Patrick Liotard-Vogt, chairman of jet-setting social-networking website ASMALLWORLD is a bright-eyed, energetic character whose shock of orange hair and matching beard make him stand out in any room. It helps that he is often photographed with gorgeous women and celebrities including Beyoncé Knowles, Carey Mulligan, Xenia Tchoumitcheva and designer Waris Ahluwalia.
He is tie-less when we meet in the lobby of Armani Hotel Dubai – top shirt button undone, dressed in a tailor-made suit and looking every bit the international playboy. The beaded bracelet on his wrist hints that he spends as much time on far-flung beaches or the deck of a yacht as he does in the boardroom, but Liotard-Vogt is a serial entrepreneur who has bought and sold more companies in the last five years than many will in a lifetime.
This is the man who, legend has it, acquired ASMALLWORLD from Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein after walking up to him at a party and telling him he wanted to buy his shares in the company. When Weinstein said he couldn’t afford it, the then 25-year-old laughed and told the studio executive that he had 10 times more money than he did. Soon after, the company was his.
As well as being chairman of ASW, Liotard-Vogt is also a member of the board of Diners Club AG and Sallfort Privatbank AG, a Swiss investment bank, and scion of the Nestlé family. Not content with all that, six months ago, he bought a resort on St. Kitts in the Caribbean and hopes to put the small island on the world’s social calendar when it opens later this year. Here, he talks about the world’s most exclusive social media site and the modern-day jet set.
For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, what is ASMALLWORLD?
In 2004, ASMALLWORLD (ASW) was founded by a Swedish count called Erik Wachtmeister. It was one of the first social media networks out there. There was a fight about who was first, Friendster or ASW, but let’s just agree that we were one of the first. The special thing about it was that membership was by invitation only. The founder was very well connected in the jet set at the time and his idea was to reconnect people from the St. Moritz, New York, London and St. Tropez crowds and put them together on the social platform.
The first 100,000 members included everyone from Paul Allen to Naomi Campbell and Paris Hilton. Everyone was on there and it was very, very exclusive. Later on he brought in Harvey Weinstein as an investor.
What were the perks of joining ASW?
It was all user-generated content, so you would search for a city and find out where to stay, where to eat and where the parties were. You’d see on the forum: “I’m going to be there next week, come and see me on my yacht… by the way I’m taking my jet, why don’t you jump in?”
When I joined ASW [as a member] in 2004, I was on it 50 times a day to talk to people about where we were going and so on. It was the only tool available to me at that time. At the peak of the business, from 2004 until 2007/8, you could buy an invitation on eBay for $1,000. At that time they had 450,000 members all over the world. Unfortunately there was no clear strategy as to what to do with this membership. Facebook came along and quickly took over the ‘reconnect’ aspect of social networking, so ASW wasleft a little bit lost in the social media world.
How did you get involved?
I bought out Harvey Weinstein in 2009. The real asset that made me very interested in acquiring it was the trust among the people. The invitation-only process made it a tightly knit community where you have a connection with everyone by a matter of degrees. That led to some great stories. Remember the Iceland volcano eruption in 2010 and the ash cloud over the Atlantic? No one could fly out of Europe, so I had six people staying in my apartment who I didn’t really know. There was a genuine aspect of people trying to help each other out in difficult times.
You recently relaunched ASW. What has changed?
We brought Sabine Heller in as CEO in 2010 — she has been doing a fantastic job of leading since then. During that time we did workshops and surveys with members and really worked closely with them. We decided to relaunch and make the site all about people, so [in early May, 2013], we closed the site down and everyone was out.
We relaunched on May 16. We slowly started re-inviting our best members and we had a lot of parameters for that. We looked at the date of joining, size of network, activity, education, location, age, where they travel and so on.
The new site is freshened up and focused on meeting people. Our goal is to be a global family so wherever you go, we suggest people who might be interesting to you. You can turn your ‘meet up’ status on or off so you can have privacy if you want it, or people can reach out to you. We also enhanced our city guides.
The newest part is the ‘Privilege’ section. From our former advertising partners we had an amazing network in the luxury space. Instead of sending us money for advertising, we asked them to give our members special access and privileges.
Who are ASW’s members today?
I’d say it’s for the open-minded, culturally interested traveller with a certain income. But it’s not really about the money. I always say that for a good party you need a bit of everything; you need crazy artists, marketing guys, doctors, lawyers, millionaires, billionaires, models... you need everything. What we all have in common is that we like to share the good life and I mean actively share, like, “Hey, I went there, you should try it out. Where have you been?” More than money, it’s a mindset.
And outside of ASW, you recently bought a resort in the Caribbean?
Yes, about five months ago I bought a resort in the Caribbean called Kittitian Hill. We bought out the St. Kitts Sugar Industry Diversification Fund and I now co-own the development with the founder, Val Kempadoo.
My goal is to put St. Kitts on the map and on the social agenda. It is a fantastic island and so much fun. It’s not a model and a bottle concept, which is overrated and something we have all seen before. There is this strip on the beach with 12 bars that play Caribbean music. You go out and spend $100 on a night out for three people. You still drink Grey Goose, but you have a fantastic time. It’s laid-back; you’re in shorts and you go swimming at night on the beach and you meet people. Everyone is open.
How do you see the world of luxury travel evolving?
I believe that high-end travel is changing. Luxury is changing. It’s hard to put it in a global context, but generally, it’s more about active participation and experience — you want to come home and have a story to tell.
That individual aspect and exploring and being part of something gives much more in return. You don’t want to come home and say, “yeah I was upgraded to a suite.” We’ve done that; we’ve heard it all before. Now everyone is getting more sophisticated.
For the first time, ASMALLWORLD is now accepting invitations for membership. To apply, visit www.asmallworld.com