The Unlikely Revolutionary
In the summer of 2004, Paul English was sitting in his home office in Concord, Massachusetts, staring at a problem that had been gnawing at him for months. The internet had revolutionized commerce, but booking travel online remained a Byzantine nightmare of comparison shopping across dozens of airline and hotel websites. English, then 41 years old and already a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits under his belt, saw an opportunity that would eventually reshape how millions of people plan their trips.
English wasn't your typical tech founder. Born in 1963 in Boston to working-class Irish Catholic parents, he grew up in a household where his father drove a truck and his mother worked as a secretary. His path to Silicon Valley success wound through Boston University, where he studied computer science, and then through a series of increasingly ambitious startups that established him as one of Boston's most respected technology entrepreneurs.
But it was his partnership with Steve Hafner, a former Orbitz executive, that would create his masterpiece. The two men met through mutual connections in Boston's tight-knit tech community, and their complementary skills—English's technical brilliance and product instincts paired with Hafner's deep travel industry knowledge—formed the foundation of what would become Kayak.
By the Numbers
Kayak's Journey
$1.8BAcquisition price by Booking Holdings in 2013
2004Year Kayak was founded
$91MTotal venture capital raised
1B+Annual searches processed at peak
The Genesis of Search
The idea for Kayak emerged from English's personal frustration with travel booking. Unlike other entrepreneurs who identified market opportunities through analysis, English's approach was deeply personal and experiential. He had spent countless hours clicking through Expedia, Travelocity, and airline websites, manually comparing prices and options. The process was not just inefficient—it was maddening.
"I wanted to build something that would search all the travel sites at once," English later explained. "It seemed obvious that this should exist, but it didn't." This wasn't just about convenience; it was about fundamentally changing the power dynamic between travelers and the travel industry.
English and Hafner officially launched Kayak in January 2004 with $1.25 million in seed funding. The company's headquarters occupied a modest office space in Norwalk, Connecticut, chosen primarily for its proximity to Hafner's home and its location between Boston and New York. From the beginning, English insisted on an unconventional approach to building the company.
The technical challenge was immense. Kayak needed to simultaneously search hundreds of travel websites, parse their results in real-time, and present them in a unified interface—all while handling millions of queries per day. English, serving as Chief Technology Officer, architected a system that could scrape data from partner sites, negotiate with airlines and hotels for direct feeds, and maintain relationships with global distribution systems that powered much of the travel industry's backend infrastructure.
We weren't trying to sell travel. We were trying to organize travel information. That distinction was everything.
— Paul English
The Art of Controlled Chaos
English's management philosophy at Kayak became legendary in Boston's startup community. He instituted what he called "productive chaos"—a deliberately unstructured environment designed to foster creativity and rapid iteration. The Kayak office featured an open floor plan with no assigned desks, encouraging employees to move around and collaborate spontaneously.
More famously, English installed a red phone on his desk that connected directly to Kayak's customer service line. When the phone rang—which it did frequently—English would personally handle customer complaints and technical issues. This wasn't a publicity stunt; it was a systematic approach to understanding user pain points and identifying product improvements.
"Every customer complaint is a product feature request," English would tell his team. This philosophy drove Kayak's relentless focus on user experience improvements. When customers complained about confusing search results, the team redesigned the interface. When users struggled with mobile booking, Kayak prioritized mobile development years before it became industry standard.
The company's growth trajectory was remarkable. By 2005, Kayak was processing over 100 million searches annually. By 2007, that number had grown to 500 million. The site's clean interface and comprehensive results attracted users who had grown frustrated with the cluttered, slow experiences offered by incumbent travel sites.
Navigating the Recession
The 2008 financial crisis presented Kayak with its greatest existential challenge. Travel bookings plummeted as consumers and businesses cut discretionary spending. Many travel companies, including several of Kayak's competitors, were forced into bankruptcy or fire-sale acquisitions.
English's response was characteristically unconventional. While other companies were laying off employees and cutting marketing spend, Kayak doubled down on product development and user acquisition. English believed that economic downturns created opportunities for superior products to gain market share from weaker competitors.
"When everyone else is cutting back, that's when you invest," English said during a 2009 interview. "Users don't disappear during recessions—they just become more price-sensitive. That's exactly what Kayak was built for."
The strategy worked. Kayak's market share grew throughout 2008 and 2009 as users increasingly turned to price comparison tools. The company's revenue model—based on referral fees from travel bookings rather than direct sales—proved more resilient than traditional online travel agencies' models.
The Mobile Revolution
English recognized the transformative potential of mobile technology earlier than most of his peers. In 2008, when the iPhone was still a niche product and Android didn't exist, English began pushing Kayak to prioritize mobile development.
The decision proved prescient. Kayak's mobile app, launched in 2009, quickly became one of the most popular travel apps in the App Store. The app's success wasn't just about being early to market—it reflected English's obsession with mobile user experience optimization.
English personally tested every aspect of the mobile app, often spending hours using it to book actual trips. He insisted that the mobile experience shouldn't be a simplified version of the desktop site, but rather a completely reimagined interface optimized for touch interaction and on-the-go usage patterns.
By 2012, mobile traffic accounted for over 40% of Kayak's searches, far ahead of industry averages. This mobile-first approach became a significant competitive advantage as smartphone adoption accelerated.
The Acquisition Dance
By 2010, Kayak had established itself as a major force in online travel. The company was processing over 1 billion searches annually and generating hundreds of millions in revenue. This success inevitably attracted acquisition interest from larger players in the travel ecosystem.
English's approach to potential acquisitions reflected his broader philosophy about building sustainable businesses. He wasn't interested in quick exits or financial engineering. Instead, he wanted to ensure that any potential acquirer would preserve Kayak's culture and continue investing in product innovation.
Multiple suitors emerged over the years, including Google, Microsoft, and various travel conglomerates. English and Hafner evaluated each opportunity carefully, but ultimately decided that Kayak was better positioned as an independent public company.
Kayak filed for an initial public offering in November 2010, but market conditions forced the company to postpone the offering. When Kayak finally went public in July 2012, the IPO raised $91 million and valued the company at approximately $1.3 billion.
The public offering was successful, but it also attracted renewed acquisition interest. In November 2012, Priceline (now Booking Holdings) announced its intention to acquire Kayak for $1.8 billion in cash—a 29% premium over the company's then-current market value.
We built Kayak to be independent, but we also built it to serve travelers. Sometimes those goals align with being part of a larger organization.
— Paul English
The acquisition closed in May 2013, marking the end of Kayak's nine-year journey as an independent company. For English, the sale represented both a financial triumph and a validation of his approach to product development and company building.
At Acquisition
Kayak's Final Numbers
$1.8BFinal acquisition price
1B+Annual searches processed
200M+Monthly unique visitors
60%Mobile traffic percentage
