When we plan a trip we can spend hours looking for destinations, tickets or tourist guides on the internet.
But imagine being able to instantly find out what trips are available from the nearest airport, with personalized dates, location, and price specifically for your budget and time.
All these services are compiled by a single moldovan startup – Teleportravel, with which we introduce you today.
Startup Moldova: Tourism startups make us rethink the destination and the services we are ready to pay for. How do you differ from other tourism startups?
Teleportravel: Teleportravel is a marketplace with ready-made routes for travelers who want to save time in travel planning, while providing earning opportunities for itinerary authors.
Currently on the platform we have over 80 tourist routes in 15 European countries created by 34 enthusiastic travelers.
Our platform is a guide through which you can find out about non-tourist places in Moldova and Europe. It is also a platform where any traveler can create their own routes and even sell them.
Startup Moldova: Where did the idea for this startup come from, what is its necessity?
Teleportravel: The history of the platform dates back to 2014, when we started Pub Crawl Chisinau – a type of tour known worldwide in which tourists drink beer and shots in several pubs in a row, then go to a nightclub.
After the launch of Pub Crawl, other interesting projects followed, in which I decided to automate the guide work, because I am not a guide and I never wanted to be one, but I always wanted to help tourists get to know my city and country in -a better way. Since I was also involved in digital marketing, I decided to create an online messenger guide (chatbot) that would lead such tours in my place. Such as City Tour and Wine Tasting Adventure. This format was liked by tourists.
After a while, I realized that I was probably not the only one and that there were other people who wanted to share their routes and maybe even make money from them. Since then, the idea has evolved in the Marketplace, where tourists receive ready-made routes for a day and do not waste time on research, while the author earns money.
Startup Moldova: What were the biggest difficulties you encountered at the beginning of the journey?
Teleportravel: The biggest challenge was to fill the platform with content and convince the authors to create routes. At that time there was no such platform in the world; more precisely, as it turned out later, several similar projects were launched at the same time as us. Because of this, we later had to argue the benefits we offered to potential authors.
And, of course, the technical part was not easy either. Creating something from scratch is always much harder than it might seem. We have worked (and continue to work) a lot on the itinerary creation form, as this is the central element of our platform.
Looking back, I can confidently say that it is important to study the success and failure stories of other start-ups, because we are all repeating the same mistakes.
Startup Moldova: What is the target customer segment? Do you already have real customers? If yes, who and where are they from?
Teleportravel: Our target audience is families with children and groups of friends between the ages of 25 and 45 who are looking for a weekend getaway. The main customers are the people of Moldova, the diaspora and tourists who come to our country to discover something new. However, our audience is gradually growing as new destinations and routes appear in different countries. We actively study them and test new hypotheses to attract and retain them.
Startup Moldova: Have you managed to attract investments in startups? How you managed? From whom?
Teleportravel: Our investments so far have been made by Angel Investors. I received them through the XY Partners acceleration program. Now with a new platform, we are getting ready for the Seed stage.
Startup Moldova: Who are the people behind your platform?
Teleportravel: At the moment our team consists of 3 people: I, Stas Balaur, am the founder of the platform, Iacunina Eugenia – Co-founder and Community manager and Alexandru Vopilov – Co-founder and developer.
Startup Moldova: What are your plans for growth and development?
Teleportravel: We are now in the process of expanding into European countries, we want to upload to the platform over 150 routes from bloggers and travelers from 50 countries by the end of the year.
We recently launched a new service that allows us to take over the entire process of organizing a teambuilding or a personal vacation: from creating an individual route to booking a hotel and making all payments in advance.
We are also in the process of receiving a grant for the development of sustainable tourism in Moldova, and we would like to introduce some interesting tools to help tourists identify their footprint and pay attention to the environmental situation in Moldova. country and begin to travel consciously without harming the environment.
Startup Moldova: We wish you much success in carrying out any plan you set up! Congratulations on your success so far and thank you for getting to know the community!
We invite you to get to know better Teleportravel on their official website and keep following the #CunoasteComunitatea rubric to learn about local startups on their way to success!
