Launch. Scale. Exit: "Travel Changed My Father's Life – So I Built an Event Around It"
Some event businesses are born from spreadsheets and market research. Others are born from a moment that stops you in your tracks and makes you see the world differently.
Serge Dive launched This is Beyond after a safari to Africa in 2005 changed his perspective. A decade of building later, he sold it. Along the way, he learned that in the luxury events world, the rules of conventional business don't always apply – and that the most counter-intuitive decisions are often the right ones.
What inspired you to launch This is Beyond?
In 2005, I went on a safari to Africa with my father. He'd had a heart attack and was feeling pretty depressed about life. But something shifted on that trip. By the end of it, he'd rediscovered his joy.
That experience stayed with me. I realised that the right kind of travel can genuinely change a person's life. And I decided to build something around that idea: an event that brought together the world's best life-changing travel experiences and the world's best travel agents from every market. A place where those two worlds could meet.
How did you know it was the right moment to go out on your own?
I've always felt I had it in me to build my own exhibition business. But beyond that, there was a practical logic to it: when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. So I thought – why not give it a go?
What two or three decisions in the early years made the biggest difference?
Think as ambitiously as possible. If your idea isn't ambitious enough, people simply won't pay attention. The scale of your vision is part of the pitch: to your clients, your speakers, your partners. Don't shrink it to feel safe.
Follow a simple financial discipline. I lived by one rule throughout the early years: Don't buy what you can lease. Don't lease what you can rent. Don't rent what you can borrow. Don't borrow what you can get for free.
Get the biggest players in the room first. In any market, a small number of names carry the credibility that everyone else follows. Focus your energy on them first. If the leaders come, everyone will come. If they don't, you'll be pushing uphill the entire time.
What metrics ended up mattering more than you expected?
We operate in the luxury sector, which means we live by the Veblen curve – the counter-intuitive economic principle where raising your price actually increases demand, as long as the quality justifies it. Most businesses think lower prices mean more customers. In luxury events, the opposite is often true.
It's a risky model. But if your product is genuinely exceptional, it gives you something invaluable: the ability to charge what you're worth without ever diluting what you've built.
The other thing that mattered far more than I expected? The people you hire. In the events world, your team is your product in many ways. They have to fit, not just on paper, but with the spirit of the event itself.
What was the hardest part of launching – and the hardest part of selling?
Launching is a battle for awareness. People don't come to an event because you tell them to. They come because they've heard about it from colleagues, friends, articles, social posts – multiple touchpoints over time. Building that critical mass takes patience and credibility, and it doesn't happen overnight unless you're starting with an established platform behind you.
Selling brought a completely different kind of pressure. Answering due diligence questions while simultaneously running a high-performing event business is, in effect, doing two demanding jobs at once. There were moments when it felt genuinely overwhelming – and I say that as someone who's used to being under pressure.
What was the most rewarding part of launching – and of selling?
Launching is about creating something from zero. And an event is never built alone. It's a team sport between your staff, your clients, your suppliers, your venue, and the city you're in. Getting all those people aligned around a shared purpose, watching something come to life because everyone believed in it, that's a feeling you can't replicate.
Selling, at its best, is about creating continuity. Not just for yourself, but for the event and the community around it. If you choose the right partner, you're not just closing a chapter, you're giving the event a future that's bigger than what you could have built on your own.
What might have sped up the journey from launch to exit?
On the launch side, honestly? Not much I'd change. But for the exit: get a reputable broker early. That's probably the single smartest decision you can make. Going into a sale process without someone who has done it before, who understands what buyers are looking for and can negotiate on your behalf – that's a very exposed position to be in.
What mistakes would you not make again?
I had one failure in my career. The event was right for what the market needed, but wrong in its format. And I launched it without first securing the full backing of the key players. That is a very costly mistake in time, money and momentum.
How do you think an event owner might benefit from Manta Media Capital?
Everybody, and especially first-time entrepreneurs, needs coaching to get the most out of what they're building. You can be exceptional at running an event and still leave enormous value on the table without the right guidance around growth, positioning, and eventually exit. Manta Media Capital brings genuine expertise to those conversations.
What's next?
We're desperate to launch new events. There is no greater feeling in the world.