STARTUP STAGE: Tripcents brings idea-save-pay process to trip planning

Tripcents

Founded in mid-2017, Tripcents has a different take on the trip planning model by tapping into one of the most important parts of traveling: paying for the trip.

The company - now with seven employees - allows users to select a destination and then create a payment plan for flights and hotels so that the cost is spread over a period of time.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup?

Tripcents is a travel app that helps users make travel goals affordable. Users set up automated monthly savings for dream trips.

As their travel fund grows, travelers receive flight and hotel recommendations based on their travel preferences and budget to book through the app. 

What inspired you to create this company?

Saving and traveling with friends has been notoriously complicated and hard.

Everyone knows that feeling of a friend backing out of the big trip or realising another year has passed and you didn’t go to Oktoberfest.

We wanted to make saving for those trips easy.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company?

Strengths

• Travel focused savings in a mobile first app.

Weaknesses

• Travel has established and entrenched incumbents. Getting users attention in a crowded space will not be easy.

Opportunities

• Most travel companies focus their resources on search and booking with desktop based sites. Tripcents will help users when they start planning for trips, in the savings and inspiration phase.

Threats

• Desktop based OTAs are making a shift to mobile. As a mobile first travel app, we will compete with giants as they make the switch to a mobile focused approach.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

We are alleviating the pain of missing out on travel because of the lack of finances.

We are going to enable our users to make the trips they have always wanted to go on happen without going into debt.

From an industry perspective, we can partner directly with hotels who want to offer rooms to users in a closed membership that are specifically saving up for a location.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

We believe that travel is inherently social. Tripcents allows users to invite friends to specific trips and save alongside to help make saving easy.

Too often have we been a part of trips that started out as great ideas and remained just that: ideas.

Aside from that natural social growth from within the app, we will be building our brand presence on social channels where our target demo goes for travel inspiration.

We’re also working with travel bloggers on affiliate programs to help spread the word and boost growth. 

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market?

We launched a landing page 4 months ago and we are approaching 3,000 sign ups on our waitlist.

We’ve conducted approx 50 hours of user interviews to understand traveler’s specific problems when saving for travel.

It’s helped us create a solution that is solving a real pain point for young working professionals.

How and when will you make money?

We will be bringing in subscription revenue as soon as we launch and attain a user base. Booking commissions will come later once users have saved up enough money to book. 

Revenue model is two-fold:

• Subscription revenues from users.
• Hotel booking commissions.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team, and why do you have what it takes to succeed with this business?

Brantley Pace – CEO and co-founder, Beau Bergman – COO and co-founder. Brantley and Beau have worked together before at the large software company, Stackoverflow.

Together, with their founding team, they bring previous successful startup experience to the table and a strong U.S. military veteran background.

Four of the seven team members have been on successful founding teams prior to Tripcents. Most of our team knows what it takes to build a successful company from previous experience.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Millenials are still this wildly misunderstood demographic. In general, most investors don’t think millennials save for travel in advance.

It’s a double edged sword, as the misconception is what has created the opportunity. Millenials are always traveling and always looking for ways to save for the next trip.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

Launching a startup in a competitive space like travel is never easy.

Tripcents has a chance because we are solving a problem that is overlooked by the industry and is major paint point shared by millions of millennials.

Saving for trips with friends has been regulated to excel sheets, multiple banking accounts, and countless group texts.

By making it easy to save for dream trips, we will be providing a value to customers that is often overlooked.