WhiteLake Group
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
Search

travel adventures with firef.ly

5/11/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Chad G. Cribbins, CEO of firef.ly channelling Abraham Lincoln
PictureThe Microsoft Ventures Accelerator space, in need of some new lighting and open space.
This week I went and visited Chad Cribbins from Firef.ly  at the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. The White Lake Team at the moment are visiting what we consider to be the top 50 start-up and growth stage companies in London. (Get on our list – hello@whitelake-group.com). 

Google tried to mess up the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator by putting them on the wrong place on Google maps (or else, I wrote the wrong address...never!...) However, once I had rumbled this Google stunt and was half an hour late: I made it. It’s well located near Monument and with everyone tightly packed like sardines, happy and smiling. It is a nice environment for budding entrepreneurs. There is potential for overheating in the summer with all the brain power going on however; small price to pay.


Chad’s company has an interesting technology offering currently being built where they provide an end to end diary/booking/attractions picking/etc. solution to travelers – pick the attractions you want to see, book it, and then collect photos etc. and document the whole trip in one place. Chad has picked up the current trend of “Everyone has too many apps and need to use multiple ones at the one time and it’s getting annoying; hence app aggregation is now a play” and has built Firef.ly around this idea. They also however have some very neat tech: telematics positional monitoring that doesn’t need to use the GPS function as much as other thus draining your battery (they are already licensing this). Also I really liked his idea of separating personal diary entries on a trip from the social diary Facebook entries otherwise known as “the brag” (We all know them the “Look how great I am, I am on holidays entries”).

His revenue model is challenging; eschewing the affiliate or sponsored selling to maintain absolute independence and the ability to promote smaller esoteric places of interest, Chad is going to create revenue by selling big data insights from his clients. So  there is no advertising on the website nor a restaurant getting in as a recommendation because they paid. These would be the easy ways outs, but go against his vision and ethos.

I look forward with interest to see how Chad and Firef.ly develops. It won’t be easy of course. He is building a great team and has raised initial funds on Seedr. I would like to see firef.ly hit the larger VCs giving their growing team more funds to build their all-encompassing travel app to completion. I hope he gets there.

By John Rowland, Managing Partner


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    CONTRIBUTORS


    JOHN ROWLAND, Managing Partner, Whitelake Group

    SIERRA CHOI,
    Adviser, Whitelake Group


    ASHOK PAREKH,
    Director of Investment Services,

    Whitelake Group


    Archives

    June 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact