Handing over travel planning to children sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen, but that is what Australia-based Bound Round is doing.
The Bound Round service, initially dreamed up as a mobile-only platform, allowed kids to browse information about a destination (as also explained by kids in the destination), play travel games, read online guides, see pictures about a destination, etc.
The company's target audience are eight to 12 year olds.
Currently, the service is available on the iOS platform, but the company will soon launch a refreshed website and an app for Android devices.
The platform was created by Janeece Keller (CEO) and Chris Robertson (CTO).
The spark to launch Bound Round happened when Keller was on a flight from London to Sydney - she noticed the kids sitting next to her were convinced their holiday was going to be boring as they had no idea about what they would be doing after their arrival, and their parents didn’t have a clue either.
Keller sensed an opportunity to build a solution for this problem, and that's how Bound Round was launched.
She says:
"We hadn't found anyone really committed to engaging kids more directly in the travel decision-making process."
The public beta version of the app went live in December 2012, four months after the company was created. Robertson came on board as a founder in March 2013 and he helped launch the current app.
Kids explaining Bound Round
Q&A with Keller below.
Size of the team, names of founders, management roles and key personnel?
Apart from the founders, there are 11 other team members (majority part-timers) delivering everything from operations and marketing to content production.
Funding arrangements?
Bound Round was bootstrapped by the founders for the first year. In January 2014, we completed a family and friends investment round and we will look to raise another investment round at the end of 2014.
Bound Round has been generating revenue from tourism industry clients since February 2014.
Estimation of market size?
Bound Round’s users are 8 – 12 year olds with access to a mobile device. We are currently available on iOS devices and will launch our web-based and Android versions later in 2014.
In our current market, Australia, this equates to around 850,000 kids (or around 50%) of kids.
Competition?
We believe we’ve identified a niche market in the travel industry. We operate in the space between social media, adult travel information and review services (like TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet).
Our closest competitors are YouTube channels such as Kids Travel News, and custom created TV series such as some National Geographic kids content.
The difference is that those are scripted content programs and Bound Round isn’t. We capture what kids really experience and share with other kids what it’s really like. Our game apps and online kids communities keep the kids busy while travelling.
So far we haven’t found anyone else helping kids create their own travel stories and share them digitally and safely to help other kids learn about a destination and attraction before they get there. We’re the first movers in peer-to-peer reviews with 8-12 year old kids.
Revenue model and strategy for profitability?
Bound Round is a B2B model, licensing travel content for kids to businesses wanting promotion to the family travel market. Plus we generate revenue from hosting kid travel content in Bound Round.
There are three reasons businesses pay to have the video and photo content hosted in the Bound Round app:
- The content is presented in a kid-friendly (and safe) platform
- It’s accompanied by lots of other things that that kids love to interact with digitally- Games!
- Being in Bound Round puts businesses directly in front of 8-12 year old kids when they’re researching what they might find fun in a destination. And if they like what they see, the kids then pester their parents into taking them there.
What problem does the business solve?The travel industry is concerned about getting their brand in front of consumers at the point of purchase decision. In the family travel market, purchase decisions are made earlier in the planning cycle because travelling with kids typically requires more organization that adults travelling without kids.
70% of family travel research is done online. The travel industry is expected to spend $3.9 billion on digital advertising in 2014 and that spend tilts heavily to direct response, specifically search. The travel industry will spend a larger share (74%) of its digital budget on search and direct response than any other industry.
From a consumer perspective, 89% of families find planning family holidays stressful and 49% of them stress about creating a fun agenda of activities to enjoy. Parents are looking for information about what their kids will enjoy.
Tweens are highly experienced tourists; they're very active during up-front vacation decision making wish for (and have) a say in regard to issues such as destination choice.
Tweens want to be empowered to make decisions on their own. Also, time spent online by children has seen continued increase, but only 34% of kids say there’s good content for kids online. They prefer time spent engaging with video but aren’t easily able to find the video content they want.
How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages?
Our market and our technology has changed significantly since we launch our first test version.
Our initial ideas were centered on much younger children (5 – 8 year olds). Testing identified that they were still too young to have much influence in family holiday decisions – they didn’t need a travel guide, they just needed entertainment and games. Shifting our market to tweens opened up a huge audience of opinionated, influential, fun kids who were interested in knowing more about their travel destinations.
Technically, the app was originally built to hold storyboard style content for one destination. Expanding the technology to be able to hold a whole globe’s worth of content in one app was a total game changer for us.
Not only does it simplify content management and make the business immediately more scalable, it also opened up a world of possibilities for white labeling, introducing thematic content and delivering more responsive options to our paying tourism partners.
Why should people or companies use the business?
Bound Round benefits both travelling families and the tourism industry.
Research shows us that children can be increasingly expected to influence not only their own purchases and consumption, but also those of their parents.
Tourism providers currently invest significantly in web marketing (SEO and SEM), and Bound Round video content boosts their existing initiatives by:
- Giving websites more ‘Google juice’ through video hosting
- Increasing engagement on digital platforms, because over 46% of consumers believe that a website’s visual elements are critical to determining the credibility of the company as a whole.
Kids love Bound Round because it’s engaging, is full of great features and, most importantly, talks to them in their own language.
Parents love Bound Round because it’s like a kids’ version of TripAdvisor, which helps the kids explore a destination before they arrive, meaning the kids can participate in family travel planning. They also love that Bound Round is a safe online environment – there’s no social media integration and no in-app purchases. Plus the app can be used offline so there’s no risk of data-usage bill shock (and it can be used on the plane).
What is the strategy for raising awareness and the customer/user acquisition?
We are investing heavily in strong distribution partnerships to help build our customer base. This includes working with major family hotel chains to provide guests with a "kids pocket concierge", official tourism bodies, and other major players in the tourism industry. We offer these partners an additional service for their family visitors and they deliver users.
We also partner with events such as the 2014 International Children’s Games and the Kanga Cup to deliver travel content to participants.
In terms of marketing promotion, we are building a strong kids community centered on our Kids Board of Advisors and run a program of PR and communications activities focused on the destinations featured in the app.
Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?
By 2017, we will be recognised as the leading global kids travel content brand; have a global presence and localised content across the Americas, Europe, North and South Asia; and over six million users.
Challenges will be scaling the business quickly enough to meet demand and understanding cultural differences across markets and translating into content.
What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that requires another startup to help it out?
There’s nothing wrong with the travel industry! It’s just growing so quickly that new markets, such as the kids markets, are emerging fast. As are the digital channels to talk to these new potential customers.
What other technology company would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style... and why?
I love Airbnb's disruptive way of thinking and the way they have built strong, local communities that are committed to their product. I also really admire their social conscience, demonstrated through their philanthropy and support for communities in trouble.
Tnooz view
With various channels that kids can reach out to (websites, social, TV, friends, etc) these days, their knowledge of travel is only increasing.
As Bound Round points out, there are many reports that bring out the influence of kids in travel planning and decision making activity.
The interesting aspect of Bound Round is its mobile-first approach, a trend that's already noticed in the current marketplace for those a few years older.
A lot of sites have kid-friendly-travel as an option or as a feature in their site, for example, with the ability to filter kid-friendly-hotels in a search result. But, there aren't many players that focus only on kid travel market.
Companies similar to Bound Round include HolidaysWithKids, KidsGo, and TravelWithKids.
Bound Round recently won a startup challenge award in EyeForTravel's Travel Distribution Summit 2014.
Vine video of Bound Round