TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring US-based TripFab, a new travel platform for buying hotels, ground services, destination tours and activities.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
I’m Michael La Rosa - just some super lucky guy who happens to be called a CEO. My background is building awesome software.
And my team, I don’t even want to list their names - because there is no one better, and I am way too scared of people poaching them away. They are that awesome.
Cristian our developer who is a maniac, Julian our UX genius (as you can see), Cesar our chief get it done guy, and Esteban who makes sure our internet doesn’t get shut off and also on the occasion saves the world from self destruction.
But most of us have been working the last few years together, and our last company was acquired. I should really get superman uniforms made for these guys, because they are super-hero like.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
$400,000. More on the way.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Two big problems:
- Planning a trip sucks and is expensive. We are making planning a trip super easy, and amazingly awesome and a little more easy on the wallet.
- Travel businesses count on 80% of their business from travel agents and pay crazy commissions. We are going to change that, and put businesses in control of their business. Not a travel agent.
Describe the business, core products and services?We are in the business of making a travelers trip absolutely mind blowing. We are also in the business of helping travel businesses make way more money, and having control over their reservations.
That is our business, core product, and services we provide: Travel awesomeness.
Here is a clip and demo:
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
There is no such thing for us as a key customer or key user. I think this question is pointless. Every customer is key, and every user is special.
If someone spends $1 or $1,000,000 with us, they both get treated the same - as super special customers, because they are.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
We are our customers. We build TripFab for us. When we had something we wanted to use, we took it to investors.
So I guess we are our "Chief Idea Validators". Isn’t that how it’s suppose to be - build something with passion, right? Market research just seems so... dull and non-passionate.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
We charge a 5% transaction fee. Then, we take 4.9% of our 5% we made, and spend it all on our customers.
Our strategy for profitability is to make one travelers trip freaking amazing. If it’s one a year, one an hour, one every second - we start with one, and it’s was so awesome that you tell at least one person.
Eventually, it all works out.
I think a better question is - what are we going to do to make a travelers trip mind blowing?
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
I have never done one of these, and probably will never. Why?
Threats, to be honest, I really don’t care about competitors. I don’t look to see what people are doing, because I just don’t care.
We are building TripFab for us, and travelers that want to use us. And we will always do that. We are a team of innovators and visionaries - and we will innovate and set a vision.
The second we put any opportunities on paper, is the second we stop looking everywhere.
And our strengths and weaknesses? What are strengths are today, is our weaknesses tomorrow.
Again, we just want travelers to have the most amazing trips of their lives, and want travel businesses to have control of their business - not depend on travel agents or crappy travel aggregaters. Seriously.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?
Everyone. But I listened to everyone.
Why? Because most ideas suck and don’t sound successful when they start. But when you listen to why it sucks, you can figure out each time how to make it suck less. And here we are.
So tell us how we suck so we can be better.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
The most insanely happiest travelers. One or one million. It’s all the same.
You build great companies by being crazy passionate about making sure each person is insanely happy. Everything else takes care of itself.
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.