Trippi App

Travel inspiration and recommendations from the people you already know and trust.

The problem

The internet now has an overabundance of travel-related content. For anyone trying to book a trip to a new place, there’s actually too many opinions, reviews, guides, and recommendations from strangers, so-called experts, and brands.

Many are reverting back to their own personal social networks for travel advice and recommendations. If you’ve ever seen a Facebook post that went something like “Hey Friend! Headed to San Diego next month. What are some fun things to do there?” then you’ve seen the void Trippi was created to fill. 

Jobs to be done

As a traveler,

I want to feel more confident in my travel decisions. 

I want to limit the research I have to do when planning a trip.

I want to store all my travel plans in one place.

I want to get ideas for future trips.

I want to record and share my travel experiences without sacrificing the privacy of my whereabouts and habits.

Solution

I worked on a team with 2 product owners, an engineer, and a project manager to develop a solution that would serve these needs - the Trippi app. I developed branding material, helped establish strategic vision, perform user research, and designed the entirety of the app. It’s currently available in the app store.

Trippi helps you find the best places to stay, the best food to eat, and the best things to do with help from your existing social network. It lets you plan and document your own trips using inspiration from your friends' travels while also offering your insight to anyone heading to the same places you’ve visited. Search a place in the world and find out which of your friends / family have already been and can give you the “must do” deets. Share travel plans like a playlist.

Learning

Trippi has thus far seen excellent reception from users, but what makes it valuable is exactly what makes it somewhat resilient to growth. The most valuable content on Trippi is user generated, and therefore it relies on an increased number of users to create a network effect that will lead to growth.

But, users will likely be hesitant to follow/add any other user outside their extended social circle, as this would defeat some of the value proposition of Trippi, which is to allow you to get travel inspiration from individuals whose taste you already trust - not strangers. Initial feedback and observation has shown that users are still bouncing between other tools when planning a trip, likely because of the lack of review content from their social network within Trippi.

Privacy is an interesting topic of concern for this product. Users have a natural desire to share travel experiences and take inspiration from others, but also a desire not to be overly transparent with how much they spent on different aspects of a trip or to reveal any other overly personal information that might be revealed by “public” sharing of travel plans. Trippi needs to avoid becoming a picture-sharing social network and focus on balancing user connectivity through shared recommendations/plans with a (optionally) private system of record for an individual’s travel history.