Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share He Bought Into a Dying Industry and Turned It Into a $17M Exit: David Fastuca
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
He Bought Into a Dying Industry and Turned It Into a $17M Exit: David Fastuca
David Fastuca did what most founders would never dare, he bought back his travel tech company in July 2020, right as the industry was collapsing. With his cousin Ross, they self-funded through 18 months of zero revenue, rebuilt the pipeline from scratch using cold calls and a clever compliance-focused pitch, and ultimately sold Locomote to Webjet for $17 million. Now he's channelling those hard-won lessons into Coach Pilot, an AI sales brain built on 9,000+ mega prompts and 20 years of sales IP.
In this episode of Flow Zone, David breaks down why first-time founders obsess over product while second-timers focus on distribution, how to sell in a market everyone else has abandoned, and why the biggest mistake founders make is being "scared to sell."
0:00 – Introduction: $75M in exits and buying into a dying industry
3:37 – The Covid Gamble: Why he bought back Locomote in July 2020
6:42 – What surprised him selling to a public company (Travelport)
10:46 – The moment every other buyer walked away
14:59 – The Pitch That Worked: Selling travel when no one was travelling
19:00 – The $17M Exit: How the Webjet deal came together
21:13 – Why marketing's only job is to make sales easier
24:00 – Why Founders Fail at Sales: First-time vs second-time founder mindset
27:00 – From coaching community to AI product (Coach Pilot)
33:24 – How 9,000 mega prompts turn bad inputs into world-class outputs
38:12 – MVP is dead: Why "minimum viable" no longer works
44:51 – What success looks like this time around
48:46 – Lightning Round: Cold calling in 2025, hiring mistakes, and founder advice
Follow David Fastuca:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/davidfastuca/
LinkedIn: www.au.linkedin.com/in/davidfastuca
Follow Mark Kentwell:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/mark_kentwell
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@mark_kentwell
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/markkentwell1
Mark’s Businesses:
Presence Real Estate: presence.realestate/
Nexr: nexr.com.au/
View all episodes
By Mark KentwellDavid Fastuca did what most founders would never dare, he bought back his travel tech company in July 2020, right as the industry was collapsing. With his cousin Ross, they self-funded through 18 months of zero revenue, rebuilt the pipeline from scratch using cold calls and a clever compliance-focused pitch, and ultimately sold Locomote to Webjet for $17 million. Now he's channelling those hard-won lessons into Coach Pilot, an AI sales brain built on 9,000+ mega prompts and 20 years of sales IP.
In this episode of Flow Zone, David breaks down why first-time founders obsess over product while second-timers focus on distribution, how to sell in a market everyone else has abandoned, and why the biggest mistake founders make is being "scared to sell."
0:00 – Introduction: $75M in exits and buying into a dying industry
3:37 – The Covid Gamble: Why he bought back Locomote in July 2020
6:42 – What surprised him selling to a public company (Travelport)
10:46 – The moment every other buyer walked away
14:59 – The Pitch That Worked: Selling travel when no one was travelling
19:00 – The $17M Exit: How the Webjet deal came together
21:13 – Why marketing's only job is to make sales easier
24:00 – Why Founders Fail at Sales: First-time vs second-time founder mindset
27:00 – From coaching community to AI product (Coach Pilot)
33:24 – How 9,000 mega prompts turn bad inputs into world-class outputs
38:12 – MVP is dead: Why "minimum viable" no longer works
44:51 – What success looks like this time around
48:46 – Lightning Round: Cold calling in 2025, hiring mistakes, and founder advice
Follow David Fastuca:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/davidfastuca/
LinkedIn: www.au.linkedin.com/in/davidfastuca
Follow Mark Kentwell:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/mark_kentwell
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@mark_kentwell
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/markkentwell1
Mark’s Businesses:
Presence Real Estate: presence.realestate/
Nexr: nexr.com.au/