Andrea D’Amico is the CEO of WeRoad, one of Europe’s fastest-growing travel companies, and former regional VP at Booking.com. After nearly two decades helping scale Booking.com from a 100-person startup to a 20,000-person global giant, he stepped back post-COVID to rethink what he actually wanted to build next. That reflection led him to WeRoad, now a €100M-revenue, pan-European community that has brought 300,000+ young professionals to 125+ destinations through nearly 1,000 itineraries and more than 3,000 trip coordinators.

This conversation matters because Andrea bridges corporate scale and scrappy early-stage execution, showing how to design a business that doesn’t just grow, but compounds through community. For founders, operators, and intrapreneurs, his story offers a repeatable playbook for turning local, human experiences into a scalable, tech-enabled platform—without losing cultural integrity or financial discipline.

Inside this conversation:

• Why stepping out of your corporate comfort zone can clarify the kind of company you’re wired to build—and how that self-awareness shapes every scaling decision.
• How WeRoad turned post-COVID loneliness and the old stigma around “group travel” into a differentiated position for solo travelers who don’t want to travel alone.
• The WeRoad flywheel: travelers → coordinators → travel producers → long-tail itineraries—and the tech, processes, and metrics that keep the machine scalable.
• The four guiding principles Andrea uses (ambition, agility, ownership, community) to hire, organize local teams, and keep six offices rowing in the same direction.
• A pragmatic view on fundraising: when to raise, what “smart money” really looks like, and how to choose investors who match your strategy—not just your valuation.

Andrea’s journey is a reminder that durable scale comes from aligning model, community, and capital around a clear purpose—and there’s at least one flywheel decision from this episode you can apply to your own business this week.

Thanks for listening! This episode is brought to you by Kaihan Krippendorff of Outthinker Networks and Verne Harnish of Scaling Up.

When growth gets real, strategy has to scale with it. In this conversation, we unpack a practical playbook with Brad Stevens—founder of Outsource Access—on turning constraints into capacity, and values into velocity, using a global-talent model anchored in culture, systems, and smart economics.

From bootstrapping through a prior business crunch to building a Philippines-based team of full-time, benefits-backed “teammates,” Brad shares how he identified a durable opportunity, designed for retention and quality, and aligned giving and culture with the UN Sustainable Development Goals—without outside capital.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
• A four-part strategy lens—Promise, Power, Process, Profit—to test opportunities and scale decisions.
• How to create real advantage (preferential inputs, scalable capabilities, and customer “captivity”) that drives pricing power.
• The two-question audit that surfaces hidden bottlenecks and converts them into high-ROI roles and workflows.
• Building “Process” the right way: org design, incentives, operating cadence, and managed offshore teams that improve retention.
• Profit discipline without external funding: pricing, unit economics, FX sensitivity—and why investing in people and tools comes first.

Ultimately, this is a story about reframing work: pairing AI with global talent to free your best people for their highest and best use—and to build a company that scales on purpose.

Let’s dive in with Brad Stevens.

Thanks for listening! This episode is brought to you by Kaihan Krippendorff of Outthinker Networks and Verne Harnish of Scaling Up.

What does it take to build—and sell—a thriving business born from resilience and clarity of purpose?

Few stories capture it as powerfully as Shirin Behzadi’s.

At 17, Shirin fled Iran alone during the revolution, arriving in the U.S. with little money and no family. She started as a gas station cashier—and eventually rose to become CEO of Home Franchise Concepts, the parent company behind Budget Blinds and several other national home-service brands.

Under her leadership, the company more than doubled in size, expanded into multiple industries, and achieved a successful private-equity sale—all while staying true to its core values and people-first culture.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why adversity can become your greatest strategic advantage
• How to identify your company’s true core competency
• The power of a “listening tour” to realign culture and accelerate growth
• How to navigate private-equity partnerships without losing your mission
• Why clarity of purpose drives both leadership and negotiation success

Shirin’s journey proves that grit and gratitude can scale just as powerfully as capital.

Let’s dive in with Shirin Behzadi, author of The Unexpected CEO.

Thanks for listening! This episode is brought to you by Kaihan Krippendorff of Outthinker Networks, Verne Harnish of Scaling Up, and the team at Growth Institute.