6 ms·
Hipmunk demos at Travel Innovation Summit (video)
- pg 16y agoIt's all the more impressive when you consider that Adam only graduated from college this year. If he'd gone to work at a big company instead of starting his own, he'd still be merely a promising junior developer or something.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gnok 16y agoIn your experience, how often have you seen this happen?
- pg 16y agoOh, a lot. In every startup that succeeds, the founders become much more formidable.
- brandonkm 16y agoI don't know anything about Adam and the team at Hipmunk, but I no longer even consider other sites when it comes to searching for flights. The people who I've recommended Hipmunk to have said the same. Their focus on user experience is (even for a startup) uncanny. The word disruptive is thrown around a lot and often way out of context. I believe Hipmunk and Airbnb are actually disruptive.
- kn0thing 16y agoRock on. Thanks for recommending us. And so you know, Steve Huffman (Adam's cofounder) cofounded reddit with me. We also recently brought on Chris Slowe (keysersosa), our first addition to team reddit. http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-chief-christopher-slowe-jumps-ship-joins-old-boss-at-hipmunk-2010-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-chief-christopher-slow...
- aberman 16y agoMy gf said she couldn't figure it out. I seriously almost broke up with her on the spot. I LOVE hipmunk.
- kn0thing 16y agoYou chose wisely, aberman. In the event that she breaks up with you, though, email me (alexis@hipmunk.com) your mailing address and I'll send you something from the hipmunk to ensure you get through the trauma.
- alnayyir 16y agoClearly I need to acquire and dispose of a g/f quickly so that I can get hipmunk swag _ Btw: used you guys to get an upcoming ticket to Malaysia. Love the service :)
- kn0thing 16y agoHaha! Well, If anyone is reading these comments - you can email me your mailing address too. No break-ups required! We don't want to encourage anything like that :) Enjoy the trip to Malaysia! Can't wait to visit one of these days.
- alnayyir 16y agoSent. I actually got tips for the trip from Raldi on my thread in r/travel.
- fuzzythinker 16y agoThat could be a sign for hipmunk guys to watch/survey how non-geeks use it. If the number of people who don't get it on first visit w/o help is higher than expected, a video or some kind of guide may be needed.
- kn0thing 16y agoGood point. I'd like to get this awesome demo video a fan made some more attention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6teBPUgz4Y8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6teBPUgz4Y8
- c00p3r 16y ago"Investing in a people, not in an idea"? ^_^
- dmix 16y agoI like the 80s sitcom opening music.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kn0thing 16y agoYou have no idea how tempted I was to go all the way and replace it with Benny Hill...
- rishi 16y agovery compelling demo
- staunch 16y agoI'm totally impressed with how aggressive Hipmunk is being. Picking a fight with Kayak is awesome. The hardest thing they'll have to do is avoid being acquired.
- kn0thing 16y agoThanks! ... Oh wait, there's one more thing: http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-is-excited-about-2011 http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-is-excited-about-2011
- samratjp 16y agoHipmunk should be the person of the year ;-)
- rorrr 16y agoKayak is a strange choice. Their real competitors are Expedia, Tripadvisor and Orbitz (plus priceline, hotwire and hundreds of smaller flight search sites).
- patrickaljord 16y agoThe reason why the "non-stop flight" checkbox isn't checked by default on most sites is because flights with stops are much cheaper usually. Also hipmunk results are usually always more expensive than other traditional sites, at least for now. Maybe they should focus on getting the best offers, that's more important than UX on that kind of sites, I mean look at godaddy for example.
- scotje 16y agoDifferent people place importance on different things. The "people who buy airline tickets" market is probably large enough to withstand some segmentation.
- jamn 16y agoThe point raised in the presentation is that as Hipmunk is better able to achieve price parity (say, via the ITA deal which will make better search results available to them), the prime differentiation will be the usability of the product.
- perplexes 16y agoTime is the only thing I can't make more of. The deregulation of airline prices and the subsequent obsession over the lowest fare has led us to treat airlines as a commodity, and the airplanes have thus become cattle cars in the sky. I and most people I know are willing to pay $50 extra for a better experience. "Agony" is the correct sort for us.
- kessler 16y agoHow does Hipmunk make money? Commissions on flights are extremely, extremely low. That's why sites like Kayak, Orbitz, etc. are plastered with ads - they make the majority of their money through advertising and upselling.
- staunch 16y agoKayak makes around half their revenue from referrals and the other half from advertising. There's no reason Hipmunk couldn't settle for less revenue per search.
- jamn 16y agoI do see reasons. They have fixed costs (independent from the number of tickets bought) in the form of payments for search results to ITA plus whatever company overhead (maintenance, salaries, etc). Whether Hipmunk can afford improvements in user experience while earning thinner margins than the competition is not entirely obvious to me. I do hope they make it though. Hipmunk rocks!
- staunch 16y agoHipmunk will grow up living on whatever profit margins they end up being able to generate. Kayak at this point could not learn to live on significantly less.
- arn 16y agoAs I recall they make money on Orbitz' affiliate program.
- prs 16y agoThey received VC funding of $1mm. So that will buy those 3+ [1] developers some time. According to an Oct 2010 article by TechCrunch [2] "Orbitz pays Hipmunk the standard rate of $3 per flight sold". Hopefully they did some renegotiations recently or have some other contract in place that generates Hipmunk more income. [1] http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2010/11/alexis-ohanian-hipmunk-digital-souveniers/ http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2010/11/alexis-ohanian-hipmunk... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/06/how-hipmunk-almost-became-bouncepounce-com-and-other-strange-tales/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/06/how-hipmunk-almost-became-b...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jasonlbaptiste 16y agoHipMunk is doing something smart and focusing on the presentation layer to win. Design and presentation seems simple and just a "feature" to many, but that's because it's done well. In travel search and many other areas, all things are virtually the same + a commodity. By focusing on the presentation layer, they actually bring about a very very strong advantage, especially in a process that people hate.
- brown9-2 16y agoIs there any data available that backs this idea that flight travel customers will pay a premium for nice presentation and design?
- notahacker 16y agoit's not about paying a premium (they're referring users to the same tickets at the same prices). It's being about the site that consumers bookmark.
- andreshb 16y agoI'm assuming it's too soon to tell in terms of hard numbers. However, empirically and from personal experience, the last 5-6 flights I've booked in the last couple of months have all been through hipmunk, and what I learnt is that: Hipmunk has replaced Kayak for me (I only booked through Kayak before, it was the most convenient and easiest to use at the time) Even though Kayak can show me the lowest prices, in Hipmunk I've booked flights that were not necessarily the cheapest (as I did in Kayak) but the least agonizing, by a price difference of about $50 saved myself 2 hours of agony. I do pay a premium for nice presentation and design in this case.
- lecha 16y agoDesign is a strong advantage, but not sustainable one. Unless the design requires hard-to-replicate data or algorithms, design alone isn't a sustainable competitive advantage. The data that Hipmunk displays is available to any other OTA. If the intent is to grow independent company they'll need to build that sustainable advantage (beyond UI patents).
- yogipatel 16y agoGreat presentation! I'm curious, where did you guys get your flight information from before the ITA deal?
- calbear81 16y agoOrbitz.
- guelo 16y agoDid yesterday's announcement by AA that they were pulling out of Orbitz affect Hipmunk and the other meta-search sites? EDIT: I just noticed someone asked that question at the end of the video and Adam didn't have a very good answer. Also, boo on the patents answer.
- goldfish 16y agoI'm no fan of software patents either, but nowadays it really can be a matter of company survival. If some big, entrenched player starts picking on you with their patents, and you don't have anything of your own to defend with or cross-license, you're in bad shape. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
- guelo 16y agoThat's fine but the question was about what you will do when competitors start copying the features, patents is a bad answer to that.
- redthrowaway 16y agoThe question was actually, "how are you going to protect your intellectual property and keep competitors from imitating you?" Patents is a fine answer to that.
- calbear81 16y agoI'm not from Hipmunk but my guess is that yes, it affected them because they are sourcing their flight info from Orbitz. In fact, this is one of the reasons they probably struck a deal with ITA since that will give them access to pricing/availability without going through Orbitz. On the flip side, this probably means they will make no money on any flights referred to AA.com unless they have an agreement in place with them since before the AA pullout, they had been paid by Orbitz for the AA booking.
- mrkurt 16y agoI bought an AA ticket through them on Sunday and it sent me directly to the AA site. I seem to remember that they weren't even including AA results several months ago, so they must have some direct agreement in place already.
- mrchess 16y agoWait, they are trying to patent tabs and hiding search results? You can seriously do that? Isn't that a little broad?
- patrickaljord 16y agoYes, shame on them for that. I won't use their service for that reason.
- rewind 16y agoI think there's a big difference between applying for a patent for protection vs. applying for a patent to wield it as a sword. If your company could get a patent that it could use as a defense against a big company that held other similarly-ridiculous patents, but with the deep pockets to sue you, you'd be foolish not to at least consider it. Not liking the rules of a game is not reason enough to ignore them if it means your opponent will leverage those same rules to knock you out of the game altogether.
- mrkurt 16y agoThe patent answer was a response to "how are you going to protect your intellectual property and keep your competitors from imitating you?" Doesn't exactly sound defensive, does it? Keep in mind, too, that if Hipmunk is bought out by (say) Orbitz, Orbitz suddenly owns all their patents and will use them if they can.
- carbocation 16y ago> I think there's a big difference between applying for a patent for protection vs. applying for a patent to wield it as a sword. Patents for protection... Like Sun's patents, right?
- rewind 16y agoI didn't say that all patent applications are for protection.
- calbear81 16y agoI work in the travel space and have worked on the business/marketing side for metasearch as well as dedicated hotel sites. Based on what's been shared by the Hipmunk team, I think I have a ballpark analysis of their rev-mets: 150,000 searches/month 40% CTR to Orbitz/Suppliers - 60,000 outbound clicks 15% Conversion to Booking - 9,000 bookings $300/booking average revenue - $2.7M revenue (meshes with the comment that they generate millions of ticket revenue to suppliers per month) $3 bounty/booking - $27,000 / gross rev per month $324,000 annual revenue run rate $180 average RPM (rev/1000 searches) It's cash flow positive and has no external marketing expenses really. The ITA agreement will entail cost per search but they will make it up by having access to all fares which will give them near price parity with the likes of Kayak and others. Hope this breakdown helps.
- redthrowaway 16y agoLooks good, although a little Drake Equation-y. Would you mind telling us where your figures are coming from? The figures all seem reasonable, but there's a lot of room for error there.
- jsolson 16y agoI keep meaning to mention this in a context where Hipmunk people might see it. One little piece of design advice I'd give you based on the reaction of every single person I've shown the site to (which is in the tens at this point), is that, initially, the display for layovers is unclear. A flight with a single layover looks like three flights because it is three separate blocks. I think you could fix this by extending the color of the boxes on either side into the connection box region. As that may not be at all clear, I've mocked up what this might look like: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/144762/Screen%20shot%202010-12-22%20at%2010.56.00%20PM.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/144762/Screen%20shot%202010-12-22%20... I think it makes it more obvious what's a flight and what's a layover. Just a thought.
- spez 16y ago/acknowledged