On March 23 and 24 at the Eye For Travel Mobile & Social Media Strategies conference in San Francisco, Space Base, FLYR and Africa Bookings took home startup awards at the inaugural 1-day Startup Village.
1st Place Winner: Space Base
2nd Place Tie: FLYR and Africa Bookings
Startup Village panelists Matt Zito, Ruzwana Bashir, Krista Pappas, Drew Patterson, Jeff Manheimer, Heddi Cundle, Erik Blanchford
There were two morning panel sessions, “Secrets to Online Travel Success” and “Meet the Investors,” followed by 13 startups pitching to a panel of 4 judges.
The first panel session included veteran travel entrepreneurs and founders including Erik Blanchford, Executive Chairman Couchsurfing, Drew Patterson, founder Room 77 and CheckMate, Zaid Al-Husseini, VP of product Gogobot, Krista Pappas, COO Duvine, Heddi Cundle, founder myTab.co, Jeff Manheimer, COO Tripping and Ruzwana Bashir, CEO Peek. The discussions centered around the challenges in starting an online travel business and how the panelists overcame these challenges to build successful companies. There was much discussion around mobile in travel and how mobile was driving growth in their businesses.
The second panel session included Manu Rekhi, Director Inventus Capital Partners, Cameron Yuill, Angel Investor and Matt Zito, Managing Partner Travel Startups Incubator. The discussion centered around what each investor looks for when investing in travel startups and the audience got to ask many questions to the panel.
The judges for the startup awards included, Kevin McLaughlin, Cameron Yuill, Matt Zito and Zaid Al-Husseini.