experience-economy
(2)
Clique Hospitality
Clique Hospitality built a sizable business by making itself less famous than the rooms it runs. Now its venue-making machine is stretching from hidden cocktail bars to a 50,000-square-foot sports pool - and exporting the Las Vegas playbook without copying Las Vegas.
J. Scott Zimmerman
J. Scott Zimmerman is the CEO and co-founder of Xola, a San Francisco-based SaaS platform that powers booking, back-office management, and marketing for tour and activity operators worldwide. A licensed physician who completed a neurology residency at Stanford, Zimmerman chose Stanford precisely for its proximity to Silicon Valley, coding in Python during spare hospital moments - sometimes until 2am - while simultaneously building the company that would become Xola. He founded Xola in fall 2011 after recognizing that real-time technology had transformed flight, hotel, and car rental reservations, but the $135 billion tours-and-activities market remained largely undigitized. Backed by investors including Rakuten Travel, Michael Burry (of 'The Big Short' fame), and Google Analytics co-creators Scott and Brett Crosby, Xola has grown to serve thousands of operators across North America, Western Europe, and beyond.