Timothy O’Neil-Dunne

But why have their successes not been replicated recently? We see a lot of money being poured into travel start-ups and a lot of money being paid. But have there been any real breakthrough start-ups? One could argue Hipmunk and AirBnB. In Asia, HomeAway has acquired 61% of Travelmob as it expands into the vacation rental marketplace globally.

Then there are a host of others who are ALMOST there, plus many which have been acquired and not continued on their mission – for example, Wanderfly which recently closed its doors .

The classic formula is – a great idea, fabulous talented team, a clear understanding of the industry, great support, a consistent stream of cash, and magic pixie dust. In my view you also have to have stamina.

But for many budding entrepreneurs, they don’t even get the chance to prove they have stamina – many of them have great ideas but fail to understand the complexity of the travel marketplace. They start off enthusiastic and energetic, believing they can solve the industry’s problems and then realise the complexities and difficulities of an awfully complex industry with many layers, many players, and many interests. Usually, the teams are also light in marketing and lighter in management.

Start-ups with untrained or un-supported people fail often which is why I find myself turning away on a regular basis interesting ideas that on the face of it are worth investigating. However scratch the surface and the concepts just don’t hold up because of what you know about the industry but what they don’t.

Two years ago, along with some like-minded people, we started VaultPAD Ventures to be a non-classic boutique start-up and business accelerator. But we still feel that not enough is being done to help the start-ups. Over the past few years, we have worked with Web In Travel (WIT) to try and find ways to help the start-up community get ahead.

Siew Hoon and the WIT team have brought together great mentors and friends to the APAC start-up community – such as Venture Republic’s Kei Shibata, and Fritz Demopoulos of Queen’s Road Capital. She has managed to rope in regional companies to help – Abacus Ventures and Travelport amongst others. In the open space, we may compete and have differences in the marketplace as competitors do – but we all share a passion for helping the start-up guys.

Still something was missing.

This year, WIT has come up with the idea of the Developer & Designer Challenge. I believe that this will help bring a dose of realism to the world of start-ups.

The Challenge benefits both parties – the sponsors and the participants which will include developers, designers and students.

Here’s how it will benefit participants. One, it challenges sponsors (major industry players who wish to take part) to come up with a specific problem they want solved. Two, it asks for their commitment to help participants through the process. And three, it gets the sponsors to offer a three-month Proof of Concept or internship/mentoring stint to the winning teams to ensure ideas are given a chance in the real world.

And here’s how it helps sponsors beyond the usual altruistic reasons – good as they are. Many corporate organizations have “wish lists”, things that never quite make the priority list. We would like to see how we can bring some of these wishes into fruition. At the same time, with the online travel industry in Asia taking off, there is a need to get more developers and designers interested in the industry and this Challenge will raise awareness among students of how exciting travel can be as a career,

Ulimately, this Challenge helps puts context into ideas and enable developers, designers and students to better understand and solve the industry’s problems, and creates an eco-system where ideas and talent are given a helping hand in the real world.

On August 9, we will be running a webinar at 4pm Singapore time where we will announce the specific Challenges to be solved. Tune in to take part in this first ever WIT Challenge, and of course, stay tuned too to the WIT website where we will also be publishing details.