Mike Stacy gave a line that sounds harsh until you have lived it.
“I use the analogy of companies on its deathbed and who cares about company morale, right? You got to get the company fixed.”
That is not permission to be a jerk. It is a reminder about sequencing.
When the business is bleeding cash and time, your job is triage:
- Stop the hemorrhage
- Prove the model can work
- Earn the right to shift the culture conversation
Mike has done this more than once. He is CEO of ID90 Travel, a SaaS platform that automates space-available travel for airline employees. He is also a veteran of online travel from the early Travelocity days through turnarounds and platform scaling.
This episode was a masterclass in leading through phases without pretending the same management style works forever.
The Scaling Insight He Wishes He Knew Sooner
When I asked Mike what would have saved him the most time and effort during hypergrowth, he did not say product. He did not say process. He said team.
“The biggest thing was just the importance of the team.”
He reflected that during the Travelocity surge, they could have done a better job on a few core team members and it would have been “a game changer.”
I see the same pattern with CEOs you and I work around.
Early stage success rewards scrappy generalists. Then you hit a ceiling where your real job becomes building leaders who can scale functions without you.
If you miss that moment, you pay for it later in rework, churn, and stalled execution.
Capital Efficiency Is Not A Vibe. It Is Guardrails.
Mike’s Groople story was refreshingly honest. Yes, he raised $13M. Yes, they automated a massive portion of transactions. But he still described the company as underfunded for the learning they needed to do.
He also said the quiet part.
Looking back, he could have been more disciplined.
The practical takeaway was not “spend less.” It was “decide faster.”
“What are our metrics of success or failure to understand, either we’re going to double down or it didn’t work and let’s stop spending.”
Then he named the trap.
“It’s a sunk cost fallacy. Spending good money after bad.”
If you are scaling, you need explicit guardrails that force decisions:
- What you expect to learn
- How long you will fund the experiment
- What must be true to continue
- Who has the authority to stop it
That is how you stay capital efficient without becoming timid.
Staying Fresh Means Changing Your Style On Purpose
Mike has been CEO of ID90 Travel for 14 years. In software, that is an eternity.
His “secret” was not a productivity hack. It was phase awareness.
He described a step function in leadership. What got the company off the floor is not what gets it profitable. What gets it profitable is not what gets it to the next growth curve.
“Once it’s fixed… you have to change your management style.”
Then he shared the habit behind it.
“I try to anticipate what’s going to be required of me next to get to the next level.”
How does he do that?
- he reads
- he listens to podcasts
- he talks to operators who have been there
- he pressure tests ideas before the next phase arrives
This is what I want you to notice.
He is not waiting until the company forces the change. He is preparing for it.
A Simple Priority Stack That Actually Works
Mike gave a clear operating principle.
“Team first. Customers second. Investors third.”
He backed it up with outcomes, not slogans.
- 95 NPS with airline clients
- 100% contract renewals
- profitable operations
- investors paid back their initial investment about a year and a half ago
The ordering matters.
If you take care of your people, they take care of customers. If customers stay and expand, investors win.
Most CEOs say this. Few run the business this way under pressure.
AI Adoption Without Losing The Human Touch
Mike’s AI stance was not theoretical.
He wants faster shipping cadence. They currently launch every two weeks. He believes they can launch every day, and he is pushing the org to use AI to get there.
He also had my favorite quote in the episode.
“Those who aren’t going to adopt it, aren’t gonna be around.”
Then he addressed the common excuse.
“Yeah, there’s hallucinations, but a junior developer has had the equivalent of a hallucination.”
That is a pragmatic CEO speaking. You do not avoid the tool. You build the review, testing, and release discipline that makes the tool safe and productive.
But Mike also drew a hard line.
Customer experience still needs a human edge.
“If an airline employee calls our call center, I don’t care how long they talk to them. I care about, did they get them the right information? Are they nice and courteous?”
That is the balance I want you to steal.
Automate the one-touch tickets. Remove the repetitive work. Keep the human moments where trust is won.
On the product side, he shared a concrete AI use case already live: a predictive model that estimates seat availability closer to the actual travel date, not just what is visible when you book.
That is AI doing what it should do.
Reduce uncertainty. Improve decisions. Make the customer feel smarter with less effort.
What You Should Take From This
Mike’s episode was not about travel. It was about leadership sequencing.
- In crisis, fix the business
- In growth, upgrade the team
- In experiments, set guardrails and kill sunk costs fast
- In maturity, change your management style before you have to
- In AI, move faster without sacrificing the human touch
If you are leading through a transition right now, ask yourself one question.
What phase are you in, and what leadership style will the next phase demand from you?
If you want help answering that and acting on it, I can help. Listen to the full episode of The Scaling CEO podcast here.
I am Glenn Gow. I coach CEOs, and I work with you to diagnose the phase you are entering, identify what must change in how you lead, and install the operating rhythms that keep your team strong, your customers happy, and your growth durable.
