(Sent December 13th, 2017) Four years and one week after launching the first version of Hitlist, we passed a million users. Over a hundred thousand trips have been booked by our community, generating $40m in flights spending alone. Thanks to every one of you who has invested in us, whether by reading these emails, responding to our requests for assistance, or putting in the green stuff. (not weed! money!)
This month’s focus: strategy. We’ve built a business that drives sustainable revenue, but want to grow faster. After our angel funding, we’ve never raised a venture round. Now is the time to decide whether we’ll do that or do a strategic BD deal with a partner that can help us hit our growth targets. This month’s ask: advice on what you’d do in our situation.
UPDATES:
- We signed a deal to roll out the flight widget we invented at the Tnooz/Voyager hackathon in October with one of the largest yoga events in the world. We’ll be powering flights for their five festivals with 40k+ estimated attendees in 2018.
- Last month’s focus was our Android launch (tell your friends on Twitter or Facebook!). We’re so happy to have it out there and to have gotten coverage in TechCrunch among a host of other pubs, as well as a social media thunderclap from some of our favorite travel influencers, but we didn’t see as many downloads as we expected. Still a lot to learn about the Android ecosystem.
- We were featured in the App Store for ‘last minute holiday getaways’, leading to our second largest one-day spike in user numbers (after the Buzzfeed article I wrote about here).
- I spoke at the Airline Information conference in Palm Springs on using data to drive better merchandising, and at RiseUp Cairo on AI/machine learning and how to use it to drive better consumer experiences — both will post slides at some point but I’m happy to share them if you’re interested!
FOR YOU: Flying Alaska Airlines before the end of the year? We have two free upgrades to offer thanks to our friends at PayByGroup! Your flight needs to match the criteria here; if it does shoot me an email and I’ll hook up the first two to respond.
And if you haven’t planned your holiday travel yet, really, do go and check out our trips over New Year’s or simply filter deals by the dates you want to travel — lots of amazing deals still available.
WHY WE’RE DOING THIS: I got a firsthand reminder of how important travel can be for challenging conventional viewpoints when Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while I was in Gaza. My own experience of the place was nothing like what you’ll see in the news. I’m more inspired than ever to use Hitlist to get people experiencing the complicated and wonderful parts of the world, and sharing those experiences with their friends.
GIF OF THE MONTH: May your trees be stable.
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