Celebrating cultural differences (or, more tips for start-ups)
Last week's Travolution Summit experts threw out some pearls of wisdom for budding start-ups.
Most of the tips were from our US and Continental cousins and were as far ranging as you don't need lots of money to, go forward and have no fear!
Yesterday's start-up insight at the TTI Spring conference came from home and was, well, a little more conservative, although valuable nonetheless.
Ray Mason, former boss at travel.co.uk, had one critical question for over-excited entrepreneurs to ask themselves - "What is the point?"
The question is relevant for both new businesses and developing ones especially in the light of the current criticism being levelled at travel sites for their poor user experience and over functionality.
Ray broke down the question into the following key areas:
* Why are you doing it? Reaction to changing market, new opportunity, catching up with a competitor, improving existing site?
* Who cares? Is there a market for it, who is the target audience and how big is the market?
* How will it make money? Does it need to make money, what's the business model and are you confident of it?
It's enough to make anyone sit back and think for a few minutes. These guys have all been there, done that and some more than once.
It doesn't matter where you are from, the same clear messages are emerging - keep it simple, think about every step of the process, don't get carried away and of course, have fun!
The next evolution of travel businesses is going to be interesting to watch to see if and how any of this is taken on board.
But, to end of a lighter note - Visithuelva boss Mark Walker leaves us with the suggestion that anyone in charge of search engine madness should undergo psychological testing so they panic and spend uncontrollably.
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