Having worked with many startups, the majority of which were travel and tourism technology companies, I have noticed some characteristic anomalies. So often, these companies are composed of bright people who naturally lean towards technology being a solution for any problem they see occurring in the marketplace. This thought pattern can be a great skill; to connect technology to a problem and then try to turn that connection into a viable solution, those are skills sorely needed in our industry. However, it can also have a downside.
I often hear these bright folks make a connection between another successful technology company; for example, they might say, "well, you know how Uber does X" or "you know the way eBay does Y" or "I was looking at Spotify and I would like to do something similar with ______." Initially, this sounds like a very smart shortcut towards innovation. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, that process happens without any interaction with the potential end-user, customer, consumer, or party to whom they intend to be the primary user of their product. The choice of what to solve and the solution to pursue can become a result of a very personal perspective or abstract curiosity.
This foundation creates a huge issue later when it is time to market the solution. Why? Because an expert with an agenda has identified the problem. Not the consumer. It might be a problem. But is it the kind of problem that most people don't even see as a problem? It's as if the entrepreneur had a unique set of glasses on, not worn by anyone else, and was seeking this problem so that they could apply their technological solution. This has happened numerous times in the travel industry, Amazon and Facebook teams met with me in 2016 or 2017, both intended to move in and build a travel platform like nothing else – they didn’t get very far despite their enormous budgets, solid technology and consumer insights. They simply didn’t understand the nuance and complexity of both the industry and the travel consumer.
The second issue is that because the customer was not involved, the solution they offer may be different from the solution consumers are looking for or find the most appealing. This misdiagnosis is why so often in business, we find that the early innovative companies get overtaken by another company that perfects their technology and its application. It's a shame because early adopters and innovators should be rewarded for their work, but often that's not how it pans out. The travel and hospitality space has a fair number of examples here as well, acquisitions have become very common as larger players that are struggling to innovate gobble up and modify the work being done by startups.
This is so disappointing for me, because most of this could be prevented if, instead of trying to retrofit technology in an application and an imagined solution into the market, these entrepreneurs would go out and identify consumer problems that are real and that are being voiced by consumers and then build products from there! Where do you find these sources? Well, they're everywhere just go to sites where consumers are likely to discuss their pain points, engage with the comments, and learn more. There are abundant sources like Google reviews, yelp, TripAdvisor, Reddit, Amazon, Social Media platforms and so many others. Learn what real people are saying and ask what the bad reviews tell you about consumers. What common themes do you see that need a solution?
The downside, and perhaps the reason this doesn’t happen more, is that what you may find as you listen to travel consumers does not involve a sexy or hi-tech fix. The complaints may be mundane and not exciting enough to spark your interest, and that’s ok because there are other options. There are other segments and industries where technology works its way down to the consumers and forces adoption, I just don’t believe that travel, hospitality and tourism space presents that type of opportunity.
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