Roadtrippers

Roadtrippers
Private company
Industry Consumer Web
Founded Cincinnati, Ohio, United States (July 2011)
Headquarters Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Area served
 United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Israel
Key people
 Tatiana Parent
James Fisher, CEO
John Lauck
Joshua Smibert
Products iPhone app
Number of employees
 33
Website roadtrippers.com

Roadtrippers is a web based software application that helps travelers plan road trips.[1][2][3][4] The application road trip planner calculates approximate trip mileage, travel time, and fuel cost.[5][6][7][8][9] The software lets users discover independently owned points of interest anywhere in the United States, within 50 miles of a planned trip.[10] Once a trip is saved, it can be synced to the Roadtrippers iPhone app, for turn-by-turn navigation, and further local discovery while on the road. Since 2011, the team at Roadtrippers have worked on securing investments and growing the business.[10][11] Co-founders, James Fisher and Tatiana Parent, founded Roadtrippers. The headquarters are in Cincinnati, Ohio.[1][12]

History

Roadtrippers co-founder James Fisher grew up traveling. His family ran a safari company in Africa.[1] His fellow co-founder, Tatiana Parent, shares his passion for travel, having traveled the USA extensively herself.

Fisher and Parent brainstormed the idea of Roadtrippers in 2010. They were frustrated with the lack of useful travel resources. Particularly for finding independent places to visit, and syncing travel advice with navigation.[1][13] This frustration led them to create Roadtrippers.[1][9][13][14]

Fisher and Parent moved from Great Britain in 2011 to focus on their company.[12] In July 2011, The Brandery, a Cincinnati based startup accelerator, accepted Roadtrippers into its program. The Brandery's aim is to helps new businesses with securing funding, gaining mentors, and networking with business professionals.[11][15]

Since its 2011 inception, Roadtrippers has grown to a team of 8 full-time employees added 3 members to its team: developer John Lauck, software engineer Andrew Fickas, and marketing and outreach specialist Brandon Hite.[11][16] The company has 2 interns on staff, as well as a mentor network of more than 20 top travel writers.[12] Roadtrippers founded its official website in August 2011[11] The website officially launched in July 2012. The iPhone app launched as Gizmodo app of the day on Nov 19th, 2012.[4]

Through 2012, the company secured $500,000 in venture funding from CincyTech, Vine St. Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and a number of angel investors.[9] Fisher is looking to secure approximately $600,000 in order to stay in the Cincinnati area.[17] In June 2012, the company launched a public beta version of its application. The application allowed use of the unpolished software in order to gain feedback for the website's full release.[11] The Roadtrippers team expanded the company outside of the United States to Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel. While the application allows for route planning, fuel cost estimation, and unique sightseeing, Fisher and Parent want more.[9] As of September 2012, the Roadtrippers team was building features to enable hotel booking via the application.[9] On November 19, 2012, after working with app developer Forest Giant, Roadtrippers released a companion iPhone app.[3] In December 2012, Roadtrippers reached 1 million monthly users.[18] In August 2013, the company received a $2.5 million investment from Drive Capital for expansion.[19]

Roadtrippers was recognized on TIME's 50 Best Websites of 2014.[20]

Products

The Roadtrippers application lets travelers plan trips, calculate time and gas expense, and choose from over 50,000 independent locations in the United States to visit.[6][8][21] The application used to heavily rely on Google Maps API, but has since moved to MapBox. Users can plan their routes and select interests from categories and sub-categories within 10–50 miles of the main route.[22] The areas of interest are then displayed on the map, and the mileage and gas costs are recalculated.[8][13]

The application offers a "bucket list" (locations of interest to be saved for future use), a blog, and a save option for planned trips. The save option can be used with a free Roadtrippers account.[8][21]

In November 2014, Roadtrippers released version 3.0 of its iOS app. The new version does not require the user to create an account to use the app.[23]

Adoption

According to Alexa, Roadtrippers is ranked at 28,884 in the USA. As of January 2013, the service has 160,000 users, making it one of the fastest growing US travel sites launched in 2012.[24]

Challenges

While Roadtrippers offers over 50,000 attractions in the United States, it still has a ways to go.[21][25] Roadtrippers needs more attractions in order to garner new and repeat users.[25]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Anna Hider (July 20, 2012). "Roadtrippers.com". Her Cincinnati. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  2. ↑ "Roadtrippers". Thrillist. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rob Lovitt. "Customize your car trips with Roadtrippers app". NBCNews. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Leslie Horn (November 19, 2012). "Roadtrippers: Plan Your Next Cross-Country Trek". Gizmodo. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Roadtrippers: Plan Your Trip & Find Attractions Along The Route". MakeUseOf. June 23, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Melanie Pinola (June 12, 2012). "Roadtrippers Thoroughly Organizes Your Summer Road Trip Plans". Lifehacker. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  7. ↑ "ROAD TO JOY: A new way to plan a car trip". PureWow. August 9, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Joshua Pramis (August 9, 2012). "Tech Thursday: Road Trip Stopovers Made Easy". Travel + Leisure. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Irina Papuc (July 13, 2012). "Plan Better Trips With Roadtrippers". Techli. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Frederic Lardinois (June 11, 2012). "Roadtrippers Helps You Plan Your Summer Road Trip, Lands $250k Seed Round". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 "Roadtrippers – Powerful Route Planning". About Your Startup. June 29, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Laura Baverman (June 12, 2012). "Roadtrippers goes live; famed writer Jamie Jensen advises". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Zoe Fox (August 5, 2012). "Here's the Only App You'll Need for the Great American Road Trip". Mashable. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  14. ↑ "Curated route planning across America". New-Startups. July 19, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Brandery". The Brandery. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Roadtrippers: The Team". Roadtrippers. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  17. ↑ "Tatiana Parent". The Cincinnati Enquirer. June 11, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  18. ↑ Howell Hirt, Amy (11 April 2014). "IT Winner: Roadtrippers". Cincinnati Business Courier. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  19. ↑ Brownfield, Andy (7 August 2013). "Roadtrippers secures Kvamme investment, sets launch for new app". Cincinnati Business Courier. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  20. ↑ Aamoth, Doug; Newman, Jared (1 August 2014). "50 Best Websites of 2014". TIME. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Saikat Basu (June 27, 2012). "Plan an American Road Trip the Right Way with Roadtrippers". Guiding Tech. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  22. ↑ Richard Read (August 6, 2012). "RoadTrippers Puts Eager Drivers On The Road Less Traveled". The Car Connection. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  23. ↑ Leslie Horn (November 24, 2014). "You'll Want to Download Roadtrippers' Excellent New Trip-Planning App". Gizmodo. Retrieved November 25, 2014.
  24. ↑ Tom Demeropolis (January 4, 2013). "Roadtrippers has 160,000 users". Business Courier. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Donnie Clapp (September 4, 2012). "Travel Tech to Watch". MercuryCSC. Retrieved January 17, 2013.

External links