Latest / Reframe First / Andre Powell, CMO at TripForge | AI Plans Travel. Community Makes It Real.

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Andre Powell, CMO at TripForge | AI Plans Travel. Community Makes It Real. · Reframe First

• Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Free Frame First. I'm Alexey, host of the podcast. Let me welcome our today's guest, Andrew Powell, chief marketing officer at TripForge. Hey, Andrew, it's great having you here. Andre P: ⁓ I think of the travel advisors, I used to be one. ⁓ so the heart behind it is like, ⁓ well, are they going to replace my job? And for me, what it is is AI helps them save time as well. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Andre P: Hey, Olek, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I'm looking forward to this conversation. and has the potential for it so that they can have more of those interactions, right? The validation from not only the AI is one part, but if a travel advisor uses our application, it gives them also that kind of oversight to save them some time. But then they get to do that reference of, hey, yep, this was validated. I've looked into this, or I know about this. And they still have that ability to have that personal touch as well. I know a lot of people, especially when it comes to Oleksij Rak: Awesome, me too. So ⁓ I learned about the company is TripForge is ultimate travel copilot ⁓ you're trying to disrupt the travel planning industry by combining advanced AI technology with human data points, with real-time validations and to able to create individual personalized itineraries for your users. Could you us more about what you're building because there something about communities where like, what is TripForge about? Andre P: are Gen Z, are moving more social. And part of that community for us is going to be, hey, that's going to be their travel advisor. The validation is going to be the community piece. But for those that want to interact with the travel advisor and get their input and take So for us, TripForge is not just another AI option. While there is a huge push for integrating AI into everything, is truly, as you said, the ⁓ travel co-pilot. And we ⁓ this in this way because we don't want it running life. ⁓ It's to enhance what you're already wanting to do and designing to do. ⁓ We as far as with TripForge, they're gonna have the ability to run the itinerary, which saves them time and gives them ultimately more time to interact about the different locations that they're speaking to. ⁓ for them, they also get to play with the application themselves and say, ⁓ I'm talk, if I am an expert in say, the Bahamas, maybe there are places that have been interacted with on TripForge that they haven't thought of yet that are some of the hidden gems. It's about community with a dash of AI behind the scenes. Like that's how I like to look at it. are trying to not just plan trips. We're allowing people to forge confident in their travel ⁓ and decisions. ⁓ want people to really travel smarter, but also have a community ⁓ people that are doing traveling like them. And so I found when, as we... and then they can speak to it and they can also put in their input as well. And so it helps them be a better expert at what they're doing. And so our goal isn't to take away from that personal touch. Our goal is always to help our community grow more, those that are traveling on their own and how they want to travel. And then from the advisors, we want to enhance what you're already doing. You're bringing that personal touch to where Trip Forge is bringing the community touch. And so Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: get more into this conversation, we're going to talk about the heart of community and what that looks like. And as more and more people are experiencing things, other people want to experience very similar options. so from a TripForce standpoint, we want people to see other people and then on top of that, be able to build itineraries that are personalized to that person. ⁓ use what's called the ForgePrint. Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: both of them being able to talk together and mirror together and say, hey, we're recommending this here's kind of our data that's backing it up. ⁓ ⁓ kind of our goal behind the scenes. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a great story. So I would like to building that. So yeah, it absolutely makes a lot of sense. The social layer on top of AI-driven features, that's what I'm hearing more and more And people start looking ⁓ that direction. And ⁓ the way, about this topic, ⁓ you competitions? Who your competitor? Andre P: So if you think of your fingerprint, this is your travel fingerprint. And it's personalized right to the person. say you have dietary restrictions or allergies. This takes all of that into consideration when building out your itinerary. The second piece of it is the data validation that we love. From us, it hits both Google, Yelp, OpenTable for restaurants and... Hahahaha! Oleksij Rak: What competition are you seeing? How fast do you need to run? Andre P: event, but then it takes that step further and it brings weather into the mix. And so it's not going, if it's raining for two days on a vacation that you want it to go on, it's not going to send you to venues and parks and things that are outside in that rain, but it's going to align it more with what you desire to experience. Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: So right now, some of the competition that I am seeing is like the Layla AIs. There's one called Plenary that do a number of different things. And many of them are significantly bigger than we are right now. But I think for us, the thing that differentiates us from them is we are not just an AI-driven planner. Oleksij Rak: you Awesome, awesome. how do you call it? like, there are like already like few dimensions that I want to explore with regards to what you mentioned. First is like communities. It's not like the first time I'm hearing. Andre P: Our community behind the scenes is what makes and breaks this, right? Without a community, it's OK. You're just hearing the numbers that other people are putting out there. But with our community, with the people that are traveling actually experiencing these things, the hidden gems that they're ⁓ within the community, ⁓ mom and pops that you might not have heard of ⁓ Google, they exist, but they aren't necessarily the best ranked. Oleksij Rak: So I'm seeing the trend of a few recent recordings that I had in this podcast. not only about the transactional part of the travel purchase. It's also something on top of that. And it's about communities, community as an added value as social layer on top of just transactional Andre P: Right. Oleksij Rak: So like, how do you approach that? Like what exactly is, what exactly are your communities about? Andre P: what we're bringing towards the travel industry. And I think even when our competitors see us, they might tail and run. ⁓ we are coming to ⁓ a name for ourselves ⁓ Trip4Gem. We believe that we have a lot of great things going for us. And as we move forward in that. So for us, the community that we are building out in TripForge, goal within the application ⁓ to have that social aspect. Whereas people are building out their itineraries and taking their photos and dropping their photos into the application, ⁓ gives them the opportunity to connect also with, ⁓ your travel style is very solo travel. Well, We want this to really be the co-pilot that people are relying on and going to for all their travel needs. And our goal eventually is to have that interaction or integration with other partners that will allow them to not only look at the itinerary, but book it within app. And so that's part of, if I had to say 365 days from now, There are other solo travelers, even from our creator's standpoint, that are within the app posting their images and posting their experiences. And so it gives that first layer of, like that picture that Forger in, Switzerland was to take. Let me go and see how we can integrate that into my trip to Switzerland. Or even the state side, hey, ⁓ I'm going Arizona for the very first time this summer. We would love to have those interactions, those partnerships that allow us not only to build out the itinerary, but even in that moment, you want to book it, book it now. And they can do that right in their itinerary versus having to go to anything else to do that. So for me, it's like, hey, what can Trip Forge bring to me and who's already been there to where I'm going? And so we get that opportunity to really connect with people. We're going to the point where we're going to be building out profiles, like that whole community. Think of a mixture of Pinterest, Instagram, focused around travel. That's what I think of it as. You get to see the beauty of the... Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's the biggest part because you're moving from inspirational level because before Travelo takes Max's decision, it's about 20 steps that he needs to get inspired, reconsider, get with his partner or have partner and so on and so forth. So yeah, it's about 20 steps. When you're on step one, you're not making money. the one is on the last step. Andre P: Right? Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Andre P: Mwahahahaha Oleksij Rak: All the way to the last step, that's about it. So as long as you have the end product and your product is itinerary, and as long as you have all the options to bookable, you can package this deal and sell it. And then you are the one who is selling the product rather than expiring the traveler. Awesome. Good luck with all of that. That's a big, big piece of work ahead. you Andre P: different experiences. the next step is, hey, I want to go on that experience. You can add it to your itinerary or build an itinerary around it that is personalized to who you are. Oleksij Rak: And how do you build it? understand it's ⁓ like kind of work in progress or ⁓ it already something ⁓ see and touch? Andre P: Yeah, yeah. it is ready to see and touch. It is in a web app form right now. And we have been building around the clock since, I to say, late August, time frame of last year. And. Hahaha! ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Like from my experience in travel, that's like decent amount of work. But yeah, that's a great challenge. was really great discussion. Like before wrapping up, do we anything else to add on? Andre P: Yeah. It's functioning, people are out actually actively using it. We've entered a new bunch, a bunch of different functions from geo tagging to fencing in certain areas. So for a one day trip, if you're in a specific area, we're trying to keep you in that area. If that's where your focus is, ⁓ have that opportunity to really ⁓ out what's going on in that area. And our ForgePrint allows people ⁓ ⁓ I think one of the big things for me is is one of the few things that still changes how we see the world, right? ⁓ we interact with others, how we ⁓ people that we've never interacted with before. Trip Forge is about making that transformation easier, right? Helping people move from curiosity to confidence and to just go, to get up and go. Like we want every experience to ⁓ something that you are in way is pleased about. tailor that trip to them without having to do much active looking. Now they can validate most of the stuff that we've already validated based off of what their likes are and say, well, I want to try this purse, this place versus this place. And so for us behind the scenes, are, AI is taking the information that is brought to it, that is given to a per the user. And then it's referencing it based off of from your interaction to the people, the culture, to the location, the foods. We want that to be fine-tuned in such a way that you go and you just enjoy everything of it. And so that's really the heart behind us with this community that we're building, with the application that we're building. We want to make sure that people are able to get up and just go. the specifications that they've added to their profile. So if there is a budget, if there is amount of time that they're staying into, it's taking all of these things into consideration and it prints out this nice itinerary. And if there are other forgers that have been in there, they'll see pictures from those places as well. And so it's not them going in blind. It gives them an opportunity to really engage with places that they may have never been to yet, but it piques that interest a little bit more as well. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's good. Great inspirational speech to end this conversation. So thanks a lot, Andrey, for coming over and for sharing your thoughts on what you're building. And best of luck for you and your team achieve that. Andre P: You Thank you so much, Oleg, for the opportunity and look forward to connecting with you soon. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Yeah, I hope to reiterate in a year's time and chat with another billionaire. Good luck becoming one. Thanks, Andrea. Thank you. Bye. Andre P: Hahaha! Oleksij Rak: Yeah, And like also one of the biggest like troubles in this industry is to get... Andre P: Thank you, thank you. Bye bye. Oleksij Rak: able to tailor your providing the best possible recommendations for your user, you need to know your user. In one of the conversations with Jeff from Trippia, that's a company that has a lot of points of interest and they're building some automated itineraries, he mentioned discussion like travel is not Netflix, Netflix knows everything about users, Google knows everything about users. travel, especially since travel happens occasionally, once a once every half a year or something, and people are not so loyal to the brand, it's really hard to get some data about your users to be able to plan, to build the itineraries that are really personalized and individual. How do you plan to approach that in terms of personalization, in terms of collecting information about you? Andre P: And so one of the things for us is the application, are grabbing the opportunity to grab those geo tags directly from the users. ⁓ We what we call the trip for ⁓ the vault, which allows users to drop their pictures and things into the application in itself. And so it gives us those data points of, Hey, how are people that are have said, I'm a solo traveler or I'm a family traveler. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. you Okay. Andre P: how are they traveling and where are they going? And so those data points help us better frame out, ⁓ well, if we've seen 25 family travelers to a specific hidden gem in a ⁓ we wanna make sure that anybody else that's saying, we're family travelers, we're trying to find these hidden gems or off the beaten path places, we have that data that ⁓ to it. ⁓ then the AI can throw those data points to the people. And it then also will the geo tags. and show them the pictures and so forth that are associated with it. Like I said, they're not going in blind to their experience. They have an opportunity not only to find the landmarks that people are so used to, which many people are trying to get away from because it takes too long to get to them, but they're looking more for those experiences, more for the opportunity to find a hidden gem that meets what you're trying to experience while you're there. And so we're grabbing all the data points that. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Andre P: people are putting in to kind of gauge and then behind the scenes, letting it play with the AI and say, hey, well, it comes down to dietary restrictions ⁓ and that's a group, right? That is a group that, hey, we have a number of restaurants. There might be a food tour option or opportunity that speaks to your dietary needs. And so all the data points that we pull are coming from. our community and the more people that are logged into it, the quicker the community builds, the more data points we have. And our goal is essence to get away from being to validate what is in our database to what Google and OpenTable and all are saying of what's available and do a smack merge of them and see, okay, well, here's the best layout based off of what the tribe. Oleksij Rak: you you Andre P: Our community has said is tribe approved versus what Google is saying where you should be going. And so we want to give them the best of all the worlds. Oleksij Rak: Do you provide an option to follow some other members of the community or is it just general knowledge that you collect from the whole community that can be used by some machine learning or whatever algorithms suggest something similar to other users? ⁓ Andre P: So right now it is in the phase of a general, because we're building, so once we get into the app, the actual app version that'll be iOS and Google, Android applicable, once we're in that version, ⁓ will be a profile that is now associated to, so. Oleksij Rak: Jao Andre P: for everybody, they have their own profile that personalizes to them. We're going to be adding the, hey, the profile pictures, the ability to follow different travelers, different forgers throughout the application. And so goal is to really build a community of travelers to the point where they're forging through travel experiences together versus, hey, yeah. One person went here, one person went here, and now we're seeing what everybody else is doing. Hey, build the community in such a way that now they're wanting to travel with one another. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Yeah. That's that makes sense. want to know where Andrew went last month, you know, for Christmas. Yeah. With regards like, especially with regards to your role, about marketing and about promotion. Andre P: Hahaha Hahaha! Oleksij Rak: It's like kind of like AI app which can enable you and search for you, like kind of AI agent, AI app that's exposed on internet through the web. How you plan to bring users there? Because Google kind of that, not that, but it's a bit broken from what we experienced recently. ⁓ Andre P: Mm-hmm. So for me, yeah. Yeah, yeah. our heart behind it really ⁓ going to be our creating our creating team. Most of our marketing is done by active travelers. And so a lot of the videos that you'll see on our Instagram, the blog that we have are from our creative team and they are actively traveling from Miami to Detroit in the States, but then they're going all over the world as well. And so the content that we're using is generated with purpose, right? We ⁓ wanting to show that that is the heart. behind what we're building, the community. And so they make out most of our advertising. don't want it to be preachy advertising. We want it to be, hey, you've seen an experience. We can align you with that experience versus, ⁓ come and try Trip Forge because it's the best AI for travel. No, that's not. No, ⁓ we people to say, hey, there's the Trip Forge tribe that is doing amazing things. ⁓ and we see their videos regularly, we wanna join those experiences. How can we? And then Trickforge comes into play and they have that opportunity to really create their profile and try it out and really walk through it. are a number of people that I engage with regularly ⁓ we started this. And I tell you, I talk to them at this point, it's almost every day. from looking at their videos, looking at their feeds, to really being able to call them friends, saying happy birthday before people, know, people online are telling them happy birthday. We are truly about building that community, that community that goes into the line of family. There is a beauty with how we approach and treat family that... Oleksij Rak: Okay. you Andre P: Meeting friends is one thing, but when you treat family a certain way the grace that is given to family the the love that is given to family and when you're doing it with people that you have chosen to be family There is a totally different experience with every Travel experience and so that's that's the heart behind what we we are doing here at trip forage and that's what we want to be Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: want people to see in our marketing. That you're another part of the family or your family that we haven't met yet. That's one of my favorite savings when I get to meet some of the creators via our Instagram. It's, hey, you're just family I haven't met yet. So let's build that. Let's build that relationship. Oleksij Rak: you you That's awesome. That's a great one because regular marketing channels do not really work that efficiently anymore. Everybody is trying to market something and being just another AI app, you will not get far with it. But building communities, that's what I hear more and more. You need to rely on other people willing to spread word about you. Andre P: And if you invest the time in people, they are more likely to give you the genuine feedback on things. And so I have found that when you build community, as we are, ⁓ they're using the application, they say, hey, what this? They feel and know that they actually have buy-in to what we're really creating. And that is one of the things that's also going to set us apart. Like we are actively taking feedback from those that are engaged, that are using the application regularly. We met one couple is traveling together ⁓ they tell everybody now that they're traveling about Trickforge because they enjoy how. Seamless it functions they enjoy the opportunity to drop their photos in and see other people's photos but it takes away from that time of sitting at the computer and just droning on trying to do all the clicks in from trip from ⁓ Travel Ossetys and the googles and all the cross references of everything trip forage brings a lot of that to one location and It builds it out for you. So then you can go and review it Oleksij Rak: you you Andre P: as if, okay, hey, let me check and see if this really aligns with me. And from their feedback alone, we've made some enhancements to the application and we're looking forward to doing a lot of that, especially with Gen Z. Gen Z is one that is very experience driven. ⁓ know that as we are talking to some of our ⁓ Z creators, Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Andre P: They're about those specific experiences that might be off the beaten trail, right? That everybody's not going to that mom and pop restaurant that has the most amazing food in Sicily or, you know, it's a venture or a zip line in the canopies of the rainforest that most people don't necessarily know about. And so our goal there is to make sure that within our application, we are taking into consideration how people really want to travel. And Oleksij Rak: you you Yeah, that's a great concept of tribes and from what they hear and like, yeah, they're being aligned to some certain communities. talking about Gen Z, they want you to follow them on every single social media and social network, through every single channel. Like what ⁓ your plans there? ⁓ Andre P: aligning them with the community that is doing just that. So when it comes to the channels primarily for us, we're going to be focused between the app, TikTok and Instagram. Those are kind of our primary focuses right now as we're building out the opportunity, really getting to know who's out there, who's traveling, who's engaging, who really wants to be in community versus kind of doing their own thing. There are a number of travelers that we have seen out there that are wanting... other people to follow them and not necessarily wanting to engage. It's just, no, follow me because I'm doing amazing things. Where our focus is more so, hey, we are building community of people that are doing amazing things and we know that you want to enjoy and do amazing things as well. of our ⁓ likes luxury travel. and she travels in such a way that you're not breaking the bank, but you still get that luxury experience. And one of the things about Trip Forge is we're bringing those pieces, those opportunities to the community. So people are able to see, well, I can do luxury travel on the cheap, if you will, if you want to consider it on the cheap. But it gives them that opportunity to also engage. so in the future, as we build into those profiles, ⁓ opportunity to... Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: connect with, the opportunity to engage with via chats and communities and things of that nature. going to offer them the opportunity to ⁓ from one another. That thought process came from ⁓ school, application school, where people are building out lessons and things. We want to incorporate some of that. Because who wants to travel hard when there's some ⁓ easy Oleksij Rak: you you Andre P: travel hacks that are available that people are talking about. And so we want that to also be, want it to be a learning experience as well. Oleksij Rak: Okay, yeah, yeah, got with regards to, like touched a bit on Gen Z, we touch a bit on AI, like ⁓ this of market trends, like what do see in markets, like probably post COVID or maybe in recent like ⁓ year or what has changed, where is going? Andre P: So a lot of the trends that I've seen from the move to just basic searching as we mentioned to social is very social driven Even a number of other travel applications that we kind of looked at to see what they were doing to make sure that we weren't running in the same path as them some of them are very AI driven they take a picture in it and that's what they build it around versus that social aspect Some ⁓ are it off of videos Right? They see a video, they're like, ⁓ hey, let me get these videos in front of you. And so that aspect we see coming around more, more people going from just searching places to, ⁓ saw this person, this creative, ⁓ saw this display or video online and I want to go there. And so I think that's changing. And that ⁓ beautiful for us, because that's where our heart is, right? The social, the family building, that's where it is. of the others I see is, of course, ⁓ is not going anywhere. It's changing the way we look at things, the way we validate things. And I think for us, ⁓ AI can really inspire a trip, but I think the thing that makes us different is ⁓ add that validation. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Okay. Andre P: that gives travelers the confidence of, I'm going to experience what is said. Because you can make a lot of things with AI that make something look better than it is. But we want to make sure that validation piece behind the scenes. That's one of the reasons why we incorporate the community as much as we do. Because if they're going there, We want you to be able to see, this is a real place. This is actively where people are going and experiencing what they're experiencing. And that's what you want to experience. You can experience that same thing. And you don't have to guess, ⁓ does that place actually look like that? No, you can see it for yourself. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah. I recently heard stories like people coming to some destination with a photo on their phone and it's not like, we want to go there. And like destination management companies like this place doesn't exist. Andre P: Yeah. It's like, place has been closed for years. What? Oleksij Rak: I know I've seen it on Instagram, it's like some cave restroom. We have a cave here, but there is no restaurant. Andre P: that's one of the things that I think from our database standpoint, the more people that we have building the database with us, right? The more people we have tagging their locations, their photos, inputting into trip vault, the better our AI will Because it's so much driven on that community and the validation piece of, hey, we said that this place was at this location. it's definitely at this location. You're not going to, if there is a house that was built in the mountain, there is actually a house that was built in the mountain that people can actually go and see. And that's one of the reasons why we didn't want it to just be so focused ⁓ the AI piece of it. We want it to be more focused on the people that are actually actively having those experiences. And when people see it and it is validated by more than one person, it's more likely that more people will go and visit it and it helps us out, but it also helps the businesses, those mom and pops that are doing some amazing things that most of us haven't even heard of yet. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. like, how do you make people like leave all these data points in your platform? Like, what makes them do that? There should be something I get in return for coming over to your platform and just leaving all this information. I've been there, I've there, I've experienced this or that. Is it like community layer or do you like some other, I don't know, growth hacks? How to achieve that? Andre P: ⁓ so ⁓ So our heart behind this is also to get in front of the tourism boards and different product companies as well that we can offer different benefits. if there is a community or a company, let's say a backpack company or a luggage company that is associated with us, if they give us a discount, we give that to everybody. It's not just, hey, we're giving this to TripForge because they've built a partnership. No, we want everyone in that community to have that touch point. So if they're traveling and they're looking for luggage, there's an opportunity. ⁓ hey, we have, because you're part of this network, because you're part of this family, here, take the family code and get a discount on your luggage. Or maybe there are places like Tour Radar that are building out tour trips and things of that nature, we work with companies similar to that. So anything that we as a company get goes back to our users. Our goal is ultimately to keep this application free for everybody that's using it. And so that takes some work, that takes some ⁓ building the data points, that takes some people trusting us enough to say, like we said from the beginning when you came on, Oleksij Rak: you Andre P: As we benefit, you benefit as well, and so will the rest of the community. This is not just you traveling alone giving us data points. This is, hey, we are building a tribe together. And in that tribe, everyone eats together. When we win, everyone wins. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Yeah, that's a community story. Yeah, but the community, if people get shared benefits, so they're willing to participate to contribute. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. What other trends do you see? Andre P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oleksij Rak: You've like, we discussed like AI, Gen Z, and now you mentioned like being inspired by something they see on internet, like inspirational part. Well, what other trends do you see? And what do you think? Like you see that the rest of the market doesn't. ⁓ Andre P: Oh, so one of the things that I am seeing is a lot of travel companies and organizations are fighting for the same space, right? And because we're trying to fight for the same space, it makes it really difficult to advertise well for just advertisement space. And so part of us, part for us is I think that's why it's so important for us to be in the social. networks with people and really gravitating to the community sharing the heart behind trip forge. If the community is the one doing it, then we aren't necessarily reliant on those bigger ones that everybody's fighting for trying to get windows and is driving up prices there. So even the startups can't necessarily without paying an arm and a leg, so to speak, to get into a good prime spot. And so if the community is already doing it and the community is growing, that's also for us as well. When it comes to us building our marketing, if look at our pieces, we very rarely say anything trip forge. Most of will come from the creators that are having these ultimate experiences. For example, we have ⁓ a community is very pet friendly. and then service animal oriented. As part of that community, one of our creators travels often, whether at different hotel stays and so forth. But because it's such a niche of pet friendly and actually going to places where the pet can roam off leash if need be and is truly welcome, that was one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we cover. so people that that's what Trip Forge is ⁓ to. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you Andre P: as part of the community to drive people into those more pet friendly, right? Because a lot of people that don't have kids have pets. And so with that trend as well, we want to make sure that they are, they feel visible, they feel seen. And that's why we have creators in that niche really building out content for training. If there's a service animal, they have that ability to engage there. If it's just, they're looking for pet friendly places so they don't have to board. their pets somewhere, we want that to be accessible as well. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. All these trends, ⁓ all these changes that were in the market, I doubt have touched you because you're just building up the company, so you're one year old. Andre P: Yeah. one year old, yep. Oleksij Rak: Because usually I'm trying to ask like, where did this change touch you and where did you experience some issues? But still, do you experience any issues with the current changes in the market, in the whole industry? Andre P: So I think some of the biggest challenges we are facing with is there's a lot of volatility in just keeping technology working, right? There are companies that are building massive digital footprints, whereas the smaller guys are coming up and saying, hey, well, how can we attach to yours to get some leverage in what we're trying to do and trying to ⁓ And that can be a challenge because we have to piggyback. off with someone else for the time being, and then say they fail. they go down ⁓ an outage ⁓ a day or two. That affects us as a whole, because now we can't, now people can't really engage like they want to. And so we have to pivot and we have to build all these things ⁓ the behind the scenes to keep us up and running. Whether it's, hey, we have to pay a little bit more, but have multiple models available to us to run our AI from. I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges that I've seen. I know that we see a lot of decision fatigue, ⁓ people having to make decisions and having to figure out all the pieces. so because of it, think it we, we help alleviate some of that. We take a lot of that extra pressure off. We save people time and people say time is money. Yes. And experiences are better when you have the time to do them. Oleksij Rak: you Yeah. Andre P: And if we spend so much time on the front end doing one thing, by the time we get to the experience, it's like, okay, yeah, we're gonna do this and be exhausted as well. Our goal is to give you some of your time back. Oleksij Rak: And do you think like that the emerging AI agents are a threat for your model? Like, because they're like ⁓ and more like ⁓ agents that are emerging on the market that can do like a lot for you. And ⁓ saying like, you're solving like, you're saving time for you. for people in your community to like explore, to book, investigate, that kind of stuff. ⁓ so can do the AI agents, like how are you? Like where are you better than like ⁓ AI that can be run? Like, hey, no, not Siri, Siri's ⁓ still dumb. But at point, Siri will become smart and like, hey Siri, book me something. ⁓ Andre P: Yeah, no and Oleksij Rak: I've seen something beautiful in Arizona. Here's the picture, like, build me something, you know? Andre P: Yeah. And you know that for us now, we wanted to make sure that we got in the door first in that area, right? Because there are going to be a lot of AIs that are going to build to where we are. But knowing what we saw was missing, we jumped into the market and started building it immediately. And so for us, our goal is, hey, we're here first. You recognize us first? Yes. They might have a bigger name. but you've been with us for a long time. And so that discovery and validation we're already doing, right? The geo tagging and discovery from geo tagging, we're already doing. The community driven travel that we're focusing, that's, you know, those things we're already doing that, right? And so for us, because we're on the market where we are, we found ourselves in a niche where there is so much potential before everybody else gets there. And so as we are building this out, This is also why we're taking that community feedback very seriously. Because if we can build it in such a way to where we set ourselves apart, either one of two things are going to happen. We're going to be a multi-billion dollar company or somebody that is already making those things that, hey, we want to buy what you've already done. those are the two options ⁓ ⁓ are driving towards. We want to make sure that TripForge is holding not holding the market, but leading at the beginning of innovation with this with this community-driven travel. We want to make sure that we are at the forefront of it. And so if we're talking a year, two years later ⁓ about this conversation, ⁓ tell you where we are and who we're ahead of in what we're doing already. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I hope in like here's time we will be chatting with you again and I will be proud that I know another billionaire. I knew the guy before he became one. yeah. ⁓ like but kind of jokes apart. Andre P: Hahaha! You Oleksij Rak: think where you plan to be in one or two years time, what you're building right now. What are your closest plans? What you're trying to build now? Where do you want to be in half a year, year time? Because you're a start block, you're very dynamic. So talking about two years, it's too far. Where do you want to be in half a year? And what's the time pressure? Because there is always a time pressure. Andre P: Well Yeah, so I think in the next six months, our goal is to have our application integrated into iOS and Android. The ability to ⁓ go an AMP interface, from the web interface to the AMP application interface, ⁓ is going be the heart of what we do in the next six months. We are ⁓ our geofencing, on our day We have a function out there right now that we call the surprise me package. You hit surprise me and it literally based off of how you travel, it puts together an itinerary for you at a location with all of the pieces that speak to who you are as a person. But in six months, our goal is to have the app fully running, integrated, the community building and really have that learning community aspect live. have the, we within the community now, people have the trip vault. That right now is kind of the the pin for right now of what we're building out as far as people interacting and is very general. But want it to get to the point where it's ⁓ only specialized, but now you're talking to the real people that have done these things. There are a number of our travelers that have gone 50 ⁓ or more, right? Seeing what they're putting in will draw other people as well as just as we move things forward. Oleksij Rak: See. Okay. Andre P: that data will already be available to people as they're coming into the application. So in the next six months, there will be an app interface via OS, ⁓ Android, via whatever other options are out there. ⁓ people will actively be engaged. ⁓ would love to see upwards 2,500. ⁓ users in the next six months. I know once the app is up and running, amount of people that are going to actively be using it and creating counts within it is going to skyrocket. But now while we're in this phase of building it out and really fine tuning it, the web app ⁓ enough get people engaged and really start building out the database. Oleksij Rak: Do you also think about some chat apps, ⁓ bots or something like that? Because people are getting used more and more to chat with any kind of like, so like software interface with ⁓ kind of agent or anything like, I don't know, WhatsApp, ⁓ whatever. Andre P: And so seen a number of chat bots ⁓ interfaces that are out there. And we have talked a little bit about in keeping one for the time being to kind of get, as we're getting things started and really building it out so that they can have a valid conversation based off of what we're building. But then we also like ⁓ personal touch that we have. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Andre P: It's still is not off the table, but because there are a lot of people that are effective chat bots out there and doing some amazing things, we want to take all of those things into consideration ⁓ and may be a bot in there, but we want that bot to be checked as well, right? So we want to make sure that what it's putting out is valid and has been validated by the data that we have. So ⁓ there's There will be, some extent, what that looks like in our application. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Because I recently had a chat with a guy who is building agents for ⁓ for instance. And the idea is like AI agent does not really care what medium to use. It can be WhatsApp bot or it can be voice code, it can be anything, know. For AI agent, it's just channel of communication. And like your startup is about like AI driven itinerary creation and stuff. like agent is already there. like the medium does not, should not be like... Andre P: Mm. Oleksij Rak: Like agent does not really care about the medium itself. Andre P: right. long as people can get to it, ⁓ doesn't care. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of these mediums are different distribution channels that are good for Gen Z kind of travelers because they want to be everywhere, you know? Andre P: Yeah, it's like I want to be on this app versus and this app and this app. Yeah, no, I. We wherever we can get to where the people are where the community really is, want to make sure that they have what they need when they come here. Oleksij Rak: Okay. ⁓ Yeah. With regards to the AI-driven itinerary creation, over the last couple of conversations I had, hearing more and more that AI cannot replace human touch layer on top of that. Because you can do with AI a lot. You can create itineraries. can automate a lot. You can use as a tool. But... people still trust the other