The Founding Story For Tripadvisor

2 Aug 2024 · 2 min

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In this interview, the founder recounts how a personal travel planning mishap sparked the idea for TripAdvisor. After a 15‑year career at a software‑development tools company, he and his wife were choosing a hotel for a Mexico vacation. The travel agent suggested three options; they initially chose the cheapest. His wife urged him to search the internet for more information. He discovered unflattering photos and details that revealed the cheap hotel was subpar, prompting them to upgrade and enjoy a better stay. His wife credited the research with saving the vacation and suggested building a site to help others. Although the founder initially dismissed the notion as hard to monetize, the concept lingered. About a year later, he assembled a team, raised a modest amount of capital, and launched the company that would become TripAdvisor.

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If we go back to the very beginning, you know, what was the founding story for TripAdvisor and what were the first steps that you took to start it at the time?
I had spent like 15 years in a software development tool company. Lots of fun, didn't work out at the end. And my one goal was to do another company because I'd gotten the entrepreneurial bug that wasn't software development tools. I didn't know about travel, but like Why not? It was a good idea. The idea actually came from the very personal experience. I was planning a trip to Mexico with my wife, went to a travel agent. They recommended 3 different hotels. The pictures all looked beautiful, inexpensive, moderate priced, very expensive. And I'm like, let's stay at the cheap one, dear. And my wife said, hey, why don't you check the internet? That That newfangled thing that was coming out to see if you could find more information than just the pictures. I did. It was very hard to do, but I found information about that cheap hotel that was, you know, made it very clear this was not going to work for us. The pictures were of the front of the hotel. The story I tell is, hey, and I got pictures of the back of the hotel, and the beach wasn't quite as nice, and the chairs weren't quite as nice. We upgraded ourselves to the mid-level, went on the trip, had a great time. And my wife said afterwards, hey, that research saved our vacation. Maybe you could build in your new company a site that could help people have great vacations. And I said, nah, that's not, you know, too hard to figure out how to make money on it. Forget it. But a year later, that was still the best idea that I had heard of and embarked with the team, raised a small amount of money and got started.