Is your company bleeding, getting ready to die?
Are you waiting there for something to click?
I know some of you are hurting.
Well actually many of you are hurting.
We’ve estimated that potentially 40%- 50% of the startups we fund will eventually fail.
That’s painful news for us as investors but not as painful for what these entrepreneurs will go through.
On average 80%-90% of startups fail.
With all the incubators, accelerators, freelance communities and all the media surrounding startups lately you’d think that startups are increasing.
Startups are actually decreasing.
Many of you are bleeding right now dying a slow entrepreneurial death.
It’s painful. I know. I’ve been there.
All this talk of failure coming out of Silicon Valley I hear lately drives me a little crazy.
Yes, it’s ok to fail.
Yes, we learn from failure.
This is all true but failure hurts like hell.
Maine Creates was my first entrepreneurial death.
I died slowly and painfully. (more…)
Travel Startups Incubator is pleased to announce our investment in Jolie a luxury on-demand chauffeur service platform. Jolie focuses on connecting clients with professional ground service providers across the lifestyle industries, allowing for a luxurious, high-end travel experience. The on-demand chauffeur platform will roll-out beta service in New York City in Winter 2015. Unlike Uber, Jolie is targeted towards a discerning more affluent urban customer base.
Jolie is an online chauffeur platform that connects busy travelers to luxury transportation and lifestyle services. The startup combines the convenience of on-demand attention with an intuitive mobile app that allows travelers to leverage a comprehensive network of professional chauffeurs.
The platform benefits both chauffeur ground service providers and travelers with a custom user experience. The client-centered approach lets travelers stay in control by allowing them to set how much they want to pay for the service. Travelers can also make any number of special requests, for example, if they want a snack, a meet and greet at the airport, or even their favorite chauffeur, they can be sure their needs will be met. Furthermore, chauffeur service providers are able to organize their schedules and accept or reject incoming chauffeur requests without incurring penalties.
“What’s unique and different about Jolie is that they are building technology and tools for professional chauffeurs to be able to compete against the Uber’s & Lyft’s of the world while launching a high-end consumer mobile app, says Matt Zito, Managing Partner, Travel Startups Incubator. Ground transportation is the hottest vertical for investment in the travel industry in the last 2 years and this is our second investment in the category. We believe there is still more room in the market.”
“We are tapping into the new on-demand transportation and lifestyle services markets,” said CEO and Jolie Co-founder Tricia Miranda. “With Jolie, we aim to bridge the gap in travel between the planning of transportation and lifestyle services. Clients can rely on our app to indulge in a luxurious experience when they travel in their home city or while traveling further afield.”
“Jolie puts both the client and the ground transportation service provider in control. Service providers are able to maintain their brand and identity, and all providers on the platform are thoroughly vetted, giving the startup a network of trusted Chauffeurs.”
“We saw a winning combination of talent and experience in husband and wife team Jolie CEO Tricia Miranda and COO Edwin Miranda, who are working alongside highly experienced Co-founder and CTO Jon Lederman , says Nicole Zito, Managing Partner of the incubator.”
Mr. Miranda brings 4 years of transport industry experience to table, which gels with Mrs. Miranda’s deep understanding of the technology industry. The founders have risked everything to dedicate their time to the new venture.
“We realized that Jolie would make a really exciting company for both clients and service providers when we quickly gained traction through providing unique transportation services. It didn’t take long for hundreds of Chauffeurs to apply to work under our platform,” adds Mrs. Miranda.
Travel Startups Incubator is pleased to announce our investment in VidPal an On-Demand travel destination video platform launched in New York City. The VidPalTravel.com platform gives video freelancers paid opportunities to the freelance video community and gives the 56.4 million visitors to New York City an on-demand, video request service.
VidPal gives travelers the opportunity to request custom New York City-related videos before they visit the city. VidPal users choose a location on a map and describe their request, setting a deadline for it to be completed and a price they are willing to pay. Requests are only limited by what can be filmed. Freelance videographers can then bid on the projects that appeal to them, and earn “bounty” – the amount offered by the user requesting the video.
The service is free to sign up to and has a number of applications for travelers. For example, VidPal allows users to see what their hotel really looks like, or they may ask for a quick video guide to ten top off-the-beaten-track sights to visit during their trip.
VidPal is the brainchild of John Ortega, an entrepreneur and devout traveler. Ortega found that he was often missing specific, useful information about his destination when he took trips. The video request marketplace presents an elegant solution for travelers in a similar position.
Ortega sought out the help of qualified mobile domain expert, Jaime Gonzalez (formerly of Rocket Mobile and Dada Entertainment, child companies of mobile giant Buongiorno), to bring Ortega’s idea to life. Gonzalez, CTO of Vidpal and John Ortega’s partner believes that Vidpal’s patented video request platform enables users to reach out to videographers and incentivize them to provide unique videos about any location they are interested in. “Thanks to this platform and our exclusive bidding system, videographers can compete to provide tourists with the best video for their upcoming destination, says Gonzalez.”
We strive to accept and quickly process all kinds and formats of videos from users to enable our community to watch them on their favorite device, says Gonzalez.”
Ortega goes on to explain that “VidPal focuses on the travel industry in particular, aiming to help travelers to New York get customized information about their trip. Traveling to new places can be challenging, especially when they are as vast and exciting as New York City. I wanted to give people the chance to make the most of the eyes and ears on the ground, giving them an on-demand, customized service, and an advantage that they have never had before.”
The user-base is expanding rapidly and the service is expected to have 10,000 subscribers by October 2015. The startup is actively recruiting freelancers in New York to fulfill video requests aiming to find the best New York City video. The company plans to expand the on-demand video service to the global travel marketplace in the future.
“It is our hope that VidPal will become the premier on-demand video marketplace in travel, for just about any destination in the world,” adds Matt Zito, Managing Partner of Travel Startups Incubator.
“We will be providing job opportunities for freelancers and giving tourists an eye into what locals know about their destination, says Ortega.”
Along with Travel Startups Incubator, VidPal has partnered with Crowne Hotel Princeton and New York Tours. The startup also plans future partnerships with ExpoTv and GenVideo. The company’s cloud services provider is Rackspace Cloud.
Over the last few months we have moved into fundraising mode here at Travel Startups Incubator.
We just launched the Travel Technology Investor Platform to help our startups expand their reach in accessing angel investors, VCs and strategic investors (travel companies).
4 of our startups are working on raising series-seed capital right now between $500K-$1.2M.
Here at Travel Startups Incubator we’re looking to build out our team and fund more startups so we have started talking with investors as well.
I’ve been helping two of our startups with their decks and working on our own investor deck.
I started to notice something really weird about the investor decks and it was consistent.
Page 1 is really boring.
It didn’t tell the investor anything other than the name.
Here take a look at our initial page 1.
This is terrible.
No good! (more…)
The platform is the first of its kind in the travel technology industry, giving more exposure to travel tech startups as they seek to raise vital series seed funding.
Travel Startups Incubator (TSI) announced today the launch of its Travel Technology Investment Platform, a dynamic digital hub for travel tech startups in the incubator to connect directly with prospective investors. The platform also connects our founders with TSI’s own growing network of “Innovation Partners” — enterprise-level travel companies seeking business development deals for their APIs and services, and travel companies looking to acquire or license new technology from the incubator’s startups.
The Investment Platform creates a whole new space for TSI’ s growing portfolio of travel companies to connect and build profitable relationships with leading investors from around the world. Free for any accredited investors, the platform enables investors to have direct access to and communication with every startup in the TSI portfolio and view each company’s investment decks, presentations, videos, financials and traction updates. (more…)
