)
Very, very, very cool. So you quit your job before you had any money coming in, presumably. It was just like, this is what I’m going to do. And I need the time to commit to it, to really get it off the ground. So you quit. So when did you quit your job? How long? So we’re in October of 2025. So when, when did you quit your job?

Danielle (52:14.082)
y’all

Danielle (52:22.016)
Yeah

Danielle (52:26.606)
Yeah, I quit in July because we have a long notice period and I had a big role so I didn’t leave them hanging. I quit in July but I left at the end of October and I had like, end of October of last year. Exactly. Yeah, so it’s been a year basically. And I did prep a little bit, right? So I had in the past couple of years like…

Jason Elkins (52:39.636)
of 2024. Yeah. Okay.

Danielle (52:48.718)
done some things on the immigration side, on the saving side, and I also downsized my apartment just in the off chance. So kind of like the moving abroad thing. I was like, well, when I do have a chance to make a choice of like, should I pay a lot of money each month for rent or not? Like, why don’t we downsize? And why don’t we think about… So I will say like, I did do some practical things for about a year to get prepared for the passability.

Jason Elkins (52:56.616)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (53:14.818)
That also didn’t make me stuck in the moment, right? I wasn’t like, well, I can’t do this because I might quit, but I tried to make some preparation. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (53:17.64)
Yeah. It’s good advice. It’s good advice for any anybody. mean, I guess everybody can go their own route. They all have their own purpose, but I’ll tell you when you get tied up in car payments and high rent and.

Danielle (53:25.389)
Yeah, yeah.

Danielle (53:33.261)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (53:33.46)
and emotional attachment to stuff. makes it really hard to make decisions because you’re like, well, geez, if I, if I quit my job, I’ll lose my apartment and I’ll have to sell my car. And so if you can just sell the car and move into a smaller apartment and get rid of some of your crap ahead of time, then when the opportunity comes up, you know, it’s not as hard. There’s not as much of that kind of initial friction or whatever they call it to kind of take, take steps. So, so that’s very, very cool.

Danielle (53:36.298)
Exactly. Yeah.

Danielle (53:43.512)
Totally.

Danielle (53:54.401)
Yeah.

Danielle (53:58.51)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Elkins (54:03.348)
All right, so what now? What’s been going on the last year? Walk us through that a little bit and what are some of your major takeaways that other people maybe that are sitting in a big apartment with cars and a lot of furniture and thinking, I wish that I could go start a community-based tourism business. What advice would you share?

Danielle (54:08.417)
Yeah.

Danielle (54:15.63)
AR.

I mean, I think you always can, right? So I think it’s a lot like optionality is great. So that’s something that I feel like is good. But I mean, maybe what’s been going on, I would say, kind of what I would recommend. I took two months off, I traveled the US with some German friends. I had my US family over here for Christmas. And it was honestly the best time ever. I got super grounded before what has been a crazy year. So in January and February, I was in…

India, Thailand and Laos volunteering actually with CBTs. And really because I don’t know what CBT is. I had taken a training course in August, like a free one online and got to know it more. So I started reaching out to anybody and everybody that was in this industry. listened to podcasts. I found people that knew about it. I emailed them and had mentoring sessions with them, got volunteering opportunities with them. So I spent the first two months.

of that. And then I started at the beginning of March, this Grace Berlin accelerator program. It’s Germany’s largest email accelerator. I definitely recommend if you’re starting something on your own, trying to find something like that. For me, it was amazing to have the structure, to have the guidance, have, they have mentorship every week or like different sessions every week, mentors, coaches. And so I was really lucky to like come back from Southeast Asia because I told myself when I started, I would give myself five months. think

Five months is little bit too short. I met somebody last week who was giving themselves three months and I think you need to give more than that if I’m being honest. And I also had the luck that like I got to five months and I was like, I totally forgot because like things are going super well. But I started, there’s a really good book called, I think it’s the, Four Steps to Epiphany is the newer one. It’s written by Steve Blank who is, I might get this wrong, but I think he’s a professor in Stanford. helped write.

Danielle (56:08.43)
the lean startup, which is kind of something that corporates use a lot for like how to innovate and Exactly and that that really encourages you to start with customer discovery and that’s what I did So I went to places where CBT happens and I started sitting with people and saying like what are your problems and I started volunteering with them and seeing their problems and It was a bit like I had a moment in not in Bangkok, but in Chiang Mai where I freaked out I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing

Jason Elkins (56:13.172)
Lane shirt, yep.

Danielle (56:38.807)
I am by myself. I have no idea what I’m doing. I had a bad meeting with somebody and I just didn’t run it well and blah blah. And I freaked out. that was a lot to be out of my comfort zone and stuff like that. But at the same time, I was like, okay, well I gotta figure out how to manage this. I took some time, I went for a walk, I wrote a bunch of stuff down that I can come back to the next time I freak out. Because I think that’s just, meltdowns are like.

Jason Elkins (57:07.43)
It’s normal. Especially if you are outside the cubicle. I can, I’ve had meltdowns in cubicles. It works both, both ways, but once you get outside the cubicle and that umbilical cord starts to get a little tight, it’s like, shit. What am I, what am I doing? And it’s all just you. You can’t just go to your boss and say, Hey, I’m struggling with this. What should we, what should we do? And let them mentor you. But I think what you said about.

Danielle (57:07.864)
part of founding lights. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Danielle (57:22.934)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly.

Danielle (57:35.693)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (57:37.138)
you know, kind of finding an accelerator program with some sort of mentorship is huge because otherwise, you know, I’ve been doing that independent entrepreneur thing for quite a while and I’m still like, at least once a week, I think, gosh, I wish I had a mentor. I wish I was involved in some sort of coaching program. And because some days it’s like, I just sit down and do what I think sounds fun and exciting or what I think is going to move the needle. And I’m pretty sure someone else look over my shoulder and say, what the hell are you wasting your time doing that? You should be doing this.

Danielle (58:06.04)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (58:07.068)
So yeah, I get that. That’s a bit of a challenge. But you’re figuring it out. You’re figuring it out as you go.

Danielle (58:09.217)
Yeah.

Danielle (58:14.124)
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, basically what happened is I had made a goal. So community-based tourism, right? We talked a little bit about what it is, but it is, it’s been around since the 1970s and it started as a response to mass tourism. So there were, for example, a community that I worked with up in Northern Thailand, they immigrated from Myanmar. And basically the story was the Thai government said,

you can stay, but we are going to profit off of tourism. They’re some of the long neck women tribes. so, so that’s not super fair or cool. And so basically, there’s a cool organization called Fair Tourism Foundation that went in and worked with them and helped them. Now they have tourism, but on their own terms, right? So they own it all. They socially invest. Like I was saying, when I was there, they were building a road based on the money from tourism. They built a school for that.

Jason Elkins (58:43.72)
Yeah.

Danielle (59:04.782)
So it’s this type of tourism and it’s historically been built up by NGOs and aid organizations and they do a great job of building a good tourism product, but marketing and distribution is not their expertise, right? And so example, there was an organization, I was in Rwanda in May and there was some amazing tourism products. And in 2021, their advertising support came in the way of street signs. And these are places in super remote Rwanda. And so,

that’s not really going to work, you know, or get you visibility on what is now GEO from, from, know, how Google and Gen. AI are working together. or how that, how that works. Like SEO is, SEO is old. So AKA street signs are super old, right? So.

Jason Elkins (59:42.45)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (59:47.262)
Well, I get why the community might think, well, this is how we advertise our soup stand, or this is how we advertise our beauty parlor. So we want to advertise our tourism business. We go put a sign right next to the one for the beauty parlor and the soup stand. And yeah, most of the people in that community, maybe they kind of.

Danielle (59:52.024)
Same.

Danielle (01:00:02.925)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:00:10.91)
have a feel for what they can do and they’d like to do for the tourists when they get there, but how to get the tourists there is a whole nother issue. Right. Yeah.

Danielle (01:00:16.694)
Yeah, exactly. And that’s kind of where we come in. we’re not like, so basically what what we learned and why I went to the three different kind of like I went to Asia, Africa and South and Central America to really prove like, is this a global problem or not? Because if it’s not a global segment, then sure, I would just maybe moved in somewhere that, you know, has a big CBT. And I know a lot of amazing people doing amazing local things.

But that’s actually one of the problems is that CBT is also kind of because it’s been built up by aid organizations, it’s a little bit seen as like little charity projects in certain places. And so we’re saying like, absolutely not. this is so this is just throw some stats at you. The community based tourism market is growing 2.4 times faster than the general travel market. And you know, the general travel market is huge. And ultimately what we’re what we’re trying to solve and why equity and travel is so important is because in developing countries,

95 % of tourism revenue leaves the community in which the tourism happens. And that is because there’s foreign ownership. That is because there’s not local ownership. is because, you know, there is unfortunately like things like cultural commodization or, or wage exploitation. And, you know, what we kind of saw is, and, and, you know, maybe, maybe 10 years ago, this wouldn’t be the right time to launch this business, but there’s a couple of things happening in the, in the travel, like traveler space, right? So.

As Gen. increases and as social media, I mean, it’s always been there, it seems like, but it continues to increase. People want more and more to be off the beaten path and do authentic, unique things. They even saw this article yesterday, and I’m gonna forget where it was from, but where the new high net worth vacation is isolation, you know, and away from the big tourist attractions and overtourism also, right? Everybody’s getting, I mean, you saw what happened in the Dolomites this summer where

8,000 people a day were going on the same trail. That’s insane. And that’s just because, and the Dolomites is a humongous, beautiful region. You can do 5 million hikes, but because one person posted, I think it was on TikTok that they posted this, I think there’s a lake at the end of the trail they were on. So all of these things are pushing people to look for, and then on top, like statistically, 90 % of people want to experience life as a local, that’s a get your guide quote. 69 % of people want to leave a place better when they,

Danielle (01:02:40.674)
than when they came, I forget where that came from, think MX.

Jason Elkins (01:02:43.752)
Makes you wonder about the other 31 % though.

Danielle (01:02:46.446)
Yeah, also. But I mean, that gets into the… mean, tourism is a bit extractive. Like that’s also like… It’s funny. It’s like I kind of pulled on this like, oh, equity in tourism. then it’s like, oh my gosh, there’s so much stuff. And so, but then, know, then 53 % of people, this was kind of the big deal that came out of a Booking.com study earlier this year. 53 % of people want to lead, sorry, care about the impact of their travel on people.

Jason Elkins (01:02:48.148)
Like what they want to leave it worse. That’s yeah, but probably. Yeah, I get it.

Danielle (01:03:15.596)
And that is the same percentage of people that care about the impact of their travel on the planet. So imagine how much of the sustainable tourism, responsible tourism space is dominated by environmental conservation and sustainability. Well, now you’re starting to see consumer sentiment say, but what about the people? Right? And one of our colleagues explains it so well. says, look, you come into Uganda, one of our, where we’re running a pilot, you fly into Uganda, into Intebbe, and you drive out to Bawindi to see the gorillas and you drive back and you pass.

honestly probably millions of people and hundreds or thousands of communities. And people are starting to say like, but where is my money going? Right? And is it a tour operator that unfortunately ships its money back to XYZ country or keeps it in the capital and there’s no local ownership. And I mean, I could just tell you many, many, stories of like how it’s quite like, it’s quite a problem, but I also sometimes think in sustainable truths and we talk too much about the problems.

And what I love about what I’m doing is like, that’s the problem, but there is a solution, right? And so our solution is to help the CBTOs really understand and digitize and quantify the amazing products and offerings that they have. Because again, I’ll come back to that in a second, but to do that and then digitize them and then to integrate them into the global supply chain. not…

Jason Elkins (01:04:14.484)
you

Danielle (01:04:40.616)
only so that they can have full calendars. And then we also give them the tool to manage the full calendars, right? Because a lot of these guys are working on Excel, chalkboards, and WhatsApp to coordinate everything, which is very impressive. But we give them a digital kind of way to basically think ERP, CRM, to manage the bookings and manage the guest experience and all that type of stuff as well. So we want to give them full calendars with the way that they want them, because right now they’re too controlled by the demand channels.

So it might have been that like a CBTO gets built up, maybe the NGO or the aid org connects them with one tour operator and that tour operator controls them, honestly. Like not to get on, but because they say we’re gonna bring you these people and we’re gonna give you this price. I’m not joking, there’s a true story that I’ve heard happening in Masai Mara. The second you say, hey, that’s not fair. We need more money or blah, They say, okay, fine, we take our people somewhere else. And that’s, yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:05:22.516)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:05:37.084)
We’ll find it’s, it’s a tough thing. I’m not sure where this is going to go, but I’m going to bring it up and kind of play devil’s advocate or maybe, maybe the thought process that goes through some travelers heads are. Okay. Let’s say I want to go to Northern Thailand and I want to have an authentic experience. I want to kind of, you know, see what it likes to live, live as a local.

Danielle (01:05:45.034)
Yes sir.

Jason Elkins (01:06:07.794)
But when it comes down to the decision about how I’m going to book that or who I’m going to give my money to, maybe I’m like, I don’t want to give my money to that local. I don’t want to give my money to the local I’m staying in their house because I am so far removed from them. I don’t know if I even trust them because they’re so different. They live in a different world. So I’d rather give my money to Mary’s Travel Services out of Spokane.

Danielle (01:06:12.343)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:06:19.971)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:06:34.846)
who’s then going to give it to a DMC operator in Thailand who is going to take care of all this stuff. And I’m going to go there and I’m going to sit down with the long neck ladies from Myanmar and they’re going to teach me something. And then I’m going to go home feeling like I got that authentic experience and the risk was low. I feel like maybe there’s some people that think the risk is low as opposed to I come across a platform where I’m like, I can book this directly with the long neck ladies.

Danielle (01:06:53.054)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:07:03.836)
in Thailand through some sort of portal and the portals say at 95 % of the money you spend on this portal is going to end up in their pockets. I suspect you get some pushback to that. I don’t know. I have no idea where I’m going with this. So what do you think?

Danielle (01:07:18.367)
Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s exactly why we’re not a marketplace, right? So we’re not our consensus or our kind of conclusion, I would say, is that the demand and the demand channels already exist. And so the idea is that this experience would be available both ways, right? So for example, I was just in Kyrgyzstan a couple of weeks ago and Kyrgyzstan has a lot of FITs.

I mean, they have both, but I was meeting a lot of FITs. So people that on their own found community-based tourism in, I was in the South of Kyrgyzstan when I had a lot of these discussions. And so they’re fine, right? They’re like, yeah, we’re up for it. Like the authenticity and the uniqueness will, you know, we basically trust that. And so we go for that. But then there’s also people that will travel through tour guides or travel planners or whatever.

And so that’s why we are a distribution platform because we want to distribute these offers where it makes the most sense, right? And so it is, so basically I was gonna add something else about the but that’s also why we’re helping kind of facilitate these transactions because a lot of times if you did manage to find a CBT before maybe from a Facebook page or a Google Maps listing or something, look, these guys, I would.

do anything for CBTs to grow. But I got to be honest, you would WhatsApp them and 50 % won’t WhatsApp you back. 25 % will just WhatsApp you like, hi. And then the other 25 would say, hey, yeah, let’s talk and blah, blah. That’s not statistical, I should say that. That’s like my generalization. And so we’re also helping with that to build up the quality and trust. Like one of the features we have is that, say that you did book directly. You said, look, this is cool, I’m not so certain. We’re gonna send out an automation seven days before saying, hey, we know you’re coming.

We’re preparing for you. Anything you need, call us because I can almost guarantee you that once you make that contact, and this is, I have an example for this. like, also like, I was not traveling with this style before, right? But this is once you make contact with these individuals, like I’ve never met people that take their job more seriously or your safety or your surroundings more seriously. For example, when I went up to Northern Thailand, I was a little bit sick and I was super worried. I was like Googling like,

Danielle (01:09:33.304)
Where are the hospitals? There aren’t anywhere I was going. Like what happens if this blah blah. But you know, that was the wrong thing to Google because I got there and people are like, what do you need? Like we’ll take, like they don’t know me from Adam, but it was a bit like this Berlin experience when people that don’t know me are already calling and taking out from me. thing because you’re in a community. Like you enter into a community and you now have kind of the privilege, I would say, to enter into this community. And so that’s.

Jason Elkins (01:09:52.392)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:09:57.708)
And of course we have a vetting process, right? There are some CBTs that are in the regions that we’re live in and that are not on the platform. And that’s a tough conversation to have, but that’s conversations that we have because there is a certain, you know, you need to meet certain criteria in terms of quality and offering and feedback and all that stuff. So we definitely have some that are off, but yeah, I think that’s basically what we’re trying to do is

allow them also imagine how much time they spend just coordinating, facilitating blah, blah, And we want to take all that off of them so that they can focus on saying, Jason, I know it might be your first time in this kind of home set today before, but we’re going to take care of you. And what we see time after time after time again is when it is in this setup, like a tour operator set up, people will say the community-based tourism experience was the best experience of their entire trip. So.

Jason Elkins (01:10:55.806)
Do you think, I don’t want to oversimplify this, but I want to ask it so that you can address it because I’m sure I’m missing something or not, I don’t know. But as I hear you speak, what was the company you worked for when you first moved to Berlin? Homes to, what was, Home to Go. Home to Go, kind of like, it’s kind of like VRBO or Airbnb, kind of, sort of. Okay. So I’m hearing.

Danielle (01:10:58.21)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:11:10.21)
Home to go. Yeah.

Danielle (01:11:17.422)
Yeah, that’s a bit. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:11:23.098)
Airbnb, I don’t want to use the word Airbnb. I, but just for to explain my question, I’m thinking Airbnb for community-based tourism. So the community-based tourism organizations have a place to put their products where people can see their products and connect. And I, I know I’m off base, but hopefully this gives you an opportunity to kind of fix what I’m saying.

Danielle (01:11:47.461)
Yeah You are but it’s okay because if people are off-base it’s with this understanding so that would be building we’re not doing that because that Contributes to the problem of thinking that this is a niche aside aside segment so Because they should be on Airbnb. I mean this is it. Do you know what I mean? That’s that’s what we’re doing We’re not putting them on Airbnb for a little nice CBTO’s we’re putting them on Airbnb because they will

Jason Elkins (01:12:03.089)
Right.

Jason Elkins (01:12:08.317)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:12:14.099)
Okay.

Danielle (01:12:14.996)
they will win. Because if you go on Airbnb in Kyrgyzstan right now, zero experiences, right? But there’s actually a ton of stuff. But they need help to do that, right? Being on Airbnb means that you need to move into like, a lot of them are on request right now. So you just do a request and they respond yes or no, whereas Airbnb is real-time pricing availability. So we’re helping professionalize their inventory, not them themselves. They do not need to be professionalized. They are. They have done amazing things like

Jason Elkins (01:12:18.8)
gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:12:36.276)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:12:44.514)
learned English in refugee camps and learned hospitality in a jungle training school and all this stuff. They are professional, but professionalizing the products to fit into the demand channels is what we’re helping to do. So no, we’re not, I’m glad you asked it because I, yeah, we’re not a marketplace. We’re, we’re honestly, it’s a very boring. Exactly. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:12:56.489)
Got it.

Jason Elkins (01:13:00.596)
Yeah, I guess that would be more of a marketplace, wouldn’t it? mean, and you’d mention that. But I also think like, because I can see the reason. mean, I’ve traveled enough to know that oftentimes when you’re overseas and you look on your phone, you’re looking for something, maybe you find a Google, somebody started a Google listing and it was like, wow, a lot of great feedback. And then like you look for what, oh, well, I want to go look at their website. There’s no website. Or you click a button and it takes you to a Facebook page that

Danielle (01:13:25.731)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (01:13:28.722)
hasn’t had a post for six months. And you’re like, you know, send us, send us a message, request a booking. And you’re like, yeah, apparently I’m not going to do that. so that, that is where a lot of probably really, really great operators just never get past Facebook or WhatsApp. You know, WhatsApp’s great. I love WhatsApp, but a lot of the world deals on like, you want to come visit us, send us a WhatsApp message and we’ll discuss prices. We’ll give you a quote. We’ll do all this stuff, but.

Danielle (01:13:31.256)
It’s very true.

Danielle (01:13:39.157)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:13:47.982)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:13:57.78)
a lot of people from the traveling market, these high-end travelers aren’t necessarily going to do that. So I hear you saying you’re just helping them get from that to something that’s easier to transact, probably.

Danielle (01:14:05.72)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:14:12.8)
Yeah, well, we’re giving them flexibility so they can still keep their WhatsApp, they can still keep their webpage, they can still keep their Facebook. The problem is, you know, conversion. So we’re working on conversion, distribution and conversion. Basically, the ultimate goal is to make more bookings so that they get more revenue and there’s more local ownership and less travel leakage, right? And so more bookings can come in like conversion and it can also come in distribution. And so on the conversion side, you’re exactly right about the thing that happens with like the WhatsApp.

black hole of death. And what we used to say at home to go is like, you know, travel planning is quite predictable. So once somebody is say that you are an operator, and I’m emailing you and saying, Hey, Jason, I saw your Facebook page, I want to come. I want to come to Bangkok and I have a day in Bangkok. Well, I’m emailing and what’s happening you and what’s happening in other company and what’s happening in other company and whoever responds first is most likely going to win. also I only have

Usually we say, I think it’s 24 hours. I forget if it’s 24 or 48 hours, but once somebody starts booking, they’re not going to wait for 15 days, even if your experience looks amazing and incredible. And I’ve done this before. Sometimes I will be like, hey, I really want to come. And then I’ll get a response like three days after I’ve left, you know, and I’ve already booked something else. So we’re helping with that, with the conversion to say, hey, like that’s where the automated WhatsApp comes in. That’s where this kind of CRM component comes in. And that’s why we want to help them.

Jason Elkins (01:15:10.654)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (01:15:38.208)
because some, you know, again, like mass tourism operators have the, they distribute their products on four or more channels. So we’re talking Google Maps, we’re talking Viator, we’re talking their own website, we’re talking Get Your Guide, Booking.com, whatever it is, whatever products that they have. And so they can’t keep up with that. So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to figure out the distribution channels that work the best for them, allow them to also be multi-channel and then control it.

If they like FITs that come through their website because that’s easier for them to do and run their experiences, great. Let’s pump up your FIT, like your B2C channel. If you like the tour operators because it’s more predictable and it works better for your type of community, then great. Let’s pump up your distribution capabilities on the B2B side. So that’s the idea is that we help them and ultimately integrate them into the global supply chain because just one quick story real fast.

There’s a community in the south of Uganda and they used to live in the park. They don’t live in the park anymore. They needed to be moved. And so they do run tourism now, which is super cool. They have people that come to their village. You can do different activities with them. And they’ve used tourism money to send one of the guys to safari vehicle driving school. And he’s got his license, but there’s no path for him to transition into a big safari company right now.

because he’s coming from the community. But imagine his options are stay in the community and do like a cultural activity, which is maximum 25 bucks person split by a bunch of people, or drive a safari vehicle, which is a lot more than that, a lot more than that, right? So that’s also part of equity is we’ve got to get this segment as mainstream tourism and the best tourism because it’s not only like led by like, these are people that grew up guerrilla trucking in Uganda and Rwanda is like the highlight.

Jason Elkins (01:17:13.662)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:17:18.142)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle (01:17:32.566)
undisputably so. And so these are people that grew up conserving the gorillas. Wouldn’t you want them to drive your safari vehicle and talk about how their grandparents used to, you know, have to interact and live together with the gorillas? Like, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to just relegate them to a dance, you know? So that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do as well is ultimately really integrate it into guys. Let’s change this a bit. Like, yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:17:32.98)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:17:43.742)
Yeah, yeah, that’s super, super cool.

Jason Elkins (01:17:55.57)
of it. We’ve discussed a bunch of things. I want to ask you one question and then I want to ask you about which questions I forgot to ask you before we wrap up. But the one question you’d mentioned earlier in the conversation, something about kind of that volunteerism. I saw the look on your face. There was some sort of something you wanted to say, I think. So what do you want our listeners to understand about the pros and cons of what we call volunteerism?

Danielle (01:18:02.829)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:18:10.646)
Yeah.

yeah.

Danielle (01:18:24.662)
Yeah, I mean, I have no pros, I just have cons. So I think volunteerism, know, yeah, there’s two things, right? So one of the problems is, is locals, when locals are considered a charity, they have, it’s exactly the problem that I just mentioned. When somebody thinks about this guy in this, this community, and they think of him as a charity, they’re not going to think of him as a competent, capable professional that can work for the big mass tourism safaris, right? So treating people as charities, like

Jason Elkins (01:18:27.27)
Okay, that’s fine.

Danielle (01:18:52.474)
One, it’s not okay. So from a mindset like treating people, it’s not okay. Two, there’s many studies coming out saying that aid does not help solve root causes, right? So there was a study, and again, I’m going to butcher this, but the sponsor a kid program. No offense if you do that, it’s fine. But they started to see that that does not solve poverty because kids grow up with parents who survive on donations and they don’t know then how to teach sustainable, like economic participation.

And then the third thing is, and this is a bit on the nose and one day we’ll probably get me canceled, but I just struggle with like, if Americans go to Guatemala or Germans go to Uganda for volunteering, why don’t we have Guatemalans going to America? Why don’t we have Ugandans going to Germany? It’s not okay, right? I love, I…

I grew up in the US, I’m very grateful for growing up there. I love Germany, I’m very grateful for living here. But come on, who are we to send volunteers when there’s a big wealth gap issue in the US? So those Guatemalans better be coming back the next month to also volunteer for us. So it makes me very frustrated, as you can see. And I just think, it’s this giver-receiver attitude. And who says we are the givers? That’s the problem, right? So I’m fine with volunteerism once it’s equal.

Jason Elkins (01:20:06.109)
I see that.

Danielle (01:20:15.456)
Once I go to Guatemala and then Guatemala comes to me. That’s it. But until then, uh-uh. You convinced me that that’s not a broken system.

Jason Elkins (01:20:22.622)
Fair enough. Somebody’s going to listen to this and say what you just shared about charity can be applied to a lot of different areas in life. It’s not just tourism. That’s for all another conversation that we can talk about. But let me ask you this, because I want to be respectful of your time. I appreciate you coming in and joining us.

Danielle (01:20:34.348)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:20:42.962)
What are there any questions that I forgot to ask? Should have asked you wish I’d asked or anything else you want our listeners to know before we wrap up this conversation and we can always come back and do it again, but anything important for right now.

Danielle (01:20:56.974)
I think maybe just talking about where we are as a product actually, because I talked a lot about like theory, which is amazing because that’s kind of what built it. But I’m happy to just share kind of where we’re at as a company and where we go from here, if that makes sense. Yeah. So the company started in March, would say. I would say January started on it full time, but a in this.

Jason Elkins (01:21:09.0)
Yeah, please do. Yeah, please. Yeah.

Danielle (01:21:18.722)
look at me saying volunteering is terrible, but I would say volunteering to learn. I wasn’t there for aid. Yeah, that now sounds really bad. But I was working with these organizations for free, basically, like doing the administrative and business work that they need, but for free so that I could learn. I wasn’t there like painting houses and stuff. Yeah, I’m super happy to take anybody that…

Jason Elkins (01:21:21.512)
Uh-huh.

Jason Elkins (01:21:38.312)
Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. If we do a highlight clip of this conversation, it could be taken completely out of context, but thank you for clarifying.

Danielle (01:21:44.916)
I know exactly, I’m open. Look, I have strong opinions and so I welcome any strong opinions back, right? I’m definitely not a like you disagree with me, so cancel. So anybody that has a controversial opinion to what I’m saying, bring it on. I’d love to, love to shout more. but yeah, so basically I started in January and then we launched our pilot in September. And since then we’ve actually already onboarded, what’s now about 30 CPTOs will be adding. yeah, already in six, seven weeks now.

Jason Elkins (01:21:50.941)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:22:13.59)
We already have over 130 products, market ready products online that might have even gone up since yesterday. I haven’t checked this morning yet across experiences, accommodations and package travel. We’re live right now in Uganda, Rwanda and Kyrgyzstan. And we basically are now figuring out the best kind of distribution strategy that I mentioned. And so we’ve honestly made a lot of progress. We’re super happy about it. So we are

you know, if anybody from a, I have to do like a shameless plug, but we’ll also be heading into a fundraising round soon because we really see the economics behind this and whatnot. So that’s kind of where we are from a platform. And I would say we have a lot of support and validation and support comes in in many ways, right? So supportive saying this is a great idea, but also I’ve had so many mentors and advisors along the way say like, I like this, but I don’t like this. You need to think about this. You need to think about that. But I do think that’s really helped us have a lot of.

positive traction and I’m excited and we do our ambitions are to scale this globally. So across the 85 countries where CBTs are and eventually we want to even go into the path of things like micro financing where we also literally deploy capital in a way that builds up equity in these places. So we have really big visions about how to tackle this inequitable part of the travel industry and

I’m really grateful for what we’re already seeing in terms of the transformation that’s taking place.

Jason Elkins (01:23:41.918)
sounds like a huge amount of work for those listeners that are not listening to this right away. mean, we’re recording this in October. You mentioned you kind of launched a bunch of stuff in September. I’m sitting here thinking, how do you have time to come on and chat with me? That’s great. I appreciate that. And do you have a team of people doing this? Are you trying to keep all these balls in the area, you know, yourself in coordination with all the community based CBTOs? Is that right? I got that right. Yeah.

Danielle (01:23:44.204)
Yes.

Danielle (01:24:03.191)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:24:10.54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. yeah, mean, there’s, so what’s amazing is there’s two guys in Uganda that are also on the team. working part time. One is leading business operations. His name is Rogers. And then one is leading kind of the training and development. His name is Sabidi. They both have deep CBTO expertise. I’m super grateful for them. There’s no way I could be doing this without them. The three of us met each other kind of randomly in Uganda through connections and stuff, but we ended up.

Really hitting it off and by the time I left I was like guys I think we’re gonna start a pilot and I’d like for to work together if you’re open to it They are there. They’re really amazing guys. I would love to you know ever do a follow-up and get them on as well They have 10 million more perspectives than I do on CBT, especially in East Africa. Yeah, it’s super there then that yeah, so they they’re working on it and we’re gonna bring on likely like we’re looking for and

Jason Elkins (01:24:52.83)
Yeah, that would be interesting. Yeah, that would be great.

Danielle (01:25:02.542)
having some good conversations with hopefully a technical co-founder, founding member, because we are a tech platform. And yeah, so it’s a lot. And what I always just say is the founder experience, man, I we didn’t talk about this too much, but it’s so up and down. And I always try and be as vulnerable as possible. Like it’s easy to see the wins and the milestones and the pilots and the customers and the hopefully soon revenue and the funding, blah, blah.

But man, there are days where I am like, I cannot do this. And I have one of those days last Thursday and I’m happy to talk about what that looks like. So I’m trying to do that too, because I think, you know, women founders are also quite rare. Like it’s quite a small percentage and it happens to men founders as well. But, know, one thing I’ve learned over the time is just being, like I said, vulnerable because it’s something that’s

Jason Elkins (01:25:53.662)
Well, we need to hear, like when we hear somebody else saying, man, there are tough days. There’s a Sunday in Germany in January. There’s the last Thursday. There’s, you know, plans falling apart or feedback. You show up somewhere and like, this isn’t going to work, but we got to get it going. There’s those moments. And if we don’t hear other founders share those things, then we just think it’s us. And we’re just like, my gosh, I’m a failure. What am I doing wrong?

Danielle (01:25:59.704)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle (01:26:10.158)
Yeah, I am.

Danielle (01:26:18.156)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:26:22.288)
And then we quit right before we break through because we don’t realize that that’s part of the process. So I acknowledge you for sharing that because there’s a lot of founders or wannabe founders or people in various stages in their business and life listening to the show. So thank you for sharing that. Definitely think we should come back.

Danielle (01:26:28.227)
Yeah.

Danielle (01:26:38.126)
Cool.

Jason Elkins (01:26:40.572)
and do this again and continue the conversation. And I also hope that somebody is listening to this that wants to, you know, is inspired by what you’re doing. You mentioned maybe a technical partner, somebody maybe is listening to that. We’re going to have your website link in the show notes. So anybody that’s still listening to this conversation at this point feels a connection with Danielle, which if you’re still listening, obviously you do because she’s easy to connect with. Please click on the link in the show notes. And when you reach out to her, her know that you heard her on this podcast and

Danielle (01:26:49.602)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:27:10.028)
And Danielle, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing time out of your day to come and visit with me. Appreciate it.

Danielle (01:27:16.822)
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thanks, Jason. It’s super nice. I mean, I really you will create a great environment. So I feel like we could chat the whole day and it’s important. Yeah. So yes, I have a humongous full day ahead, but this is also an important part of that full day because, you know, telling the story and also being vulnerable about wins and challenges and

hopefully saying something that’s been useful or if somebody is considering one of these things and moving abroad or struggling with living abroad or wanting to start a company, I’m all ears for that and I’ll tell you the good, bad and ugly and why it’s worth it anyways, if that makes sense. yeah. Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:27:50.27)
That’s very, very generous of you to offer that. So thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll work on some projects again in the future. I’m sure. Thanks, Danielle. Bye bye.

Danielle (01:27:59.694)
Cool, thank you.

 

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