Pere from Colorado: The Nigerian Co-Founder Changing How We Travel with Trameter
Trameter Gets you Personalized Travel Packages in Under 45 Seconds
CATEGORY: TRAVEL + TECHNOLOGY + INNOVATION
AFI: What is Trameter, and What inspired you to create Trameter?
Trameter is a travel-tech startup that simplifies vacation planning. Our app creates personalized trip packages in seconds based on your budget and preferences to anywhere in the world. Inspired by the frustrations of traditional travel planning, we built Trameter to streamline the process and combat overtourism. We've been developing Trameter for 4 years and are now expanding beyond iOS. About 51% of people would visit a previous destination just to avoid the research and planning process for a new one. These reasons were enough to inspire my co-founder and me to start Trameter. Our app helps travelers save time and avoid the overwhelming research and planning process. By providing tailored trip options, we encourage travelers to explore new destinations and contribute to sustainable tourism.
We’re based out of Denver (Colorado) and have been building Trameter for the past 4 years. We’re a team of 10 and will expand the next year as we scale the product beyond iOS to Android and Web.
AFI: Can you share your experience transitioning from Nigeria to the US?
My journey from Nigeria to the US was a family dream. I pursued computer science and human-computer interaction degrees in the US, inspired by a childhood dream of becoming a robotics engineer. Soon after, I also got my MSc in Human-Computer Interaction, which was when I got the idea for Trameter. My Nigerian upbringing has shaped my understanding of different cultures and influenced my approach to designing Trameter, especially in how it can personalize itself to different people and meet their needs like a friend who knows them. This also influenced my decision to personalize Trameter to each country rather than build one product for all.
AFI: How does Trameter differentiate itself from existing travel apps?
Trameter is a revolutionary travel app that simplifies vacation planning. You only need to enter your details, such as your destination, budget, dates, and other preferences, and Trameter instantly delivers personalized package options within your budget in 45 seconds or less. Trameter is absolutely free to use. We've partnered with major travel companies to offer over 2 million hotels and 95% of flights worldwide. Our achievement is a rare feat in the travel industry – in fact, what we’ve built has been tagged the holy grail of travel.
We are bringing an end to the stressful research and manual comparisons. Trameter streamlines the process by finding and combining the best flights, hotels, and experiences for your trip. Our advanced algorithms analyze your preferences and budget to create tailored packages that suit your expectations. We are licensed to book travel globally, so Trameter controls the entire process without redirecting you to any third party.
AFI: What resources, training, online courses, or certifications prepared you for this innovation?
I studied computer science and human-computer interaction, laying the foundation for Trameter's algorithms. My co-founder, a seasoned travel professional with over a decade of experience, brings her expertise in hotel management and customer service to the table. Together, we combine our knowledge to create a seamless and personalized travel experience for users. She’s a licensed travel agent with over a decade of experience in the travel industry. She has worked with Amex Travel and has a degree in Hotel Administration. She’s the Olivia Pope of travel, just without the fame.
AFI: Who is Trameter's ideal user? Are there specific demographics or travel styles you cater to?
Vacationers! Trameter is for anyone taking a vacation, holiday, or trip where they need both accommodation (hotel) and transportation (flight). This could be for solo trips, birthdays, group trips, graduations, or anything else. Trameter can handle any budget. In cases where your budget might be too low, the app automatically finds the closest package to your budget without any further instruction. Give it a shot!
AFI: How did you raise your start-up fund, and how does the app generate revenue? Are there partnerships with travel providers or other revenue streams planned?
We are fully bootstrapped (we haven’t raised any institutional funds). However, we’ve got lots of support from accelerators, grant providers, families, and friends. Our goal was to get the product out there before considering raising funds.
Regarding revenue, we earn commissions on every trip booked through our partners. We are working on partnering with other players in the insurance space, vacation homes, car rentals, trains, buses, and so on. This will further increase our revenue. Our future will not be solely based on commissions. We will be expanding into data. Our expectation is that this will outgrow our commissions in the near future.
AFI: Can you talk about your marketing strategies? What has worked? What hasn’t? Are you open to collaboration and investment opportunities?
We thought building this product was the most challenging thing. Then we got to marketing, and it humbled us lol… Our current strategies target our early adopters – those burdened by trip planning to the point it stops their vacation. We are reaching them through community platforms such as ProductHunt, IndieHackers, Reddit, and a hundred more. We are also partnering with social media influencers and blog reviewers. So far, launching on community platforms has worked really well. We’re yet to fully implement the other strategies, so we can’t speak to them for now.
So far, what hasn’t worked is our positioning. The problem of trip planning is a big deal, and most travelers know this. The challenge, however, is that companies not truly solving this problem constantly describe themselves as solving it, making it almost impossible to trust any company that says they’re solving it. So, we’re working on other ways to differentiate our message while still hitting the pain points of vacation planning.
Yes, we’re open to collaborations and investment opportunities. Please reach out if you’d like to talk about either or both.
“My Nigerian upbringing has shaped my understanding of different cultures and influenced my approach to designing Trameter”
AFI: What challenges have you faced so far, and how do you navigate competition in the travel tech space?
Our challenges cut across building technology, getting travel partners, and funds.
Technology: this was huge. Building Trameter was no small feat, especially as there was and still is nothing like it in the market. Everything we did was in-house, and we had to think outside the box and create tools and tech to support our goal. Secondly, integrating with partners was worse than we thought. Most used legacy systems with support teams that took weeks to respond. Honestly, I don’t want to relive this part because it greatly wasted our time and resources. The good thing is that it’s a one-time integration, so we’ve crossed that bridge for now.
In terms of partnership, most travel companies are biased towards companies that are more established. This was a major huddle for us, but we kept pushing until we got our first major partnership with the biggest GDS in travel, Amadeus. From there, we started getting other major partnerships and have many more in the work. We also got our licenses to book travel. This is a rare feat for a company at our stage.
One huge benefit of getting our license is that we can now operate as our host agency, which gives us full commissions compared to 90% of travel startups who use the license of a bigger travel company, they are sometimes forced to give up to 50% of their commissions, making it almost impossible for them to grow or outgrow their competitors.
Fund: When we first started pitching the idea of trip planning in 45 seconds or less, most investors passed on us – they couldn’t imagine this to be true and thought we were flat-out lying. So, we changed it to trip planning in 5 minutes or less, and that still didn’t work lol… We decided to focus on just building until we launched before returning to this. We are intentional about building a generational company that is not reliant on investor funds. Not because we have the cash to run Trameter perpetually, but because we know what we are building and don’t want our existence to be at the mercy of someone else.
AFI: What exciting feedback have you gotten from customers?
We got a traveler who told us Trameter would save his marriage lol… he said it was always a tough time planning their annual family vacation. When it gets too tough, he would bribe his wife with a nice dinner date to take over the planning process. He even offered to pay us and was shocked when we told him the app was free to use.
“Trameter streamlines the process by finding and combining the best flights, hotels, and experiences for your trip. Our advanced algorithms analyze your preferences and budget to create tailored packages that suit your expectations.”
AFI: What's the next step for Trameter? Do you envision expanding beyond the iOS platform or introducing new features?
Yes! We have a lofty vision. The app we’ve built today is a super-minimalistic version to test the technology's viability. Now that we have it, we’re on full ride to go after the full product. First, we will upgrade the UI to make it aesthetically pleasing and inspiring travel. We will also add some exciting features like multi-city, semantic search for natural language conversation, group trip planning, and advanced preferences.
In terms of expansion, Android and Web will come soon. Beyond them, we plan to expand into other countries starting next year. The goal is global expansion.
AFI: What advice would you give aspiring African entrepreneurs in the diaspora, particularly those in the tech space?
Don’t let fear lead – pursue your dream.
