Mintpass empowers every traveler to become an influencer, or at the very least, a network tastemaker
Established in 2023, Mintpass is a mobile application designed to assist travelers in authenticating various aspects of their journeys, including flights, hotels, and experiences, in order to accumulate digital souvenirs. These collected pieces form a comprehensive travel history, serving as a repository of memories that can be shared as recommendations with friends. MintPass aims to provide a platform for documenting adventures without detracting from the actual travel experience.
What is your 30-second pitch to investors?
MintPass is the ultimate travel inspiration mobile app, transforming every user into an influencer through the simple act of sharing their adventures. By enabling travelers to authenticate their journey components—flights, hotels, and experiences—they can amass digital souvenirs. This compilation forms a comprehensive travel history, serving as a cherished repository of memories that can be effortlessly shared as recommendations with friends. As a unique twist, collectors are rewarded when their experiences inspire others, with seamless booking functionality directly integrated at the point of inspiration. Join MintPass in redefining travel engagement and rewarding wanderlust.
Fusing Business Innovation with Advanced Technology
MintPass focuses on a distinct group of travelers termed “network tastemakers” – grassroots influencers renowned for their extensive travel experiences. These individuals generate the highest quality recommendations, yet conventional travel-sharing platforms often prioritize followers and filters over genuine experiences, leaving them underserved. sad status check
MintPass aims to rectify this by providing a platform for travelers to seamlessly document their adventures without detracting from the actual experience. Our goal is to cultivate a destination where users can effortlessly collect and share their journeys, creating a community centered around authentic travel insights. This platform transcends the mere showcasing of destinations, offering a comprehensive view of experiences to guide users’ travel decisions based on the meaningful adventures of their direct network. MintPass redefines travel-sharing for those who prioritize depth and authenticity, ensuring a more engaging and insightful exploration of the world.
Engaging with users, we’ve identified a consistent pattern of behavior across various applications such as note-taking, calendars, documents, and photo platforms, showcasing an intrinsic desire to document travel experiences. MintPass acknowledges this innate need not only for personal reminiscence but also for sharing to enrich the experiences of friends and family. Our platform offers a user-friendly, gamified ecosystem tailored to this well-known behavior, incorporating a proprietary traveler score metric to enhance the social, actionable, and rewarding aspects of sharing.
Technologically, MintPass enables collectors to scan boarding passes, acquiring digital souvenirs linked to specific trips. We meticulously cross-reference this information with publicly available flight data to ensure accuracy. Each digital souvenir can then be dynamically updated and personalized to encapsulate the entirety of the experience, utilizing verified check-ins, third-party integrations, and sentiment analysis throughout the travel journey. MintPass transforms the way users capture and share their adventures, creating a more interactive and fulfilling travel narrative.
Strategic Analysis: Evaluating Company Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Strengths
Our distinctive value proposition lies in pioneering innovative mechanics, such as collectorship and gamification, proven successful in diverse mediums. These elements redefine the travel-sharing experience, enhancing its enrichment and engagement.
We specifically target the Gen Z and millennial demographic, recognizing a seamless fit with their social travel behaviors, high travel frequency, and preference for investing in experiences over material possessions.
MintPass is vertical-agnostic, providing a unique advantage by facing limited competition while offering the potential for partnerships with numerous applications. We seamlessly complement existing membership, loyalty, and affiliate programs, providing a connected travel tech experience for users. This positions MintPass as a versatile and valuable addition to the travel ecosystem.
Weaknesses
Pre-launch presumptions: Our concept leans on anecdotal evidence in the realm of travel experience sharing, awaiting validation through formal trials.
Team expertise: Comprising seasoned entrepreneurs and technologists with a strong track record across diverse industries, our team lacks specific experience within the travel industry.
Unverified monetization approach: We intend to introduce a hybrid monetization strategy to the travel sector, potentially misaligned with established infrastructure and consumer behaviors.vega movies nl
Opportunities:
Travel trends: Gen Z and millennials emerge as the foremost enthusiasts in the travel domain, a trend we anticipate intensifying as their spending power grows with age.
Gamification element: Drawing on our extensive experience across various gaming sectors, our team is eager to introduce mechanics inspired by highly successful gaming properties into the realm of travel.
Anti-social media initiative: In response to the prevalent resistance against traditional social media platforms due to concerns about mental health, we position ourselves as a travel-centric alternative for sharing experiences.
Threats
Established players in the travel industry: If we demonstrate early success, it’s probable that major online travel agencies and other operators will incorporate similar features into their current offerings to enhance loyalty and retention.
Macroeconomic landscape: Ambiguities regarding the economic condition in the United States, coupled with global conflict and unrest, create uncertainties about the short- to mid-term prospects of leisure travel.
Addressing Travel Pain Points: Enhancing Customer Experience and Industry Efficiency
In today’s landscape, travel decisions are frequently influenced by social media content. However, the process of capturing such content often detracts from the authentic experience and risks becoming inauthentic due to brand sponsorships, where inspiration goes to the highest bidder rather than being driven by the best experience.
Simultaneously, recommendations from personal connections hold immense value in unlocking unique travel experiences. We strongly believe that a suggestion from a well-traveled friend is ten times more meaningful than a promotion from a paid influencer. Our aim is to alleviate the challenge of curating and discovering these valuable recommendations through a gamified collectorship approach, providing a means to verify and share genuine travel experiences.
With the product in place, what’s your strategy for acquiring a substantial customer base?
At the heart of our go-to-market strategy lies the emphasis on launch ambassadorships. This involves leveraging travel agents on social media for top-of-funnel activities and collaborating with micro-influencers boasting extensive travel histories. MintPass serves as a tool for them to effectively showcase their past travels, generating passive income as their digital souvenirs, serving as proof of experience, inspire clients or communities to book their own enriching experiences.
With these strategic partnerships in place, and as a platform designed for socialized travel, we anticipate robust network effects driven by gamification and growth-hacking methodologies. MintPass is poised to emerge as the premier hub for travel documentation, facilitating future recommendation sharing within an expanding community.
Outline the process undertaken to validate the authentic need for your company and determine the size of the addressable market.
Through extensive conversations with hundreds of potential customers over the past several months, we’ve identified significant trends in the travel behavior of millennials and Gen Z:
1. A striking 97% across both demographics actively share their travel experiences on social media.
2. A substantial 90% of Gen Z and 84% of millennials are influenced to book their travel based on content encountered on social media.
These trends collectively create a substantial market for travel sharing and inspiration. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a growing sense of influencer and social media fatigue, with consumers increasingly favoring input from friends over influencers for purchase decisions:
1. An impressive 88% of consumers trust personal recommendations more than influencer marketing.
2. Approximately 51% of consumers admit to scrolling past influencer posts when browsing social media.
3. A significant 52% of travelers place the highest trust in recommendations from friends and family.
In summary, there is a clear market for travel inspiration fueled by social sharing, with purchase decisions increasingly influenced by recommendations from friends and family over influencers. MintPass aims to establish itself as the go-to destination for this grassroots sharing of travel experiences.
How and when will you make money?
The platform’s monetization strategy revolves around a hybrid subscription and affiliate model. Power travelers have the option to subscribe, unlocking platform benefits that align with their tastemaker status. Moreover, they earn a portion of affiliate commissions generated from their profile when others make bookings inspired by their experiences. This approach is crafted to align seamlessly with the evolving dynamics of travel decisions in the digital era, leveraging the influence of friends’ experiences. By minimizing the gap between inspiration and booking, we aim to reward the originator of this valuable exchange of information.
What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?
Sam Simmons (co-founder and CEO)
President of PokerGO, a former media executive with a robust background in content strategy, brand development, and digital media. Possesses a track record of industry recognition, including accolades such as Cablefax Digital Rookie of the Year and Cynopsis Rising Star. Additionally, actively engaged as an angel and venture capital investor, contributing to various travel startups.
Aaron Guyett (co-founder and chief technology officer)
Formerly with Amazon Web Services and Encore Capital, bringing over 10 years of expertise in leading developer teams. A seasoned entrepreneur with a successful track record, having founded multiple ventures, including a recent exit in the web3 loyalty space. The projects under their leadership have garnered over $1 million in lifetime grant funding.
Fostering Diversity and Inclusion: Our Approach and Initiatives in Business
As a worldwide travel brand, our aim is to foster a culture that embraces diversity from its inception. Despite our core team being situated in the United States, our remote work structure has allowed us to recruit diverse talent from around the globe. This inclusive approach has enriched our team with unique and valuable perspectives right from the early stages of our development.
Challenges in Business Founding: Navigating the Toughest Aspects of Our Journey
While we enthusiastically embrace the challenge, the abundance of viable partnership opportunities in the travel sector compels us to consistently prioritize and direct our focus to avoid perpetual distraction. Currently, our foremost priorities include our launch ambassadorships and affiliations with online travel agencies (OTA).
Navigating the Travel Startup Landscape: Our Strategy for Success Amidst Challenges
Our team offers a novel outlook on travel, drawing inspiration from diverse backgrounds outside the industry. While our expertise in the sector is derived from personal travel experiences, encompassing both joys and challenges, our true proficiency lies in technology, gamification, and human psychology. Our goal is to leverage these elements more effectively than traditional travel startups, creating a platform that enhances the travel experience through engaging, rewarding, and enjoyable design.
Future Outlook: Envisioning the State of Our Startup in One Year
Our strategic preference is to cultivate depth before expanding broadly. A year from now, we aspire to have built a sizable and vibrant community comprising travel enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds, viewing MintPass as an integral extension of their real-life identity. The platform’s usage is envisioned to go beyond mere travel destinations, with members sharing not just where they’ve been but also expressing facets of who they are.
In terms of our business life cycle, while we are currently engaged in pre-seed fundraising, our target is to initiate a seed round in the middle of 2024, contingent upon the validation of key assumptions and the proven viability of our business model. By this time next year, we anticipate concluding this fundraising phase, with the product in an enhanced state following rapid iterations fueled by feedback cycles in the early part of the year.
What is your end-game (going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.)?
Currently, our primary focus is on achieving substantial growth. Looking ahead in the long term, we envision MintPass as an attractive turnkey acquisition opportunity for one of the major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). This acquisition would enable them to enhance their existing loyalty offerings by incorporating a more engaging customer experience tailored to the travel preferences of younger generations.
Our overarching goal is to establish MintPass as the foremost source of travel inspiration by refining every aspect of the travel journey. Ultimately, we aim to become the ultimate travel companion app that seamlessly integrates into the connected experience. This involves travelers earning rewards through recommendations between journeys, discovering hidden gems from their network leading up to and during their travels, and commemorating their experiences after the conclusion of each trip.
Conclusion
MintPass emerges as a game-changer in travel documentation, empowering users to capture and share their journeys authentically. With a focus on inspiring others, MintPass transforms travel experiences into a vibrant community, redefining the way we commemorate, explore, and inspire through a seamless and engaging platform.
