Surround yourself with people who have more experience than you and listen to them. You don’t have to follow all of their advice on a given subject, but lean on these people because they will help you make decisions better and faster than you otherwise could.
I had the pleasure of interviewing David Rapps of iFly.
David is passionate about making best-in-class products we all can afford. With the amazing team at Calego, David helped build iFLY into America’s #1 rated and reviewed luggage brand in 2019.
After completing a Bachelors of Arts at McGill University, David joined Just for Laughs, serving as the assistant to the Head of Programming and contributed as a talent producer to live and televised comedy specials that aired on TBS and HBO. David later studied at McGill University’s Faculty of Law and after ranking in the top-10 percent of his class was awarded the Harry Batshaw Prize for academic excellence.
While in law school, David teamed up with his brother to form ZOJO Games and launched the first ever mobile gaming app with live daily fantasy snake drafts on iOS. David later joined Stikeman Elliott LLP where he practiced corporate law focusing on mergers and acquisitions.
In 2015, David joined Calego International Inc., a family-owned business that began in 1931, where he now serves as President. Calego owns and operates iFLY and iFLY Smart, which are leading travel and health & wellness brands.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I was working as a young associate at Stikeman Elliott LLP and my father approached me about joining the family business. I was very interested. I started a business with my younger brother while I was in law school and while that didn’t work out the way we had envisioned, it grew my love for business and entrepreneurship.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
We started developing health & wellness kits for travelers in 2017. In 2018 we completed product development and testing and finally pitched major retailers. Not a single retail we pitched was open to the idea that travelers would want face masks, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizer, headrest covers and more in a kit for their travels. In 2019, finally one major retailer took a chance on the program and it performed below what we had hoped. Still, we continued to develop our health & wellness kits because we believed deeply in the product and its value. In February 2020, COVID-19 changed the world as we knew it and suddenly our kits became the hottest item on the market. Now we have built a large health & wellness business that includes our kits and many more products that help keep people healthy and safe.
Can you tell us one of the biggest lessons you learned in your career?
What some perceive as your weakness can often be your competitive advantage and ultimate strength. I am reminded of this pretty much daily in our business.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”? Can you share a story about that?
Surround yourself with people who have more experience than you and listen to them. You don’t have to follow all of their advice on a given subject, but lean on these people because they will help you make decisions better and faster than you otherwise could.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
My father in particular stands out because ever since I was young he encouraged me to be comfortable being different, to not follow the crowd and to use good judgment. I have found that in business you need to get comfortable being different because there’s so much noise and group-think that leads people into making bad decisions simply because they feel safe doing so. A great example is the direct-to-consumer business model that so many brands have spent way too much money and energy adopting through an ad-based model instead of utilizing other elements of their business that would lead to quicker results at far less cost. We sell direct-to-consumer in addition to wholesale, but wholesale is far more important to our business and we have developed ways to build our brands, including iFLY and iFLYSmart, through our core business without having to burn through a ton of cash trying to be something that doesn’t make sense given what we’re good at. There is real value in selling products through retailers and yet the direct-to-consumer ad-based model that was glamorized by media has distracted many strong wholesalers that veered away from their core expertise simply because they thought that they needed to build their brands a certain way.
Thank you for that. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. Can you share with our readers about the innovations that you are bringing to the travel and hospitality industries?
We were the first company to introduce health & wellness travel kits, long before COVID-19 ever existed. Our kits include face masks, antiseptic wipes, antibacterial hand sanitizers, headrest covers, protective gloves and more, and all of our products are FDA and EPA compliant and have been since day one.
Which “pain point” are you trying to address by introducing this innovation?
In this case, the pain point is physical pain. Planes, trains, buses and subways are notoriously unsanitary means of transportation. The Journal of Environmental Health Research found that people are 113 times more likely to catch a cold on a plane than on the ground. That is absolutely horrible. And yet for years, people have been complacent and blindly trusted airlines and their fellow passengers to keep planes germ-free. We are bringing sanitation and hygiene to people and showing them that they must be their own health advocate when they travel, commute and do normal errands like grocery shopping.
Our patent-pending face mask dispenser kits are truly revolutionary. They allow organizations to supply visitors, team members and customers with individually wrapped face masks in a socially distant manner. We have sold our products to organizations from the New York Mets to Walgreens, Walmart and Staples because these companies understand the value we’ve brought to the marketplace. Just like we have changed the way people will travel, we will change the way companies protect people inside and outside of their organizations.
How do you envision that this might disrupt the status quo?
People will get sick less often and this will reduce the burden on our health care industry. Australia recently revealed that the actions people have taken to protect against contracting COVID-19 has resulted in a sharp decline in the transmission of the flu. That’s a silver lining we need to talk about as a society. Ultimately, our iFLYSmart products are the pioneers in a movement that is leading to less people getting sick and dying.
As you know, COVID19 changed the world as we know it. Can you share 5 examples of how travel and hospitality companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers will prefer to travel?
- Retailers selling travel goods will devote more space to health & wellness products.
- Hospitality and transportation companies will devote more resources to sanitation, health and wellness.
- Our iFLYSmart health and wellness kits will continue to expand across retail and online marketplaces.
- Companies will reduce business travel and demand more virtual meetings.
- The number of lifestyle brands that license their brands to luggage companies will decrease.
Can you share with our readers how have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
We have donated our kits, masks and other personal protective equipment to the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and other healthcare organizations. We have been meaningful supporters of organizations in our hometown for many years, including the Jewish General Hospital, Federation CJA, and causes dedicated to cancer research.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would make entrepreneurship and music mandatory in grade school. Business and music have creative and technical components and learning both at a young age can help give young people much needed perspective when learning other important subjects like math.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Follow me @DavidRapps on LinkedIn
www.iFLYSmartKit.com and www.iFLYluggage.com
Follow @iFLYSmart and @iFLYluggage on Instagram and Facebook.
David Rapps of iFly: The Future Of Travel In The Post COVID World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.