Instatrip berkeley 2015

Instatrip
book city trip itineraries in one click.
A marketplace to connect travel experts and travel enthusiasts allowing
them to book one day city experiences with one click.
# of interviews to date: 113 (+10)
paraShoot (65 interview) & Instatrip (48 + 10)
Jesse Guzman
MBA (2016)
Isabelle Schuhmann
MBA (2016)
Bichen Wu
EECS MS (2016)
Yifan Hong
EECS (2016)
▪ Designer
▪ Finance and brand
strategist
▪ Been to 28
countries
▪ Hustler
▪ Consulting and
startup experience
▪ Lived in Australia,
Mexico, the US and
Germany
▪ Operator
▪ Data Scientist &
software engineer
▪ Passionate traveler
and photographer
▪ Hacker
▪ Software engineer
& app developer
▪ Been to 10
countries
+ Michael Chai and Jim Hornthal!

We need vivid and
reliable insights when
making travel plans or
discovering new places.
Relative references
(mostly in texts and
pictures) are scattered
and vary in credibility.
We need a platform
where users can
generate and review
videos that provides
immersive travel
insight.
Users:
- 18-34
- want authentic
experiences
- heavy usage of
mobile apps and
social media.
Customers:
- travel bloggers,
- travel/experience/
lifestyle service
providers.
Users: shaping a culture to
make it compelling for
posters to generate high
quality videos, thus
attracts more viewers.
Customers: provide access
to target audience + key
meta data.
Primary:
- mobile application.
Secondary:
- web application.
- App development.
- Testing hypothesis
with initial users.
- Shaping user
habits and cultures.
- Promoting the app
to users.
- Promoting our
services to
business partners.
- Human capital.
- Intelligent resources
(Location information,
travel information)
- Back-end servers.
- Funding.
- Location service
provider, e.g. foursquare,
google map.
- Social network, e.g. FB,
twitter.
- Travel information
provider, e.g. yelp,
tripadvisor, travel
bloggers, booking.com.
- Local travel, experience,
lifestyle service
providers, e.g. hotels,
restaurants.
- Business promotion toolkit: search ranking, promoted
content, direct link.
- Metadata: travel patterns, brand advocacy
- Referral: margin on referred business
- App development, maintenance, data storage and
processing.
- Location/travel information.
- User/business partner acquisition.
Our first Business Model Canvas - the road not taken...

We need vivid and
Relative references
We need a platform
where users can
generate and review
immersive travel
insight.
Users:
- 18-34
- want authentic
experiences
- heavy usage of
mobile apps and
social media.
Customers:
- travel bloggers,
lifestyle service
providers.
meta data.
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
- App development.
with initial users.
- Shaping user
- Promoting the app
to users.
- Promoting our
services to
business partners.
- Human capital.
travel information)
- Back-end servers.
- Funding.
- Location service
google map.
twitter.
tripadvisor, travel
lifestyle service
restaurants.
processing.
ZOOM IN: Our first attempt to find product-market fit
Value proposition
● We need vivid and
● Relative references
● We need a platform
where users can generate
and review videos that
provides immersive travel
insight.
Customer segments:
Leisure:
● 18-34
● want authentic
experiences
● heavy usage of mobile
apps and social media
Business:
● Travel bloggers
● Travel/experience/
lifestyle service
providers.

We need vivid and
Relative references
We need a platform
where users can
generate and review
immersive travel
insight.
Users:
- 18-34
- want authentic
experiences
- heavy usage of
mobile apps and
social media.
Customers:
- travel bloggers,
lifestyle service
providers.
meta data.
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
- App development.
with initial users.
- Shaping user
- Promoting the app
to users.
- Promoting our
services to
business partners.
- Human capital.
travel information)
- Back-end servers.
- Funding.
- Location service
google map.
twitter.
tripadvisor, travel
lifestyle service
restaurants.
processing.
09/02 09/10 09/16 09/23 10/06 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/04
Video based travel
exploration platform
Our LLP journey - GETTING OUT OF THE BUILDING
10 interviews
→ We went out of
the building, but
didn’t really listen
to our customer
paraShoot

We need vivid and
Relative references
We need a platform
where users can
generate and review
immersive travel
insight.
Users:
- 18-34
- want authentic
experiences
- heavy usage of
mobile apps and
social media.
Customers:
- travel bloggers,
lifestyle service
providers.
meta data.
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
- App development.
with initial users.
- Shaping user
- Promoting the app
to users.
- Promoting our
services to
business partners.
- Human capital.
travel information)
- Back-end servers.
- Funding.
- Location service
google map.
twitter.
tripadvisor, travel
lifestyle service
restaurants.
processing.
09/02 09/10 09/16 09/23 10/06 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/04
Our LLP journey - Naming the customer archetype
Video based travel
Exploring our customer:
The hostel hopper
Pivot on customers:
Yuccies
40 interviews
→ Really defining,
naming and
understanding our
customer
archetype
paraShoot

We need vivid and
Relative references
We need a platform
where users can
generate and review
immersive travel
insight.
Users:
- 18-34
- want authentic
experiences
- heavy usage of
mobile apps and
social media.
Customers:
- travel bloggers,
lifestyle service
providers.
meta data.
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
- App development.
with initial users.
- Shaping user
- Promoting the app
to users.
- Promoting our
services to
business partners.
- Human capital.
travel information)
- Back-end servers.
- Funding.
- Location service
google map.
twitter.
tripadvisor, travel
lifestyle service
restaurants.
processing.
09/02 09/10 09/16 09/23 10/06 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/04
Our Lean LaunchPad journey - A RESTART!
Two-sided market:
Offer curated itineraries
by travel bloggers
paraShoot Instatrip
Inflectionpoint
65 interviews
Key A-HA! moment:
Responses don’t have to be
luke warm…
One-click booking
experience for short
city trips Week
7
Exploring our customer:
The hostel hopper
Pivot on customers:
Yuccies
Video based travel

”You went from the world’s
shittiest idea to an idea
that could actually become
something."

- The yuccie lacks an
efficient way to
identify off-the-
beaten path travel
experiences.
- Middle to top tier
travel bloggers want
to monetize their
content and believe
that they can do this
through our
platform.
- Upcoming travel
bloggers need to
increase traffic and
believe that they
can do it through
our platform.
Users:
- The yuccie, who is a
Jetsetter and global
citizen, well educated and
has a high disposable
income and values
authentic experience,
wants to explore places,
people nearby and
connect with friends
through our platform.
Customers:
- Middle to top tier travel
bloggers are willing to
spend money on our
services, because it is
their profession
- Upcoming travel
spend money on our
services, if we help them
generate traffic and make
money.
- GET: Direct outreach,
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
program (video of the
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
- Build network of travel
bloggers and win
evangelist. Travel bloggers
will curate itineraries, post
booking links on their blog.
- App development
Attract users (yuccies/
followers)
- Assure quality and
conduct vetting and
categorization of trips
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Business Development
- Engineers
- Travel bloggers perceive
and value our platform as
a means to monetize their
travel content. They will
curate itineraries for us
and share the profit with
us.
- Travel platforms such as
Expedia, Kayak, Priceline
as strategic alliances to
provide booking services,
discount price, user data,
etc. In return, we bring
them more traffic.
- Travel providers such as
hotels, restaurants, bars,
travel startups etc. We
bring them more
customers, and they
provide us discount
prices.
- Charging travel bloggers (monthly subscription, pay-per-
service, pay-per-X-followers, ...)
- Charge margin on sold trips
- IT development and maintenance
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
A restart: Instatrip is born

to monetize their
content and believe
through our
platform.
- Upcoming travel
bloggers need to
believe that they
can do it through
our platform.
- Yuccie lacks an
efficient medium to
share travel video
through.
Users:
income and values
people nearby and
Customers:
spend money on our
their profession
- Upcoming travel
spend money on our
money.
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
AApp development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
them more traffic.
bring them more
customers, and they
provide us discount
prices.
- IT development and maintainance
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
Trying to find product-market fit… again.
Value proposition
● The yuccie lacks an efficient
way to identify off-the-beaten
path travel experiences.
● Middle to top tier travel
bloggers want to monetize
their content and believe that
they can do this through our
platform.
● Upcoming travel bloggers
need to increase traffic and
believe that they can do it
Customer segments:
Leisure:
Jetsetter and global citizen,
well educated and has a high
disposable income and values
authentic experience, wants to
explore places, people nearby
and connect with friends
Business:
bloggers are willing to spend
money on our services,
because it is their profession
- Upcoming travel bloggers
are willing to spend money on
our services, if we help them
money.Invalidated bloggers as customers
by talking to travel experts (e.g.
Expedia employees) and bloggers
themselves
Is the yuccie still our
target customer???

10/14
Jim Hornthal got through to us
- People want stories, not unedited
content
- If you’re not invalidating, your not
asking the right questions
- We hadn’t pivoted enough...or rather
at all
How did we get here?
Absorbing the insights from our interview with Jim, we re-assessed our options
We held an important team
meeting
- We recognized we needed to change
- We went into the meeting worried
about how we would emerge
- We left excited, with the idea of
Instatrip!
From paraShoot, we
learned from talking to
travel bloggers that they
were struggling to monetize
their businesses.
We wanted to offer them a
solution.

- The young urban
professional wants
to book bundled
itineraries as
opposed to booking
everything
separately.
- The young urban
professional lacks
an efficient way to
book city trips
- The young urban
professional wants
to minimize the
amount of time
spent on planning
while maximizing
the experience.
- ...
Users:
- Young urban
professionals, 20-45,
frequent business
traveller, too busy to plan
for their own trip or
visitors coming to their
home.
income and values
people nearby and
- The Weekend Warrior -
young, unencumbered,
busy during the week,
disposable income. Often
will take weekend trips.
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
- App development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
them more traffic.
- Activity booking
platforms. They provide
us their booking plaftorm
and we help them get
more vendors to use their
platform.
- ... - Charge margin on sold trips- IT development and maintenance
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
Pivoting towards a 1-click-booking experience
Thank you Steve
Weinstein!

to monetize their
content and believe
through our
platform.
- Upcoming travel
bloggers need to
believe that they
can do it through
our platform.
- Yuccie lacks an
efficient medium to
share travel video
through.
Users:
income and values
people nearby and
Customers:
spend money on our
their profession
- Upcoming travel
spend money on our
money.
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
AApp development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
them more traffic.
bring them more
customers, and they
provide us discount
prices.
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
Still trying to find product-market fit…
Value proposition
- The young urban professional
wants to book bundled
itineraries as opposed to
booking everything separately.
lacks an efficient way to book
city trips
wants to minimize the amount of
time spent on planning while
maximizing the experience.
Customer segments:
- Young urban professionals,
20-45, frequent business
traveller, too busy to plan for
their own trip or visitors coming
to their home.
young, unencumbered, busy
during the week, disposable
income. Often will take
weekend trips.
- The yuccie, who is a Jetsetter
and global citizen, well
educated and has a high
- Key partners
- Travel bloggers are willing to curate
itineraries for us because we help
them monetize.

10/14
Early learnings and improvements
“Selling curated trips would be really cool.
Travel bloggers don’t necessarily know
how to coordinate all that stuff.”
- Brianne Kimmel, Social and Content
Marketing, Hotwire
“If there was something I could click and
do it, I’d be like yup, let’s go.”
- Erin Robinson, 25, student
“You need relationships in the travel blogger
community. Having evangelists is key.”
- Christina Morgan, Travel Blogger
- We interviewed travel bloggers and asked them if they would design itineraries for us
- We interviewed potential users to see if we were on to something
Through talking with experts, we were able refine our business flow diagram

10/28
- Working to improve the sharpness of our
hypotheses
- Actually listening to our customers and
invalidating hypotheses
- Additional weekly meeting on Thursdays
Recalibrating our approach
Weeks 1 - 8...in 1 week
- Our restart reenergized us, and that was
good because we had lots of questions that
needed answers
- What is our value proposition?
- What customer are we serving?
- What is the willingness to pay?
- Will travel bloggers be receptive?
Three Questions to Improve
Hypothesis Testing
1. Will I learn if this a problem
for my customer?
2. Will I learn if my technology
or product would solve that
problem?
3. Will the results tell me what I
need to validate or invalidate?
Getting our a** kicked and playing catchup...
With newly acquired faith in the method and a fresh concept, we sought to optimize

10/28
Trip
verification
One-click
bookings
TRIP VERIFICATION
Hypothesis: Consumers are willing to pay
more for verified trips.
Test: Define verified, ask interviewees to
choose between verified and unverified trips
at different price points
Verified | $600 vs. Unverified | $550
Result: Invalidated
ONE CLICK BOOKINGS
Hypothesis: Consumers are willing to pay a
premium for one-click itinerary bookings.
Test: Show MVP, ask interviewees to choose
between “one-click” and self coordinated trips
at different price points
One-click | $600 vs. Self Coord. | $550
Result: Validated
MVP
Travel
Bloggers
Charge
margin on
booked
itineraries
Provide
itineraries,
seamless
booking
1: Mobile
2. Web
Young
Urban Pro
Weekend
warrior
Word-of-
mouth,
credible
sources
Travel
bloggers,
itinerary
providers
Sales/
Marketing,
IT, staff
Still in
definition
...and increasing the rigor of hypothesis testing
We designed sharper questions and guidelines for interviews to improve our insights

WTP
Bundling
Post
MillennialBiz
Traveler
Hostel
Hopper
Young
Urbanite
The Young
Urbanite
planning for a
group
becomes more
interesting
Who is our customer?
BUNDLE: 8 SEPARATE: 7
11/04
PLAY Conference
- Would you rather book a bundled
itinerary that comes with fewer
degrees of freedom, but higher
ease of booking, or book
everything separately?
Concierge interviews
...to systematically test product-market-fit
Do bundled trips really solve a pain and create a gain for our customer segments?
Jim Hornthal
- Have you validated your core
concept?

For the first time, we felt like we had reached the teaching team and our classmates
10/28
Ya know, maybe there’s
something here...
Please, someone just
(para)shoot me...
“Amazing pivot. As a 'semi-frequent'
traveller, whenever I visit some new
places, I always check famous travel
blogs and imitate itineraries on the
blogs.”
“Love this idea. I would definitely
use it, but I would want to be able
to swap the lunch for another one I
like better for example.”
“A great improvement over your previous
presentations. Team is taking a more
scientific approach.”
Feeling the love

- The young urban
professional lacks
an efficient way to
book city trips
- The young
urban
professional
wants to
minimize the
amount of time
spent on
planning while
maximizing the
experience.
- The young urban
professional wants
to book bundled
itineraries as
opposed to booking
everything
separately.
- ...
Users:
- Young urban
professionals, 20-45,
frequent business
traveller, too busy to plan
for their own trip or
visitors coming to their
home.
young, unencumbered,
busy during the week,
disposable income. Often
will take weekend trips.
Post-Millennial, 40
- 65, tech savvy,
high expendable
income, values
planning
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
- App development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
- Activity booking
platforms. They provide
us their booking platform
and we help them get
more vendors to use their
platform.
- NYT allows us to
use their content
and add a book
button to their site
- Charge margin on sold trips- IT development and maintenance
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
Where we are today...

to monetize their
content and believe
through our
platform.
- Upcoming travel
bloggers need to
believe that they
can do it through
our platform.
- Yuccie lacks an
efficient medium to
share travel video
through.
Users:
income and values
people nearby and
Customers:
spend money on our
their profession
- Upcoming travel
spend money on our
money.
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
AApp development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
them more traffic.
bring them more
customers, and they
provide us discount
prices.
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
Still not at 100% product-market fit
Value proposition
- The young urban
professional wants to book
bundled itineraries as
opposed to booking
everything separately -- not
yet validated
lacks an efficient way to book
city trips -- validated
wants to minimize the amount
of time spent on planning
while maximizing the
experience -- validated
Customer segments:
- Young urban professionals,
20-45, frequent business
traveller, too busy to plan for
their own trip or visitors coming
to their home.
young, unencumbered, busy
during the week, disposable
income. Often will take
weekend trips.
Jetsetter and global citizen,
well educated and has a high

to monetize their
content and believe
through our
platform.
- Upcoming travel
bloggers need to
believe that they
can do it through
our platform.
- Yuccie lacks an
efficient medium to
share travel video
through.
Users:
income and values
people nearby and
Customers:
spend money on our
their profession
- Upcoming travel
spend money on our
money.
free trials, social
media, travel
conferences &
networking events
- KEEP: loyalty
programs, customer
service, reward
day, promoting best
content for free)
- GROW: ...
Primary:
Secondary:
- web application.
bloggers and win
- App development
followers)
conduct vetting and
- ...
- Travel Bloggers
- Product designer
- Sales & Marketing
- Engineers
us.
them more traffic.
bring them more
customers, and they
provide us discount
prices.
- IT development and maintenance
- Sales & Marketing
- HR, other staff
...but not too bad given where we were 4 weeks ago!

11/18
● Strong communication and coordination within the team is essential to
success
● You need thick skin to be an entrepreneur!
● 10 customer interviews won’t give you statistically significant data, but critically,
they will give you actionable enough insights to move more quickly
● The LLP toolkit (e.g. BMC, Customer Funnel, etc.) is there to help
you...bringing structure to concept development and thinking about ALL
elements of the BMC early in the process pays dividends
● We haven’t touched the left hand side of the canvas yet and thus still have
many questions that need to be answered
● We believe we are onto something with the “36 hour in” concept, but not quite
there yet
Thoughts and learnings
What we learned about our concept and the process of starting a company in general

Friday
4pm Embarcadero $12
5:30pm Ferry Building Free
7pm Hardwater $45
9pm Mission $30
Overnight Hotel Zetta $175
Saturday
10am Mission Bakery $5
12pm Dolores Park Free
1:30 Mural Walk $20
7pm Ichi Sushi $50
9pm Bowling Club $30
Overnight Hotel Zetta $175
Sunday
10am Green Apple Books Free
12pm Nopa $25
2pm Art in Residence Free
Subtotal $577
Service Fee (5%) $28.85
Grand Total $605.85
No charge
No charge
Open Table $.4
No charge
$7.87 (3-6%)
No charge
No charge
DIRECT (5%)
Open Table $.4
DIRECT (5%)
$7.87 (3-6%)
No charge
Open Table $.4
No charge
$19.44
$28.85
$48.29
$48.29 earned on
$577 transaction
8.4% Gross Margin
36 Hours in San
Francisco
Our new MVP

Convenient booking of unique, urban, bundled
experiences
Young urban professional who’s in-laws are in
town
- Helps travellers explore more of
a city
- Offers better booking
experience
- Vetting allows for more
trustworthy itineraries
- Prevents time-consuming
planning and booking process
- Mitigates risk of poor
experience
- Dinimishes frustration during
booking
- Marketplace
allowing
easy
booking of
urban trips
- Curated,
unique
itineraries
- Crowdsourc
ed feedback
on
itineraries
- Become more informed,
have more fun
- Enables you to travel
easily with less time to
prep
- Less stress
- Prevents you from
wasting time on
planning and booking
- Prevents poor user
experience
- Organizing and
booking can be
burdensome
- Book
services for
city trips
- Try to
maximize
time spent
and
experience

Instatrip berkeley 2015

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Instatrip berkeley 2015