TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring US-based mobile translation service TripLingo.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
TripLingo is an Atlanta based company that upgrades trips for business and leisure travelers by making it easy and fun to learn the local language and culture. TripLingo creates a customized phrase list for individual users to help them focus on critical phrases and information on the local culture. Currently, TripLingo is available on iOS, with support for other platforms coming soon.
TripLingo was founded on the following principals:
- Recognition that every individual and every trip is unique, and that the phrases you learn should be adjusted accordingly
- Belief that language-learning is most effective and interesting when you’re learning things of interest to you and learning how to use the language like people actually use it (instead of overly formal classroom materials, for instance)
- Understanding that language and culture are intimately connected, and that learning the language can assist in understanding the culture, and vice versa
CEO and founder Jesse Maddox spent two years living in Vietnam and India, and experienced the pain and frustration of not knowing the local language first-hand.
This proved the genesis of the idea, and the TripLingo team formed in January at Startup Weekend in Atlanta, where they were voted "best in show." Following Start Atlanta, TripLingo was chosen the winner amongst 49 other startups at Startup Riot one month later in Atlanta.
Our team of seven includes:
- Jesse Maddox, CEO
- Ross Rankin, COO
- Pratik Patel, CTO
- Vince Baskerville, VP of Production
- James Martin, Creative Director
- Katie Elizabeth, CMO
- Dan Nussenbaum, Jr Engineer
What financial support did you have to launch the business?TripLingo raised $50,000 from friends and family. We are in the process of negotiating a seed investment from several angel and institutional investors.
What problem are you trying to solve?
We’re trying to make travelers smarter by equipping them with basic language skills, educating them about the culture, and helping them engage with locals during their travels.
If you’re traveling and you lack basic language skills, it can be frustrating, it’s difficult to get around, and you can’t engage with the culture you just traveled 15,000 miles to experience.
Before TripLingo, current options for travelers were quite poor. Phrasebooks are unwieldy, out-of-date, with limited content and no context. Other apps merely mimic phrasebooks and don’t take advantage of smartphone "superpowers", in addition to being poorly organized, lacking in cultural information, and with poor content.
Other language learning products on the web are focused on fluency. Most travelers don’t want to become fluent (nor do they have the time), so we try to give them enough to get around, enjoy themselves, and connect with other folks.
Describe the business, core products and services?
TripLingo was built from the ground-up with travelers in mind, and every feature has been designed with travelers in mind.
One of our most unique features is that we create a customized phrase list for each user based on unique interests, planned activities, and personality. This helps you focus on the phrases you actually need- no more searching through thousands of phrases to find the right one.
For each phrase, TripLingo includes:
- Two audio examples per phrase (one pronounced slowly to aid in pronunciation)
- Phonetic spelling of the phrase
- A culture tip that helps you understand the proper context for the phrase and additional insights related to that specific country
Beyond just phrases, there’s an intelligent learning system with built-in flashcards that tracks your progress and includes a customized algorithm to maximize your learning time.
TripLingo also includes a dictionary, word bank (with grouped words), written articles on the local culture, and more. No internet connection is required.
Currently the apps are available in the Apple Appstore for $4.99 - $9.99 per country/language combination. Android and Windows Phone are in beta modes, and a web-based version will be launching soon.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
At launch and immediately afterwards, our key customers include individuals who are planning or plan to travel internationally for business or leisure. TripLingo is also a great refresher for those who have studied a language before, and the app is also useful to non-travelers who frequently interact with those from foreign cultures.
Moving forward, we plan to also work with select brands to enhance the value they offer their own customers, such as airlines, hotel chains, and cruise lines.
To these companies we offer an economical way for them to differentiate their offerings, greatly enhance their customer experience, and strengthen their own brand. Best of all, working with us delivers impact straight to their bottom-line without increased costs.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
CEO Jesse Maddox spent two years living and working in Asia prior to founding TripLingo, the last six months of which were spent developing the concept and building a prototype.
The concepts contained in TripLingo were validated through the prototype and innumerous conversations with travelers.
Having lots of relevant data and a thoughtful product plan helped to validate the idea with some investors, but at those early stages you’re really asking people to invest in you. As any investor will tell you, ideas are only as good as the people executing on them.
That said, during our launch we received some validation through being featured by Apple as "New & Noteworthy" as well as under "What’s Hot". This was a great boost to sales, and was aided by favorable reviews in a variety of publications. It was good to know that not just our moms thought that our product was great.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Our products retail for an average price of $9.99. Moving forward, we will add additional tiers to suit the various needs of our users. One of our core competencies is the ability to scale our product offerings quickly. We take great care in adding additional languages and product tiers, but we built our product with the goal of being able to suit a range of different customers and partners.
Our profitability will stem from our ability to expand across platforms and languages efficiently, the integrity of our brand, and our continued ability to innovate ahead of our competitors.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- A weapons grade team committed to success. A unique approach to language-learning perfectly suited for travelers. Patent-pending technologies around our core differentiators.
Weaknesses:
- Less well-capitalized than some major competitors. New to market, thus less brand awareness.
Opportunities:
- Travel is an enormous market, and the increase in culturally aware travellers is directly related to travellers seeking to understand the culture and learn some of the lingo. As individuals seek more unique, exotic, and personalized travel experiences, the demand for applications like ours will only rise. This is especially true considering the dramatic increase in smartphone penetration.
Threats:
- Inability to execute on key deals in our pipeline or being too resource-constrained to capitalize on opportunities.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?The most direct criticisms came before we had a team assembled. At that point, you’re just a crazy guy with an idea. Plenty of people are willing to tell you how great your idea is, but few are willing to put their money on the line.
Another point brought up to me was that "the market isn’t big enough". I disagree. Self-study language-learning is a $32 billion business. Not only that, but compared to other sectors innovation in this space has been very poor in my opinion. Its an area ripe for innovation.
We’ve never been discouraged by "nos" - they’re a fact of life for entrepreneurs and they make us want it even more, especially on our team.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
Our goal is to be on every traveler’s packing list and to change the way people travel by engaging them in the local language and culture. As a company, our goal is to be cash flow positive within a year.
As individuals, there’s nothing more satisfying than getting feedback from users whose experience traveling has been changed by your effort. Our goal is to have that impact on at least 250K travelers within the next year.
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.