GetYourGuide CEO & Founder, Johannes Reck: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

June 23, 2025

Duration

1h 24m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Johannes Reck is the Founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, the $2BN company that started with a holiday to China and nothing to do. For the first two years, GetYourGuide received only 5 bookings. Today the platform is worth $2BN. They have raised from some of the best, including an amazing story with Masa Son and Softbank. ---------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 – Intro 00:33 – Start Episode 02:16 – “We Had 5 Bookings in 2 Years. 3 Were My Mum.” 07:34 – “I Asked My Parents to Remortgage Their House for a Pivot” 08:08 – The Vatican Tour That Changed Everything 13:28 – Why VCs Rejected GetYourGuide 100+ Times 16:06 – “I Regret Our Series A — Too Much Dilution” - The $14M Series A That Nearly Killed the Company 23:04 – Recruiting Netflix’s Head of Growth Nearly Killed Me 24:37 – “I Hired All the Wrong People – Then Laid Off 30%” 34:45 – The $450M SoftBank Deal... Then COVID Hit 36:30 – “We Went to $0 in Revenue in 3 Weeks” 40:12 – The Sequoia Tree Mindset: Grow Through Fire 01:05:38 – US vs Europe: Why European Founders Are Tougher 01:08:17 – “Germany Spends €100B on Pensions, €7B on VC – It’s Insane” 01:12:40 – 90% of Our Team in Berlin Aren’t German. Here’s Why. 01:19:04 – Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZ... Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Harry Stebbings on X: / harrystebbings Follow Johannes Reck on X: / JohannesReck Follow 20VC on Instagram: / 20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: / 20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #JohannesReck #GetyourGuide #founder #CEO #vc # #spotify #twitter #Softbank

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Johannes Reck

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Johannes Reck and Harry Stebbings, GetYourGuide CEO & Founder, Johannes Reck: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank explores from Student Side-Project To SoftBank Unicorn: GetYourGuide’s Wild Ride Johannes Reck, co-founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, recounts the company’s journey from a failed university side-project to a multi-billion-dollar global experiences marketplace backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund.

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