So, let me start by introducing myself. My name is André, and I am one of the founders and the CEO of Tryp.com.
I am a 27-year-old Portuguese engineer, living in Denmark for some years with my wife, Lini.
The Tryp.com idea started in 2019 when I was a university student. It was my first time going out of Europe, and I was traveling with Lini to meet some of her family in Xian, China. Xian is the city of the famous terracotta warriors so I was super excited about visiting the city, getting to know Lini´s family, and experiencing Asia for the first time!
But we had a whole month, so we also wanted to take the opportunity to visit different places. I had a summer course in Shangai to take and we were open to visiting other Asian countries.
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So… we started planning… We had dozens of tabs open, and were comparing prices like crazy and checking all dates and destinations to try to create an itinerary at a student price!
We ended up creating a route that was quite complex, going to Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Bangkok, Phuket, and Macau… but got it for way less than 1000 euros per person, which was pretty good:
Buying all the flights was a hassle, and managing everything, with all the dates, and check-ins were a pain.
In Shanghai, Pudong district, I had never seen so many people in my life together!
I thought a lot about the challenges of planning and booking a trip, and how the process could be easier. Also, thinking about the future patterns of travelers, I would say that more people will want to engage in the same travel style I did with Lini: Super flexible on where´s and when´s, open-minded and hungry to explore the unknown.
Our lifespan is short, and there are a lot of beautiful places to visit. The model of going to Thailand and just staying in a resort can work for some people. Still, many of us younger travelers (or the young-spirited ones!) will appreciate getting to know the country/region and having unique local experiences.
Already in Denmark, I called some friends in Portugal:
- Hélio, who was finishing a master's in AI
- Inês and Tiago, taking their masters in computer engineering
And also connected with some fellow colleagues at my Danish University, both software engineers:
- Sebastian, also in his last year, and passionate about front-end (what users see on the website)
- And Victor, in the first year of his master's, is passionate about infrastructure (the core system and processes that send and manage data to the front end)
We all had two things in common:
- We love entrepreneurship and creating products
- We love traveling and felt we could build a totally different travel platform that would create adventures like no one else.
We worked on the project initially in our free time, but things started evolving quickly. Covid meant we had plenty of time to focus on the product. In 2021 we already had a prototype.
The AI kept learning and improving and it reached a point when we all felt we had just created something quite powerful.
So in the summer of 2021, we started quitting our jobs, found our first investors and the team grew to a nice group of people, from all around the world.
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Since then, Tryp.com has been growing quickly and has reached millions of users. Our commitment is always to create the best adventures, from anywhere to anywhere, and putting our users first, offering great customer support, automated check-ins, and above all caring for them!
