Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Hill.
Justin, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It all started in 2012 when I was living in Boulder and working as a consultant for a small software company in the biotech industry. I took a one-week work trip to Belgium and then another week for a holiday across northern Germany. These two weeks spanned seven modes of transportation, three currencies, three countries, and multiple languages. I estimate it took just as much time to plan the trip as it did to take it. That’s when the seed was planted.
Fast forward three years, that small software company was acquired. As a twenty-something, it felt like the right time to jump ship. I cannonballed into the startup deep end, moved back to Atlanta, started doing research, building a team, forming partnerships, and developing the product. Two years later, we launched a product that helped with that original problem – find the best itinerary from point A to B and consider every mode of transportation. We did what most young startups do – get a small amount of traction, blast off into what seems like the right direction, and then find out sometime later that we took the wrong fork in the road. We built the wrong product. Fast forward three more years, Faretrotter is still at it downtown at Switchyards.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I would be lying if I said it had been a smooth sail. Our biggest mistake wasn’t what I just mentioned – building the wrong product. Our biggest mistake was the process itself. Before, we built a powerful rocket ship and hoped for the best. This idea, perspective, MO – whatever you want to call it – is now out the window and long gone. Since then, we talk with customers, redesign, prototype, talk with customers again, redesign, rebuild, and repeat. It’s an iterative, quicker process involving experiments, learning, and improving many times a year – as opposed to wasting two years building a massive product that was just plain wrong.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Faretrotter – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Today, Faretrotter helps compare modes of transportation between cities – whether that’s a bus, train, flight, ferry, rideshare, or public transportation. Our tool provides insights into various factors that help decision making – including convenience, cost, length of travel, and CO2 emissions – all broken out by mode of transportation. Collectively, we serve over 12 million transportation routes in about 80 countries, ten currencies, and five languages.
Outside of and within the industry, we are fairly unknown and that’s been intentional. As mentioned, we do a bit of experimenting while we dial in our product. It’s a bit contradictory, but we don’t really want attention or PR – well, not until we find that perfect fit. Sometimes we do get unplanned attention, though. Our favorite has been from our direct competitor, who has raised several hundreds of millions (seriously) of dollars. This was a simple inquiry into who the hell we were but provided quite the chuckle.
I think my most proud moment has really been the evolution of this and reluctance to giving up. The toll of time and money usually beats into the psyche of startup founders. Being relentless and persistent through the years has been the hardest but most valuable part of this journey. Today, this persistence shows itself with the 100 new customers we get every day. It’s the validation that we are doing something right.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Our future plans involve making some partnerships that will enable us to do some really cool things in our product. Have you ever used the explore function on Google Flights? We’re building our version of that, which is very similar but is multiplied over every mode of transportation. All you’ll do is type in “Atlanta,” and then we’ll tell you how far you can go for $75 or where you can go that’s under three hours. It’s going to be really exciting.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.faretrotter.com
- Instagram: @faretrotter
- Twitter: @faretrotter
Image Credit:
Personal picture – credit Bhargava Chiluveru; Other pictures – orange shirt pictures – Jason Seagle, Pictures in Nepal – Jonathan Shieh.
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