STARTUP STAGE: NextRetreat streamlines organizing team travel

NextRetreat

NextRetreat is an all-in-one platform that streamlines the process of organizing team travel.

NextRetreat, which helps travel organizers find the right destination, venue and dates, was founded in January 2020, following CEO Martin Studencan’s previous co-living venture, Wolfhouse.

What is your 30-second pitch to investors?

The organization of team retreats or company offsites is time consuming. It’s hard to choose the right destination, where everyone can get efficiently, or find a suitable venue for a team (e.g., large enough). Synchronizing dates, locations, flights and venue availability is a big challenge. Existing solutions have limited or no required functionalities.

NextRetreat is the world's first all-in-one platform where company retreat and team offsite organizers cut down hundreds of hours typically spent on organizing, communicating and synchronizing, both internally and externally.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

Prior to NextRetreat, organizing team travel involved spending countless hours on Google and travel sites researching flights, comparing destinations, venues, team members' availability and other tedious details. NextRetreat combines all of those elements in one easy-to-use solution, making team travel organization a breeze.

We’ve hosted in the past thousands of team members and know what really matters. We have developed our own proprietary technology that expedites the travel organiszation process, including unique algorithms that save time choosing the right destinations, venue or dates. One example: One of the most challenging aspects about organizing team travel is picking a date. Finding a block of time that works for everyone’s schedule and an available venue can feel like an impossibility at times. NextRetreat’s Sync Calendar compares airports in your original locations and selected destination, thousands of return flights and other variables, helping you choose the right dates for your trip.

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

Strengths and opportunities

- Experience with the segment

- High initial organic interest without active marketing efforts

- Growth of the market

- More remote teams (due to COVID) means a bigger need for face-to-face interaction once in a while (more team retreats)

- More and more companies are ditching their office

- Accumulated need to travel once the pandemic is over

- Growing interest in shorter-term stays

Risks and weaknesses

- Possible technical issues

- Not having an option to book flights directly on the platform 

- Unpredictability of COVID-19 pandemic

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

The most common challenges when organizing team trips include:

- Finding a suitable venue (e.g., large enough)

- Lack of information for teams about venues

- Finding and synchronizing dates, locations, flights and venue

- Fears and risks of changes and cancellations

- Lack of post-purchase support (on existing solutions)

The problems companies face today, ihncluding:

- Barriers in socializing between team members ‍♀

- Poor work/life alignment, increasing risk of burning out 

- High costs of employee unhappiness equals high turnover rates 

- Boring company culture, problems with attracting talent

More and more companies and startups are realizing the benefits of team retreats. Team retreats are no silver bullet for all problems, but offer a solution to most of these problems. Team retreats offer a transformative experience - what you are left with is a happy, productive and motivated team.

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

In short, we will use our know-how (background in online performance marketing) and past experience (from Wolfhouse) to reach people responsible for organization of team trips. It's part of a more broad marketing strategy.

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

NextRetreat app is an accumulation of almost five years of work, trial-and error (many of them) and effort of many people that joined throughout this journey. The story started in 2017 when I relocated from London to the Canary Islands with an idea of opening the first co-living space for teams in the world. I put together a small team, we rented a traditional Spanish finca and worked hard on transforming it into "Wolfhouse Los Gigantes" on the southwest coast of Tenerife. It was really a unique venue featuring a fully equipped office space, accommodation and communal areas, all under one roof.

For many companies, it is challenging to keep team members excited, engaged and passionate about a company’s mission and vision over the long term. Companies have gone to great lengths to keep their employees happy with gym memberships, office dogs, free beer and other perks.. While those make a difference, we have found that there is a unique energy and motivation that develops when teams travel and work together in a destination outside of their office. Team members often feel more driven, encouraged and valued while on a trip or retreat experience, helping to drive team camaraderie and growth.

In 2017/2018, we started hosting teams from all corners of the world, primarily from Europe and the United States. They have really enjoyed the experience and we started getting requests from larger teams, with 30, 50, 60 team members, looking for the same kind of experience. The Wolfhouse venue could fit only up to 20 people (and that was already too much), so we started working with other property owners, hotel and co-working space managers and helping teams facilitate a team retreat.

Over time we brought over 70 groups to Tenerife, Las Palmas and few other locations. After hosting more than 2,000 team members, we began identifying several challenges that companies face when organizing these trips, such as choosing the most convenient destination, finding the right venue that is suitable for a team (no one likes to share a bed with a colleague), securing necessary amenities and getting support with airport transportation or a private chef.

After organizing these trips ourselves and speaking with other companies, we found that teams were spending literally hundreds of hours on various travel sites comparing locations, flight connections, venues, availability and other tedious details when organizing team retreats or offsites. This is a lost time that could have been used more efficiently. Once we identified the biggest pain-points, in 2020 we set to work to create a solution: NextRetreat.

How and when will you make money?

We get a commission from the venue (hotel or a vacation rental) for every successful booking. We work with partners, such as Priceline, Agoda, Kiwi and others.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

My background includes co-founding an award-winning med-tech startup STEMI (won Startup Awards Slovakia 2016) and Wolfhouse. I've been featured in Forbes 30 under 30.

Our CTO, Peter Kulcsar Szabo, studied applied mathematics and has a master's degree in applied informatics and successfully led a development team for over three years. He self-made an app for every possible platform (web app, desktop, mobile and smart watch). He plays the first league in water polo and was a Slovak champion in 2019.

How have you addressed diversity and inclusion within your business?

We are still a small startup, but we care about diversity from the start. One example - we have two women on the team in major roles and seeking to hire more.

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

Finding the right partners and investors.

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

We believe there is a growing need for face-to-face interaction among remote companies and more work-life balance.

1) Coronavirus made working from home commonplace overnight. The number of people working remotely has been increasing steadily over the past few years, thanks to digitalization and automation, but now it will explode. During the pandemic, many companies were forced to work from home, and it made managers realize its benefits. Some might even cancel offices completely and stay fully or semi-distributed. Remote work has several benefits – but is not yet perfect. There are many limitations, including isolation, social disconnection and work/life alignment.

We believe that nothing will ever replace face-to-face interaction and companies will continue to meet at least once or twice a year. Companies that recently implemented a remote working model will most likely see an initial productivity boost (if they do it right), but after some time will experience a decrease in motivation and other problems due to limited social interaction and not having a physical workspace. Team retreats are a useful solution to address those issues, and a rewarding investment to help employees learn, grow and bond with one another.

2) We never give up. We use every small setback as something to learn from, improve it and move forward.

We are encouraged by that energy and driven by our mission to connect, strengthen and unify teams while helping them discover unique and unforgettable locations in the world’s greatest destinations.

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

Currently we offer and support in 64 European destinations. We would like to launch destinations for U.S.-based teams and expand further. A year from now, we would like to have onboarded enough customers, improved the user experience further and raise another round of funding.

What is your end-game? (Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.

We are currently focusing on validating the business and growing while staying private. We will see what the future holds.