What does it take to build, scale, sell a company, step away from business, and then return because you believe an entire industry is about to be reinvented by AI?
In this episode of Startup Builders and Backers, I spoke with David Amsellem, founder of luxury concierge company John Paul and now Chief Distribution Officer at HBX Group, about entrepreneurship, innovation, and why the next generation of founders will win by orchestrating ecosystems rather than simply building standalone products.
David’s story is particularly fascinating because it spans two very different startup eras. He launched his first company at a time when entrepreneurs still had to justify why they weren’t pursuing traditional careers. Today, he sees a completely different environment where speed, agility, AI, and access to capital are changing how startups compete against much larger organizations. But despite all the technology shifts, he believes the entrepreneurial mindset itself remains remarkably unchanged. Founders still need resilience, conviction, adaptability, and the willingness to keep moving when nobody else believes in the vision yet.
A major theme throughout our conversation was how AI is reshaping entire industries faster than many business leaders realize. David explained how travel is moving away from the traditional “search, compare, book” model and toward conversational, agentic experiences powered by AI assistants. But rather than seeing this as a threat, he believes the biggest opportunity for founders lies in combining AI efficiency with deeply human experiences that technology alone cannot replicate.
For startup founders, there are valuable lessons here about positioning, timing, and differentiation. David argued that modern startups increasingly succeed by connecting fragmented ecosystems and reducing friction rather than inventing entirely new categories from scratch. In his view, the companies most likely to win in the AI economy will be those capable of simplifying complexity behind the scenes while creating highly personalized customer experiences at the front end.
We also explored the realities of balancing startup agility inside larger organizations. David spoke candidly about joining HBX Group as an entrepreneur entering a global corporate environment and the tensions that naturally emerge between operational consistency and rapid experimentation. His perspective on how founders and enterprises can work together without suffocating innovation offers some particularly useful insight for anyone navigating partnerships, acquisitions, or scale-up growth phases.
One of the strongest moments in the conversation came when David discussed failure, risk, and founder psychology. He believes too many investors and corporations publicly celebrate innovation while privately punishing failure. Real innovation, he argues, requires giving people room to experiment, fail fast, adapt quickly, and learn without fear. It is a mindset he compares to raising children: creating structure and support while still allowing enough freedom for creativity and growth.
David also shared a piece of advice many early-stage founders need to hear. Looking back, he believes startups often try to scale internationally far too early before securing a dominant position in their home market. The temptation to chase rapid expansion can distract founders from building operational strength, focus, and sustainable foundations.
This episode is packed with practical insight for founders, operators, investors, and anyone building businesses in rapidly evolving industries. From AI disruption and ecosystem thinking to founder resilience and scaling strategy, David offers a refreshingly honest perspective on what it really takes to build companies in an era defined by acceleration and constant change.
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[00:00:00] So a huge thanks to Denodo for supporting the Tech Talks Network, helping us produce more than 60 interviews a month. And when it comes to trusted data products, it all starts with the right foundation. And trusted data products start with Denodo, because they can help you create, manage and deliver business-ready data products faster, with secure real-time access across all of your data sources.
[00:00:26] And you can learn more by simply visiting Denodo.com What pulls a startup founder back into the arena after they built a company, sold it and earned the right to step away? Well my guest today is currently the Chief Distribution Officer at the HBX Group. He's also the founder of The Luxurists. He's going to be joining me on a conversation about entrepreneurship, luxury travel, AI, the future of travel distribution.
[00:00:57] And he founder John Paul way back in 2007, built it into a major concierge business and sold it to Accor in 2016. And then he took some time out in sunny Mauritius and returned to business with a new vision for how technology, distribution and human service could come together in travel. This is a great startup story that began in hospitality.
[00:01:21] He will talk about the influence of his grandmother, who he describes as the queen of hospitality, and how that instinct helped him connect. And organized complexity shaped his approach to business. And this is a theme that ran throughout his career, whether in concierge services or luxury travel. My guest sees value in connecting fragmented systems and making the experience feel effortless for the customer.
[00:01:47] And I think this is a conversation that is especially relevant now because travel is changing fast. AI can help build itineraries, compare options and support travelers in ways that were hard to imagine just a few years ago. But my guest today believes the real opportunity is using AI to give human travel advisors more time to personalize, refine and create those memorable experiences. And yeah, this is a startup podcast.
[00:02:14] So we'll talk about startup speed, entrepreneurship, corporate scale and the risk of travel becoming commoditized. And why founders often need to secure their home market before racing into international expansion. But enough from me. Let me introduce you to my guest now. So thank you so much for sitting down with me today and joining me on the podcast. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?
[00:02:43] My name is Darren Tompkins. I'm 47. I have three kids living in Mauritius. I'm an entrepreneur. I founded my own company back in 2007-08, which has been a fantastic venture. I sold this company to Accor back in 2016. Then I took a few years resting in Mauritius. And more than two years ago, I decided to come back to business with HBX and this new super exciting venture.
[00:03:12] Wow. What an incredible story. And I love how you've been on this journey and took that break in Mauritius. And that's where you're talking to me from today, a beautiful part of the world. But of course, you can't just sit around drinking cocktails on a beach. Any founder, any entrepreneur is always going to be pulled back into this world. So tell me a bit more about that opening that you identified in the concierge market that would lead you to founding John Paul and Luxurists.
[00:03:39] Tell me more about that. There's got to be a story there, right? Yeah. I remember having been asked this question several times and I recently got the answer. I've made fake answers to this one. But recently I was meditating and I just realized that was something in my DNA which leads me to the concierge world, which is probably my grandmother who was the queen of hospitality. And she was always trying to facilitate things for everyone. And I think that's the common denominator here.
[00:04:06] Because if you ask me the question, what was basically taking me to Jean-Paul? It was this idea that I was not inventing something. I was not adding something new to the ecosystem, but I was just connecting the dots. By connecting the dots, we were creating value for the whole ecosystem. And that's exactly the approach that we have with Luxuris. With Luxuris, I have the same frustration that in this travel distribution world, which is super fragmented, as you know,
[00:04:30] and more and more complex as we go, I realized that we probably need this middleman to organize the market better and create this value by more flawless and seamless customer journey for all the players involved in the ecosystem, in the value chain. Such a cool story. And it's funny how you, the old Steve Jobs quote, you can't join up the dots looking forward. It's only when you look back that you can start to see how that pattern developed.
[00:05:00] And I'm curious, when you look back at your career as an entrepreneur and a startup founder, how has the startup landscape changed in from that first venture 25 years ago to launching one today in this AI driven world? How much has changed and how much has stayed the same? You know, I think it has totally changed. And at the same time, the mindset of the entrepreneur has not changed. And for good reason. So in that time, back in 2007, we were at CUNY as entrepreneurs.
[00:05:29] When you, at that time, when I used to say, what are you doing in life? I'm an entrepreneur. I had to justify myself. And now with the new trend in town. So this has changed in the way that it doesn't fit the same, the same people going for entrepreneurship. That's number one. Number two, things are going super fast today.
[00:05:47] And another point is that 25 years ago, it was still about creating something, coming with a new patent, with a new software, with new algorithm. Today, it's more about capturing the value on the flow, on an existing flow, adding value to an ecosystem. And the third point, which has changed, is the speed of execution.
[00:06:15] What used to take us a year in development, even as a startup, when it took 10 years at a large core, today takes one week. And the market is evolving so fast that every single week, the agility brought by the startup environment is a real unfair competitive advantage.
[00:06:32] So I think that in a nutshell, if you put all of that together, so the change in a paradigm, plus the fact that today you have access to funding much more easily than it was before. I think that it gives the startup world the right to win in this world. And the last point, which has changed as well, is the relationship between large core and startups. At that time, you had a kind of competition. None of which trusted each other.
[00:07:01] Today, we see great examples all over the world where there is a good collaboration between startup and large core, where they understand how to leverage best of those worlds. And I think that all of this together make the startup, entrepreneurship and cultural mindset something which is accelerating for the good in 2026.
[00:07:21] And it feels at the moment in present day that AI and automation is almost a challenge around those areas of producing solutions without losing the human touch and empowering humans rather than replacing them.
[00:07:36] So when we look at what you're doing here, especially in a world where we're starting to see AI concierges and stuff, how specifically does AI and automation allow human travel advisors to provide that more personal experience without losing that human touch? Absolutely. That's the big challenge.
[00:07:54] What I'm here to say first is that AI will not replace in the near term, will not replace traditional travel agents, but AI-enabled travel agents will replace traditional travel agents. So it's how you use AI, how you use AI to do more, to do better. And to answer directly to your question, you're asking me about this challenge between AI full automated versus human touch.
[00:08:20] The best way is to understand what AI can automate and use it for that, while focusing on what other parts are related to human and human touch and high touch. If you look at proper customer journey in the travel space, there are some phases where AI has outpaced human capabilities. Let's talk about itinerary building, for instance.
[00:08:41] I don't know any travel advisor on earth capable of doing an itinerary better than Claude for any specific destination. That's number one. But once you have this canva, the added value brought by the travel agent is how to adapt it, how to personalize it, how to connect dots. We're talking about this just before.
[00:09:04] How to make sure that this trip is made for meals specifically and is not just generated by Claude and answering to Neil and David's needs. So, I think that when you're using AI properly in this space, then you have more time to focus on your client and create this special human bond that creates the magic of it. That's number one. Number two, it's about personalization. Personalization is not in the AI space.
[00:09:31] It's not saying calling you Neil instead of Sir. It's the past. This is obvious today. But it's more about the experience that you will be in this nation. Making sure that in the morning, I don't need for you to fill in my CRM to know what you like, what you dislike. I can anticipate this for you. And this is because I have created this connection with you. I have this human-to-human connection and conversation which leads me to know he will like.
[00:09:57] And third, because we are in the travel industry, which is totally fragmented and unstructured at the local place. I mean, in fact, you can imagine that most of the experiences that you find on TripAdvisors, they are well-structured. They are provided by very large players. And it's a copy paste of what you can do in New York, you can do it in Paris, you can do it everywhere in the world.
[00:10:21] But if you want to, and if you go to the luxury space where people are more interested in hidden gems, in, you know, money can buy experiences, then these experiences that are not listed. So you get to know the person who knows the person who knows this experience and can make it with you. Because you want, you are looking for authenticity, for singularity.
[00:10:45] And so I've given you here three core examples where human can make the difference versus AI. But of course, it's an arbitrage. And thanks to AI, you can allow and dedicate time to deliver this. So that's why I think that AI is a fantastic enabler for our industry. And you also have the additional challenge of delighting high-end customers who almost just expect everything to work seamlessly.
[00:11:12] And in a world of instant gratification, how do you build a digital platform that still feels exclusive and high touch? That's the real challenge. You're talking about instant gratification, but it's also everything has to be instant in it. You're expecting a customer service to reply to your complaints, requests, changes, modifications, instantaneously.
[00:11:36] What it means to hide, and that's where HPX is probably the best position in the world to play this game and to be the big winner. And that's my vision. Big winner of the next decade in the travel industry. Is that you... What we see today is that you have specialists per vertical. So you have a specialist for the flight, specialist for accolation.
[00:12:04] Sometimes you have someone who bundled this together to offer you a package. But then you fly it, you arrive, you need your transfer, you need activities, you want to make a modification. You're booked by email, but you want to change by phone. So we're talking about multi-channel, multi-supplier and so on. So we need a knock-ups trader to make sure that when you knew we decide to use your WhatsApp to interact with me, I'll give you the same type of answer, even if you haven't booked with me.
[00:12:32] And doing this is the multi-aggregator AI challenge, which is all about organizing this ecosystem, which is being built super fast, which is being more and more complicated. Because into it, I forgot to say that we are currently adding this field tech layer to give you the highest level of flexibility. Because in this new world, everything has to be flexible. I need to cancel, modify, upgrade, downgrade, change.
[00:13:01] So everything needs to be flexible, even if it's not. That's where it's tricky. So it's recreating this level of flexibility. And at the end of the day, to make it seamless, as you said, because this is the first requirement, we need someone in the back scene able to orchestrate that and give access to the same information with instant access to all the players, whoever you interact with. And this is the role of HBX. It's being this ecosystem.
[00:13:29] We strongly believe, I do believe, and that's why I decided to come back to business, because I have a vision. I have a vision that we need to create this invisible player, which will serve as the ecosystem for all the players who will lead this market tomorrow. So here at present day in 2026, you're now the chief distribution officer at HBX Group.
[00:13:52] So I've got to ask, I mean, looking back and especially on behalf of every startup founder listening, how do you maintain an entrepreneurial edge when you're working with a massive global organization? What's been your biggest challenge in this transition? Because it feels quite different for you, too. I don't think I can say my biggest. I have so many challenges around. So, but what I said at the beginning, I'm 47. So I'm not 27 anymore.
[00:14:18] Meaning that, I think I'm finding here with HBX and based on my own experience, I'm trying to find the right balance between both worlds. And when I had my first interview with the people at HBX, I said, be careful. I'm an entrepreneur. So I will shock you. I will distract you. I will challenge you. I will be stupid. I will be shocking.
[00:14:41] But if you accept me as I am, I'll take on me to make sure that I try to understand your word and you recreate the bridge between both worlds. Which means that many topics, large core is guiding the way because it has to be consistent. It has to be reliable. It has to bring trust. The trust that embodies what HBX has been over the last 25 years.
[00:15:04] But on the other side, if we want to be agile, innovative, creative, making sure that we capture the share of light in the new areas offered by the AI and space, we need to be fast. We need to fail fast. We need to adapt our way of operating to this new changing world. And that's this combination which works super well today.
[00:15:26] I get to say that I didn't make only friends at the beginning, but more and more I convince people that it's not a GVT, it's not startup against large core. It's us together creating the conditions of remaining agile while being consistent and being this partner of trust for the market. And as you said at the very beginning of the podcast, the travel industry is notoriously fragmented.
[00:15:54] So as CDO, what do you see as the future of travel distribution over the next few years? How do you see this continuing to evolve and evolving for the better too? Surprisingly, not only this world is fragmented and complex, but it's coming more and more complex and fragmented every single day. Every single day, you have a new player from fintech adding a new product from payments. And adding a new checkout process. All for the benefit of the traveler.
[00:16:22] But behind the scene, it's becoming more and more complex. Which means, plus the AR revolution, which is hitting the front end, is creating troubles for us as well. Because of course, by offering new features and new capabilities to your travelers, you increase and elevate their level of expectations in terms of service that we have to deliver. So this is becoming more and more tricky for us to deliver the same level of service.
[00:16:50] And where the industry is heading out to is probably a multi-layer industry, which has to be structured in a way that we need to stop competition having everyone talking to the travelers.
[00:17:08] And making sure that there is one layer which serves as an orchestrator to make sure that we create a value which is mutualized against all the markets. The big risk which is happening, because we saw that back in the year 2000 with the dot-com disrupting some industries. I'm talking about real estate, insurance and so on.
[00:17:34] The biggest risk that we are facing with is the commoditization of our industry. The reason why I'm saying it's a risk is because if we go that way, it will certainly kill travel itself. Because the next step, if you commoditize the booking phase, you will commoditize then the product. If you commoditize the product, you kill the experience. By killing the experience, you probably kill the last piece, if you think of it, on your day-to-day yourself.
[00:18:04] What remains human in your life? Family and holidays. Yeah. Out of this, Amazon brings me everything. Uber takes me everywhere. You see that the young generation is not interested in living these experiences anymore. They just need to post it on Instagram so they can create content, fake content today thanks to AI. So they don't even need to go and physically live those experiences.
[00:18:31] So at the end of the day, the last remaining true human piece in our world is holidays. So if we want to avoid commoditizing this last piece of humanity, we need to create defense and support this of our world. And as someone that's right in the heart of this space and has been for some time, I'm curious,
[00:18:55] what innovations in the travel tech space excite you and make you think will prove to be invaluable to businesses and consumers in the months and years ahead? What are you seeing there? First of all, as you know, the traditional customer journey search compare book has totally disappeared. Used to different agents to call the travel agent, to book online, to use an OTA.
[00:19:22] All of this has suddenly collapsed into one single conversation with an AI. Is it Claude, ChatGPT, whoever? Is it one single conversation? Which is more and more, you probably know that today, even today, 56% of all the bookies are resulting from a conversation with an AI. And it was 25% nine months ago.
[00:19:47] So what is interesting, what is shocking is not only the number, but the speed of change, of change in the behavior of the travelers. So we see this happening and we need to cope with it. And in terms of innovation, we get to be able to understand what's next and what's next. So if we think forward, what's happening today, we just passed the first AI phase. We are entering the agent phase.
[00:20:14] So the next phase is that I will ask my AI to book everything for me. So I used to say, what's the itinerary? Search compare for me. I'll book myself. Today, I tend to say, book it for me. Tomorrow, travel will be ambient. Meaning, if we'll be connected to your devices so they will know how tired you are, when your kids are on holidays, what is the best season, when you are down, when you need a break, whatever. They will book for you.
[00:20:44] They will bring that to your screen. I've looked at that for you for this weekend. And there is a discount if you wish. What do you think? Should we go for it or love? So travel becoming ambient, becoming a part of my life, such as health, has become such a piece in my life. And other things like that. I think that we need to be ready for that. And the biggest quote from the alien and celebs, if you wish, is that I'm used to say that with human eye,
[00:21:13] you can measure the speed, but you cannot measure acceleration. What I mean by that, if I ask you what will happen from now to 2030, you will probably say, okay, let's look back at the last three years, what happened, and it will happen again. But you would be wrong. Because it's probably that what will happen in the next three years is what happened in the last 20 years. And 20 years ago, Facebook did not exist.
[00:21:38] So if you think of it, you understand that what's happening is the rise of social media, AI and so on, and travel becoming ambient. So you get to be ready for being AI ready, AI interaction ready. You have to be ready for this full flexible world to understand that what wasn't cancelable yesterday will be cancelable tomorrow.
[00:22:00] And probably that's the area which is the most interesting in terms of tech product destruction in the travel industry, to come back to your question. Yeah, I completely agree. And I know so much of my own travel habits have changed now. When I go to a lot of tech conferences around the world, two years ago, I would have Googled what's the best way to get in from this airport where I am to my hotel. And I would have been, I would have had a couple of pages of sponsored results and find myself getting frustrated.
[00:22:29] Now I can ask AI straight away. It will give me Metro train ride share costs, how long, which would be the most sensible option. And I can just get what I want and go straight away. So I notice in myself how quickly things are changing. And for other founders listening, is any advice that you'd give to maybe founders, investors or corporate leaders on how to support founders without stifling their creativity?
[00:22:55] Because you're someone in quite a unique position here where you've kind of been there on both sides of the table. But any advice that you would offer there? I think the answer is in your question. What you want to do is bring the best of your support to any project manager, founder, owner. The point is you don't want to kill creativity. And I would make a comparison with how you fit your kids.
[00:23:21] The best way to educate your kids is to show them the value, support them when they need you, but as well, let them do, let them create, let them fail. And most of the best success that I had in my life came from failures at the beginning. And I think this is something, this right to fail is something that everyone is talking about. But the reality is that it doesn't fit in a corporate world.
[00:23:47] In the finance world, the reality, I'm very active in private equity. So I can say that as well as a private equity investor, we don't like failures. So we want to double secure the investment initiatives and so on, which is the wrong approach. Yes, it's great to secure 70, 80% of what we're doing while remain creative on 20%, on 10%. Making sure that we try, we just try, we adapt, we fail fast, we adjust.
[00:24:16] And that's the only way that we can maintain this agility up to speed. So my advice would be, instead of asking people, are you risk averse? How do you want to manage these? I would say, let's be good managers to cover 90% of this code. Let's agree on the trigger. What do we want to define? 90, 80, 70, 100. But at least let's make the rules clear between us.
[00:24:41] And then we can expect a good reaction from, from the people we meet. And again, I'd love to leave everyone listening with on a powerful and inspiring note. And if you were to look back at your career, if you could go back to that, the day you first founded John Paul there, what, what is the one thing that you would tell your younger self? Any, anything you've picked up, anything that you'd like to tell your younger self there that would help?
[00:25:08] So you're talking about the David, 30 years old, who wanted to have had big dreams, wanted to go fast and so on. I would say, go for it. Be prepared to hear that no one believes in you. But in a few years time that we all say that they, they were approving your decisions and they were your best supporters back in the days. One advice, one, my advice, my opinion, my experience is that from all my experiences,
[00:25:35] myself and the startups I've been investing in, we are always willing to go too fast international before being super strong where we're based. And I've seen that multiple times. I honestly, I don't know how to avoid that. Just saying that I always see these, these entrepreneurs willing to go fast to duplicate their early success in different places.
[00:26:01] Why not measuring the difficulty of it and how much it could divert the attention, the focus and the business, how much expensive it is and believing that you go faster. At the end of the day, you understand that you would have been faster in securing your position first before duplicating it international. That would be my last piece. Fantastic. And a beautiful moment to end on.
[00:26:27] And for anybody listening that would like to further learn and talk with you or your team or find out more about HBX group, where would you like me to point everyone listening to further dive into anything we talked about today? HBX group.com. Perfect. I will add a link to that along with your LinkedIn as well. And I hope we have inspired a few people listening and more than anything. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me and share your story. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.
[00:26:57] I think for me, this conversation today was a timely reminder that entrepreneurship changes, but that founder instinct is something that remains familiar. David has seen the startup world move from a place where entrepreneurs had to explain themselves to one where startup thinking is a mired across corporate boardrooms and funding is easier to access tools are faster.
[00:27:21] AI has compressed what used to take months into days or weeks, but the same old challenges remain. Can you create value that customers can feel? David's view of travel was especially powerful too. He warned that if travel becomes too transactional, we risk losing the part that makes it deeply human. Yes, AI can build itineraries, support automation, and power new forms of personalization.
[00:27:49] But the magic still comes from understanding the person, the moment, and that experience they're hoping for. And finally, I think he also offered a valuable lesson for startup founders who are eager to grow fast. Yes, that early traction can be exciting, but international expansion can drain focus, time, and money if the core business is not strong enough first. So I think that advice was simple and hard earned.
[00:28:18] Build strength where you are before trying to replicate success everywhere. So I'll include links to everything that we talked about today, but I'd also love to hear from you. As AI becomes part of how we plan and book travel, how do we keep that experience personal, human, and memorable? As always, techtalksnetwork.com. You can talk with me, browse through 4,000 interviews, and even work with me.
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[00:29:15] And it's all happening where people spend most of their time, inside the browser. So NordLayer's new business browser, that's built to address exactly that. It blocks malicious sites before they load. It limits risky behaviors like uncontrolled downloads or data sharing, and gives you visibility into how your team interacts with web apps. And it also helps you stay compliant by controlling access and enforcing policies
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