Nick MacAvoy and Hayley Gray, co-founders of online travel platform Tripwell. Photo / Supplied
Kiwi duo Hayley Gray and Nick MacAvoy discuss why now is the perfect time to be launching an online travel platform targeting the influencer market and how raising $2-3 million will fund its international expansion.
What does your business do?
Gray: Tripwell is a creator platform specifically designed for travel. It allows content creators to publish travel content and monetise that content through bookings. It gives consumers a place to discover unique travel ideas and inspiration directly from travel bloggers, videographers, influencers, bloggers and writers. Rather than getting information from large booking platforms, users are able to get ideas and recommendations for upcoming trips from people with real stories. The idea comes from a trend we've been seeing coined "social commerce"; the drive that gen Z and millennials have these days to not only book travel online, but buy directly from where they are getting inspiration from. We launched the business just last week, and to sum it up it's like Pinterest for travel.
What was your motivation for starting the business?
I took a bit of time off work a couple of years ago, pre-Covid, to travel. I wanted to do a lot and only had a few months; I wanted to go on a wellness retreat, to go diving, and places where I could eat great food, but I didn't know where to get [location] inspiration and recommendations from. I wanted to get advice from people I knew and those that had similar preferences to my own that I could trust, so at that point I followed quite a few travel bloggers and was looking through blogs, Instagram, YouTube and even Pinterest to get ideas and pulling together my own lists. During that it occurred to me that there wasn't a rich content platform available to enable consumers to discover content and book trips directly from where they were getting inspiration from, so I started talking to travel content creators to find out more about them, how they run their businesses and monetise their content, and how they engage with their audiences.
There was a bit of an underlying theme in that a lot of them were looking for alternative ways to make money and ultimately take a bigger slice of the overall revenue pie. Brands and partnerships are a big deal for content creators as one of the largest revenue stream generators but it does depend on the whims of brands and is often a one-time job, so I wanted to build something that provided the opportunity for creators to earn a passive income with all of their content available and easily discoverable.
MacAvoy: Unlike a social media platform like Instagram or TikTok, where only the newest material surfaces to the top, our platform enables all content - new or old - to stay evergreen. We create essentially a bit of a homepage, a central hub of creators' online social network, so all of their various accounts can connect up to Tripwell and when a consumer visits their Tripwell they can be directed off to whatever account is of interest. We aim to be a one-stop shop for all their online visitors.
How was the business funded?
The business has mostly been personally funded through myself, Nick and our chief product officer Liam Houlahan. We have also had some funding through Dovetail Ventures which is a New Zealand and Australian-based software agency and venture fund, but we're just launching into our seed round. It is still under wraps but we're busy right now talking to investors across Australia, New Zealand and the US. We're looking forward to closing the round and continuing to grow a world-class team and expand. We're looking to raise between $2-3 million, the final figure is in discussion with VCs.
How big is your team?
It is a team of three at the moment. We're currently raising enough for financing for 18 months to expand the platform globally and grow our team to around eight people.
You've been working on this business amid border restrictions and at a time where very little travel has been permitted. Why have you decided to launch now?
Gray: We had the idea for this pre-Covid. We were just a couple of months in working on the business when the pandemic hit. At the time we did wonder if this was the best time to be launching a travel platform. We took a contrarian view and noted that a world crisis like this was going to disrupt the travel industry in a major way, but out of that would come opportunity. We saw at the time, and seeing it even more so now, that travel is changing and the way that people are travelling and looking to travel in a post-Covid world is very different to what it was previously.
We're excited to be launching something that lends itself to the new ways people are thinking about travel. People are looking for more meaningful trips, more ways to travel locally - road trips are really popular right now, and so are slower-paced journeys. We're seeing a lot of people looking to travel locally to tiny cabins or places that aren't too far from their home, often in wilderness settings just to take some time out, so we're really looking into the ways people are thinking about travel. There are some large concerns and factors around safety and health and we're following that and making sure we have a platform that can adapt to those changing tides as the industry begins to grow again essentially. It's a great time to be launching now because we're just starting to see borders opening and people are getting more comfortable with the thought of travel.
MacAvoy: Creators have never been hungrier to get back out there and travel again and sharing that with their audiences so there is a real hunger from both sides that we and them will be able to capitalise on. In Europe and the United States, travel is already getting back to normal and we will be that way soon in Australasia, and probably see some pent up demand as well.
Gray: We're currently launched just in Australia and New Zealand, and we do think there is going to continue to be a lot of local travel until people become comfortable again, so we have a lot of interesting content and ideas available on Tripwell at the moment that is based on local travel in Australia and New Zealand but we do have exciting plans to start to expand globally later this year to include areas like Europe and the US as we see more international travel from Australians and New Zealanders.
How does Tripwell make money?
They way that we make money is through bookings. It doesn't cost creators or users anything to sign up. The largest revenue driver of the travel industry is bookings so we've injected ourselves into that booking flow. We pass consumers on to booking sites and booking partners, and for any bookings made we take a cut of the booking fee - a commission, and we pass some of that commission back on to the content creators.
It's similar to TripAdvisor in that they pass consumers on to other booking platforms, travel providers and partners to make a booking, where they too take a cut. We have over 20 booking partners on our platform so far.
MacAvoy: We make money when our creators make money. When a booking is made we give them approximately 80 per cent of the revenue that we receive.
What content creators and influencers are using Tripwell?
Gray: We have around 25 creators on the platform, including the top three NZ creators, including Stephanie Lai from The Travel Kid, Hamish Boyt and Craig Campbell. So far we have about 500 posts on Tripwell. We're talking to creators all around the world about joining, not just those based and living in Australia and New Zealand.
Where do you see the business in three to five years' time?
Long term we see a huge opportunity to enable anyone to publish and monetise their content on the Tripwell platform. We believe anyone has the potential to be a creator on the platform so our ambition is to empower entrepreneurs to reimagine themselves as travel creators and ultimately convert passions into profits. We plan to offer new ways for travel brands and businesses to connect with new audiences too.
The future of work is changing and a lot of people are turning to more freelance employment and especially so with disruption we've seen during the pandemic. There are a lot of new and really interesting creative platforms out there which allow individuals to pursue alternative ways of monetisation and convert their passions into profits, but one thing we haven't seen is a platform specific to travel content for people who want to create a business and livelihoods for themselves, so I think our platform will enable this.
The Government has recently announced self-isolation will no longer be required for fully vaccinated Kiwis returning to the country. What does this mean for a revival of the international travel industry?
MacAvoy: I expect a big boom in travel again. Our local tourism industry is also going to get a really big boost soon - just from returning Kiwis. I think we're going to see a big boom locally which is so needed and I know that Kiwis, myself included, are really desperate to get back overseas where possible.
What advice do you give to others wanting to start their own business?
Be bold about your vision and build out what you are setting out to achieve on a grand scale, that way you can keep focused on a true north. We've done that I think very successfully at Tripwell, ensuring that any decision we make points to that true north.
The Government has committed funding to the sector in an effort to support future plans.