Varun Khona left Goldman Sachs after his undergraduate degree to pursue his passion for travel. He had visited places like Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, and Sri Lanka on next-to-nothing budgets.

Identifying the Problem

In 2014, Varun co-founded Headout with Suren Aloyan, addressing inefficiencies in booking in-destination experiences. The initial focus was providing instant booking for tours, activities, and attractions through a mobile app.

The company was incubated at 500 Startups and started with a marketplace model connecting travelers with local activity providers.

The Managed Experiences Model

"The managed experiences model we pioneered is working," says Varun. "Experiences are services, not commoditized goods, and cannot be simply aggregated like ecommerce 1.0."

Headout doesn't just list experiences - they manage them, ensuring quality and reliability for travelers while improving the profitability of local partners.

Explosive Growth

As the founder and CEO, Varun launched and scaled Headout from 0 to a $120 million revenue run-rate in under 4 years. By 2024, revenue had surged to $130M - up 8x from the post-Covid baseline.

The company achieved double-digit EBITDA margins while growing faster than the ecosystem. They raised $12 million in Series B from Glade Brook Capital as they expanded to 17 cities with millions of users.

Varun was selected as one of the Top 35 Young Leaders in the travel industry, proving that solving real traveler problems with a better model beats simple aggregation.