Jason is spot on that Hipmunk is trying to ease pain in the flight booking industry. Booking flights is largely undifferentiated in the space with low-price so

Jason is spot on that Hipmunk is trying to ease pain in the flight booking industry. Booking flights is largely undifferentiated in the space with low-price sort and sites bombarded with ads all aimed at squeezing a few more bucks out of a low-margin industry (flight rev share to partners are less than $3/ticket). Is it disruptive to the flight industry? I don't think so. I love the intent of Hipmunk but to say disruptive implies a deeper seated change that I don't think Hipmunk is driving in flights. You mentioned Square which both solves an interface pain point but is also shifting payments to a mobile on-site platform for small businesses. They are doing business differently because of Square and are able to service a new segment of customers they were not able to before (ones with credit cards). What would be disruptive to the airline industry? I think to disrupt the industry, you would need to change the way people fly or how they buy/book air travel as a whole. One idea that I think would be considered disruptive is if someone introduced pre-paid flight vouchers to lock in prices much like you would to gas/oil contracts. This would change the airline's supply/demand model, it would change the way we "hunt" for low prices, and change the general way we view air travel (instead of waiting for a low price, we've already paid for x number of flights so we're free to go as needed). The other points in the article are generally spot on for startups to focus on your power users and build a fan base. The one thing about calling out your competitors is that it's easy to do when you are clearly and squarely about reducing pain and friction and that your target audience clearly sympathizes with your intentions. No smart competitor would come out and call you out on trying to do the consumer some good unless they want a PR backlash.