From Zero to IPO: Building eDreams Before the Playbooks

Part 1: Finding Your Way (When The Map Doesn't Exist)

In 1999,

Mauricio Prieto

, Javier Pérez-Tenessa, James Hare, and the small team behind eDreams faced a world with no startup playbooks. No lean startup methodology. No frameworks for customer discovery or product-market fit. They had one guiding principle: align with your customers’ needs, no matter what it takes.

This is the story of how they built eDreams into Spain’s first unicorn—a company that reached $5.5 billion in bookings, $550+ million in revenue, and $150+ million in EBITDA, leading to a successful $1.5 billion IPO.

Mauricio takes us behind the scenes, revealing lessons learned before frameworks existed and why these lessons might be even more relevant today:

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In 1999, there was no "lean startup." No "customer discovery." No "product-market fit" framework.

What we had was a completely wrong idea about what customers wanted, a market that wasn't ready for pure internet plays, and exactly zero local engineers willing to join our crazy venture.

But we got one thing right from the start: we believed there's nothing more powerful than having your interests perfectly aligned with your customers'. This belief would shape every major decision we made.

Somehow, that combination led us to build eDreams into Spain's first unicorn, reaching $5.5 billion in bookings, $550+ million in revenue, $150+ million in EBITDA, and a successful $1.5 billion IPO.

Here's what I learned about building a company before there were playbooks to follow and why some of that learning might still matter today:

1. The Customer Discovery That Wasn't

Today's founders live in a world of careful hypothesis testing, rigorous customer interviews, and meticulously crafted MVPs. We... launched a website for booking adventure travel packages.

The reality check came fast:

• Tour operators couldn't provide real-time pricing or availability

• The market was tiny (turns out not many people book 4x4 desert crossings)

But here's where it gets interesting: while we were busy building the wrong thing, our customers were telling us what the right thing was. They kept asking about flights. Specifically, why flight prices varied so much.

We didn't call it "pivoting" back then. We just knew we needed to completely change direction and focus on becoming the best flight booking engine in the world.

We had other learning moments too. A critical component of the earliest version of eDreams was our DreamGuides, an early social media network of travel experts who could help customers make better travel decisions. We started with hundreds of experts ready to share their knowledge about destinations and experiences. But we quickly discovered two things: most of our customers came to eDreams knowing when they wanted to go and didn't need expert advice for it,, and the users who were engaging with DreamGuides weren't converting into eDreams customers, so we decided to discontinue this initiative, which we had considered “core”.

Would months of customer interviews have led us to the same insight? Maybe. But sometimes, you discover your real opportunity only after launching something else. The key isn't following a perfect discovery process; it's being alert to what customers actually care about.

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2. Being an "Internet Company" (When Customers Weren't Ready)

The zeitgeist of 2000 was clear: you were either a pure "Internet company" (cool, future-focused, ping pong tables) or a traditional company (old-school, slow, destined to die). Hybrid models were considered unfocused and doomed to fail.

The reality turned out to be messier. Our initial customers loved searching for flights online but weren't ready to trust their credit cards to the Internet. Instead of forcing our vision of the future, we adapted:

• Built a call center with real travel agents

• Let customers research online but book via phone

• Combined internet efficiency with human trust

• Evolved our model gradually as customer confidence grew

While "internet purist" competitors burned through cash and faded away, we built a bridge between where customers were and where they were going. Sometimes the best disruption isn't a complete revolution; it's meeting customers where they are, not where we wished they'd be.

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3. When Everyone "Knows" You're Wrong

"Flights are a terrible business," every industry expert and pundit proclaimed. "No margins. No differentiation. Focus on hotels instead."

We never argued with them. We just quietly built a flight-focused OTA that achieved better margins than hotel-centered competitors. While others avoided flights because "everyone knew" they were bad business, we became the best at them. Pundits had theories; we had hundreds of thousands of data points.

The best opportunities often hide in plain sight, in the markets that "everyone knows" are terrible. The consensus doesn't just create conventional wisdom; it keeps competitors away. There's nothing quite like being anti-consensus and right.

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This is just the beginning of Mauricio Prieto's journey to turning eDreams into Spain’s first unicorn.

In Part 2, Building the Machine: When Constraints Become Superpowers, you’ll discover how eDreams turned obstacles—like the lack of local tech talent—into advantages that shaped a global, remote-first culture long before it was the norm.

And in Part 3, Business Fundamentals: Building Something Real, we’ll explore how focusing on profitability, customer-first thinking, and unconventional strategies helped eDreams grow into a billion-dollar, industry-defining company.

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Mauricio Prieto co-founded eDreams in 1999 and served as CMO and board member until 2015, when it grew to become one of the world's largest online travel companies.

Today, he runs Travel Tech Essentialist, an innovation platform that helps travel founders and investors make better decisions. His Travel Tech Essentialist newsletter reaches 13,000+ founders, entrepreneurs and investors.

He dedicates about 15% of his time to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs as a professor of entrepreneurship at IESE Business School (Barcelona) and Tulane University (New Orleans) and as a mentor at Stanford's Lean Launchpad program, where he teaches student entrepreneurs how to build real businesses that create lasting value.

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