3 web & mobile services that have changed the way innovators travel
Web/mobile have changed small businesses
I run a startup, so the pressure to save money and maximize value is extra intense. These services are truly changing how we take care of the basic needs for business travel, saving us money and increasing our ability to navigate unfamiliar cities and get the most return on our spend.
For starters, we used AirBNB to book an apartment. The place we got was huge and clean and sunny, and the woman who owned it left us a bag of bagels & cream cheese on the kitchen table as a welcome. The last night we were there, the apartment wasn’t available so I booked a night at the Westin. It was 50% more expensive than the massive, sunny apartment.
For transportation, we used Uber. For a pretty small cost markup, we had immaculate Towncars picking us up within minutes of us notifying them, anywhere in San Francisco. I think the cost of taking an Uber car to the airport was actually the same as taking a taxi.
Now the first morning, we were in our Uber car on our way to the event, and our staff called to see where they should meet us. They didn’t know because, um, they don’t actually work for us. They were individuals who we found via TaskRabbit to help us staff our booth.
We set a rate of $150/day for each person we hired via TaskRabbit. We gave them some simple training on our product and t-shirts with our logo. You could imagine this going badly, I’m sure. But in fact they were smart and friendly, and they staffed our booth with real intelligence and warmth. This allowed us to move around the conference and to take individual meetings with investors and prospective partners. Compare that cost to flying out our own staff and putting them up in hotels.
Think of these services as facilitating fractional purchases. You don’t need to rent an apartment in that other city – just rent it the nights you need it. And, as you’d expect, they all have mobile versions that allow you to manage your usage on the fly. It’s totally transformative. I’d like to hear from other business travelers what apps and services they’re using to help them travel cheaper, smarter and better.
Dave McLaughlin is CEO & Co-Founder of Vsnap, which makes it easy to send short video messages as a more personal alternative to email.
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