Last year, Microsoft veteran Dinesh Haridas and his wife traveled to Thailand expecting to spend a day sailing. Despite consulting travel guides and online sources, they were disappointed to learn when they arrived that the sailing season had ended a month earlier.
A series of travel headaches like this one inspired Haridas to create TripTips, a travel startup that makes customized itineraries for travelers using intel from locals.
“We recruit locals who are screened for their knowledge and communication skills and we’ve created a marketplace where travelers can enlist the help of these trusted trip planners to prepare their personalized itineraries,” he said.
Users can pay anywhere from $50-to-$100 for a week-long itinerary, which includes lodging, entertainment, and assistance with logistics at the destination. The Kirkland-based startup also finds deals for customers on attractions by aggregating from popular providers like Groupon, Amazon, Living Social, and Viators.
We caught up with Haridas for this installment of Startup Spotlight, a regular GeekWire feature
Explain what you do so our parents can understand it: “We present customers with a personalized travel itinerary — imagine a Lonely Planet customized just for your trip.”
Inspiration hit us when: “At the end of my last vacation, I was thinking how much simpler all my travel planning would have been if I’d been able to just talk to somebody at the destination before I’d gotten there.”
VC, Angel or Bootstrap: “Bootstrapped. We’ve been focused on building and validating the product.”
Our ‘secret sauce’ is: “Our focus on simplifying travel planning and our experience building an eco-system to do just that.”
The smartest move we’ve made so far: “Getting started and then staying focused on the most important problems our customers have.”
The biggest mistake we’ve made so far: “We underestimated the complexity of search engine marketing and optimization. It would have been simpler to have built elements that assist in SEO in the very beginning as compared to applying and refining them at the end.”
Would you rather have Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: “All three would be great. If it was just one, we’d pick Bezos — Amazon has a track record for relentless customer focus and long-term thinking that we intend to uphold.”
Our world domination strategy starts when: “It starts now. In 12 destinations across the US, at a very affordable price, we offer a travelers a relaxed travel planning experience, one that doesn’t involve spending weekends sifting over guide books and browsing through tons of crowd-sourced data of varying quality.”
Rivals should fear us because: “We are passionate about making this work and are in it for the long haul.”
We are truly unique because: “We provide travelers an assurance of what to expect from a trip planner’s assistance and the flexibility for a trip planner to incorporate their special touches. The trip planning service is covered by a satisfaction guarantee which makes it a risk-free proposition for travelers.”
The biggest hurdle we’ve overcome is: “Building a framework and bootstrapping the ecosystem of trusted trip planners at the destinations we support.”
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: “Pick a problem you care about personally and then be flexible about what the solution might look like and how you might build it.”
