TLabs focus on startups featuring Toronto, Canada-based Discover Anywhere Mobile.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
Discover Anywhere Mobile is a travel venture launched in 2009 by Cartesian Software Consulting and lead by president David Janes. Janes has been an IT professional for the last 24 years, working for companies such as IBM, BMO, CDS and Algorithmics. He founded in 1995 Cartesian Software Consulting to provide services for high-performance applications in the finance, database and web sectors. He has worked on several major tourism sector initiatives including Get Going Canada and Be a Brit Different.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
We are entirely self-financed by the owners. We've had interest from investors but as our strategy has been to be profitable as soon as possible and we haven't found anyone who's vision is aligned with ours, it really hasn't be a priority to raise additional capital.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Discover Anywhere Mobile believes that within the next few years, travellers will be using mobiles as their primary way of getting information "in destination" and that the industry as a whole will be mostly transitioning away from printed materials. Discover Anywhere Mobile wants to be DMOs and CVBs first choice when making this switch, based on our affordability and feature set.
Describe the business, core products and services?
Discover Anywhere Mobile creates iPhone, BlackBerry, .mobi - and soon Android - apps for DMO and CVBs.
We create value for DMOs and CVBs by facilitating better experiences for visitors "in destination". We connect visitors to the information they need when they need it. Our apps configure themselves around the traveller's current needs: what's close to me now, what's happening today, how can I find this place?
For DMOs and CVBs we constantly work to minimize the time and expense it requires to be mobile. By working with our client's existing databases, the only thing they need to do to maintain their apps is carry out their normal day-to-day activities of updating their existing website: we handle anything else required to make sure the apps remain in sync.
Our app features include GPS location tracking, integrated mapping, itinerary planning, social media, “Share My Trip” with Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, augmented reality, events calendar, thematic listings, “what’s nearby”, search, featured listings, slideshows, picture galleries, audio and video tours, coupons, comprehensive user behaviour tracking and banner advertising campaigns.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
We have developed (and are developing) applications for DMOs and CVBs all over Canada and the United States, including Finger Lakes Wine Country in New York, Destination St. John's in Newfoundland, Florida Keys, Chicago Northwest, Butler County Ohio, Kamloops in British Columbia, and Banff Lake Louise.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
We've been following the "lean startup"/"Ready Fire Aim" model of starting with a "minimal viable product" and then rapidly iterating based on what our clients are telling us. We track demand for missing features and roll-out enhancements based on a combination of overall demand, ease of development, and the current competitive landscape.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Discover Anywhere Mobile's business model is on the revenue side, highly centred around relationships and sales; and on the expense side being able to minimize the cost of ongoing customer maintenance. The key to long term success is to lower the cost of customer acquisition while continuing to internally automate repetitive processes.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- Existing relationships, our technology package for dealing with client data, automation, cross-platform delivery
Weaknesses:
Opportunities:
- New platforms, exponential growth in wireless services, partnerships, non-North American / non-English speaking destinations
Threats:
- Misinformation about the cost and effort required for potential clients to enter this space.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?Initially there were a few DMOs that informed us that "people will never do that". Interestingly enough, we've managed to convert a couple of these to customers. Overall we'd judge the response to what we've been doing as very positive, not in small part due to so many tourism and travel conferences seeding the ground for us over the last few years.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
Lots of happy customers, giving strong referral business and purchasing follow-on products and features.
TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.