We have a completely bespoke online booking system. When we started building it five years ago it was probably the right thing to do as we couldn't find anything off-the-shelf that would handle booking speed dating tickets.
However when we moved from speed dating to tour operating we were forced to add new features to our system. It all works but not as well as it should. For example our content management system is a bit of a nightmare to use. Posting a new event is time consuming and it's easy to make a mistake or leave a field unfilled.
Since then the off-the-shelf product landscape has changed immensely. I recently attended an internet dating conference and saw a product demoed by a company called Pringo Networks. It basically allows you to buy a Social Network off the shelf. In fact Pringo Networks even built a clone of Facebook in 6 hours, called Lacebook to demonstrate the products capability. Now I reckon that using conventional methods it would take you at least a year and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to clone Facebook.
Looking back over the last five years we definitely made several mistakes on when to DIY. For example we decided to build our own chat client for our online dating site. It took us months, cost us quite a lot of money and in the end didn't work as well as the widely used (in the dating industry) chat client from Userplane.
From now on I'm definitely aiming to beg, borrow or license off-the-shelf products as much as possible.
Sunday, 7 October 2007
Saturday, 6 October 2007
The stuff I wish I'd known when we started
Well lists are a favourite journalists (and bloggers) trick so here' s my first. Eight things I wish I'd known when I started this business.
1. How to buy currency (see earlier blog)
2. How incredibly labour intensive this business is.
3. How difficult cash-flow is (if you have to pay deposits months before you get paid)
4. How singles travel is even more labour intensive than most travel businesses because you have so many separate bookings. Oh for a big corporate group booking (better margins & one big payment)
5. How much work we'd need to do to adapt our ticketing system from selling speed dating tickets to travel (rooming, taking deposits etc)
6. How heart breaking it can be when despite your best efforts something goes wrong and not everybody has the brilliant time you hoped they would have.
7. How it's almost impossible to please all the people all the time.
8. How brilliant some suppliers are (and how complacent & useless others are)
1. How to buy currency (see earlier blog)
2. How incredibly labour intensive this business is.
3. How difficult cash-flow is (if you have to pay deposits months before you get paid)
4. How singles travel is even more labour intensive than most travel businesses because you have so many separate bookings. Oh for a big corporate group booking (better margins & one big payment)
5. How much work we'd need to do to adapt our ticketing system from selling speed dating tickets to travel (rooming, taking deposits etc)
6. How heart breaking it can be when despite your best efforts something goes wrong and not everybody has the brilliant time you hoped they would have.
7. How it's almost impossible to please all the people all the time.
8. How brilliant some suppliers are (and how complacent & useless others are)
Currency conversion!
When we first started SpeedBreaks we bought currency (mainly euros) from our bank Lloyds. This was not only an expensive way to do it, as I later discovered, but also involved the most ridiculous paperwork imaginable. You had to fill in a long printed form, enter a unique code and then fax it to the bank. The bank would then key in the form, often incorporating unwanted mistakes along the way (such as the wrong receiving bank account number). After a year or so the bank brought in a new system which was even more complicated and involved sending us a little black box that generated a unique code...
Well I never did get to grips with it because fortunately I ran into Rueschlink at a trade show. Ruesch not only offer far better rates, they also have a complete online system which is very straightforward to use and generates reports. Ruesch also offer telephone support from a real person who answers the phone and even calls up periodically to see how things are going. They've saved us thousands of pounds and lots of grief.
Well I never did get to grips with it because fortunately I ran into Rueschlink at a trade show. Ruesch not only offer far better rates, they also have a complete online system which is very straightforward to use and generates reports. Ruesch also offer telephone support from a real person who answers the phone and even calls up periodically to see how things are going. They've saved us thousands of pounds and lots of grief.
Why I'm writing this blog
I got into the travel industry by accident. Five years ago I was approached by an ex-colleague with the idea of starting a speed dating company. SpeedDater was the result. With a little bit of luck & a lot of hard work we managed to become the market leader during the great speed dating boom of 2003. About a year after that we were approached by a tennis coach who was interested in the idea of running a speed dating tennis weekend. The weekend was a modest success and got me thinking that if it worked for tennis, it ought to work even better for skiing.
Four years later I'm now running a company with three brands, SpeedDater, SpeedDateronline which is our online dating site and Speedbreaks which is our niche tour operator.
Running SpeedBreaks is fun, it's growing fast and seems to have some real momentum. However we're also finding it a tough business. Margins are low, it's extremely labour intensive and marketing is expensive. The long and short of it is that after 2 1/2 years we still haven't made any profit out of SpeedBreaks. Having said that we're closer to profitability than we've ever been and we've learned an awful lot along the way.
One Saturday afternoon I was looking around on Google for some travel industry blogs - to try and find some kindred spirits who while not directly competitive with us, might be facing similar issues. I couldn't find any and this blog is the result.
Four years later I'm now running a company with three brands, SpeedDater, SpeedDateronline which is our online dating site and Speedbreaks which is our niche tour operator.
Running SpeedBreaks is fun, it's growing fast and seems to have some real momentum. However we're also finding it a tough business. Margins are low, it's extremely labour intensive and marketing is expensive. The long and short of it is that after 2 1/2 years we still haven't made any profit out of SpeedBreaks. Having said that we're closer to profitability than we've ever been and we've learned an awful lot along the way.
One Saturday afternoon I was looking around on Google for some travel industry blogs - to try and find some kindred spirits who while not directly competitive with us, might be facing similar issues. I couldn't find any and this blog is the result.
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