Key learnings from Lighthouse’s hyper-growth journey

Lighthouse, formerly known as OTA Insight, has experienced an incredible transformation over the past few years, becoming Belgium’s fifth unicorn. During our first Product Apéro in Ghent, Nadine Böttcher, Head of Product Innovation at Lighthouse, shared key insights into their journey, sharing the strategic decisions, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. Here are the main takeaways from her talk.

1. The reality of hyper-growth

Sheryl Sandberg famously said, "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get on." However, Nadine challenges this notion, pointing out that hyper-growth is far from a smooth ride. In reality, there are no comfortable passenger seats. The company is building the rocket while flying it, navigating a constantly evolving landscape of challenges and opportunities.

2. Looking beyond the obvious

In 2019, Lighthouse was already the market leader in rate shopping, providing hotels with pricing intelligence. Growth seemed straightforward: sell more units to more users. However, success can be deceptive. Once you’ve captured the market, where do you go next?

Lighthouse recognised the need to look beyond its core offering. Instead of only listening to customer requests for incremental improvements, the company shifted focus on identifying unmet needs, emerging industry trends, and technological advancements. This shift led them to develop new products and ultimately redefine their market position.

3. Moving from single product to multi-product

With expansion in mind, Lighthouse ventured into new product categories, transitioning from a single-product company to a multi-product platform. This required significant organisational changes, including:

  • Specialising engineering teams in areas like data integration and data science.
  • Creating platform teams to maintain the core infrastructure.
  • Shifting from a rigid, time-boxed development approach to a continuous problem-solving model.

The result? A diversified product mix that fuelled rapid growth.

4. Balancing innovation and core focus

At one point, every team at Lighthouse was working on new products, acquisitions, or partnerships. While this accelerated innovation, it also created blind spots. The core product began to suffer as resources were spread too thin.This realisation led to a strategic shift: rather than structuring teams based on time horizons (short-term vs. long-term), Lighthouse reorganised around customer segments. Now, each vertical is responsible for maintaining existing products and driving innovation within its target market.

5. Redefining success and decision-making

A key cultural shift at Lighthouse has been a stronger emphasis on product investment strategy. Instead of simply executing based on customer feedback, product managers are now expected to:

  • Conduct extensive market research and strategic planning.
  • Prioritise high-impact initiatives over small feature improvements.
  • Set clear success criteria for new initiatives to ensure accountability.

This transition has required upskilling teams, implementing a structured growth framework, and placing greater emphasis on data-driven decision-making.

6. Lessons from acquisitions

Lighthouse has made several acquisitions, each with a different strategic intent:

  • Eliminating competition and gaining market share.
  • Expanding into adjacent product categories.
  • Unlocking new customer segments, such as small independent hotels.

However, acquisitions come with challenges, particularly in integrating different company cultures, aligning technology stacks, and maintaining a cohesive product vision. Lighthouse approaches this by carefully selecting which parts of acquired products to integrate, rather than simply merging everything into their existing platform.

7. The role of data in decision-making

Despite being a data company, Lighthouse struggled with internal data governance. Decision-making was often driven by intuition and customer feedback rather than rigorous data analysis. To address this, they:

  • Established a research repository to centralise insights.
  • Built a stronger foundational research team.
  • Integrated data-driven decision-making into their product selection process.

This shift ensures that teams focus on the right initiatives and avoid wasting resources on low-impact features.

8. Empowering teams and encouraging ownership

Lighthouse has worked hard to create an environment where teams feel empowered to make decisions. This includes:

  • A trio structure where product management, engineering, and design collaborate as equals.
  • Involving engineers and designers early in the ideation process to ensure their expertise shapes product direction.
  • Encouraging a culture where failure is seen as a learning opportunity rather than a setback.

Final thoughts

Lighthouse’s journey to hyper-growth has been anything but linear. They’ve navigated the challenges of market saturation, organisational restructuring, acquisitions, and shifting customer needs. Their success has been driven by a willingness to challenge assumptions, continuously adapt, and maintain a sharp focus on strategic priorities.For companies looking to scale, the key lessons from Lighthouse are clear:

  • Growth isn’t just about selling more, it’s about finding the next big opportunity.
  • Innovation must be balanced with maintaining core products.
  • Data-driven decision-making is essential for long-term success.
  • Empowering teams leads to better outcomes and higher motivation.

As Lighthouse continues to evolve, its experience is a valuable case study for any company aiming to scale in a competitive market.

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