Conservative Entrepreneurship
Live with Hotels.com Co-Founder David Litman
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 6:30PM
Location: TBA
Press Release
The Dallas Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization is pleased to welcome to its stage, hotels.com co-founder David Litman as part of its Entrepreneurship Lecture Series: Entrepreneur to Enterprise program. Litman will share the experiences of his exciting journey from startup through IPO and the lessons he learned in conservative entrepreneurship that help get him there.
Conservative entrepreneurship is a term practically coined by hotels.com co-founders David Litman and Bob Diener. Their conservative, low-risk entrepreneurship mindset, combined with their strategic and innovative approach to business enabled the duo to invest just $1,200 to create the now famous hotel booking company they later exited with a valuation of $5.5 billion. Possibly the “Warren Buffets” of the dot.com boom, they were virtually alone in their pragmatic approach to ensuring their companies were always profitable and never sacrificed their bottom line profitability for top line growth.
About David Litman
David Litman is a serial entrepreneur. He has spent the last 28 years founding, building and growing companies. He and his partner, Bob Diener, grew their best-known venture, hotels.com, from scratch to become the world’s largest hotel booking website. From a $1,200 investment they guided the company to be one of the Internet’s primary sources of discount accommodations and an industry innovator and leader. They sold the company in 2003 at a business valuation of more than $5.5 billion. Altogether they have founded more than a half dozen companies, all of them successful. They launched Getaroom.com almost three years ago. In a market crowded with “me too” imitators, Getaroom.com is a pioneering hotel booking site focused on handpicked hotel values. It is currently growing at over 10% a month and has a loyal and expanding following among business and leisure travelers.
David is regularly quoted for travel insights in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Travel Weekly and appears often on television and radio. He is a committed environmentalist and has helped launch such projects as the Trinity River and Dogwood Canyon Audubon centers in Dallas. He also founded Texas Business for Clean Air, which helped prevent the construction of 8 coal fired power plants near Dallas. He is a graduate of Cornell University and Cornell Law School and lives in Dallas with his wife and, occasionally, his 3 college age children.