StartUs Presents: Tourism4me

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Augustin Jarak, my startup is Tourism4me. Tourism4me was created in February 2014 by Sinisa Kravarscan and me to help vacation apartment managers organize their reservations and guest book in a modern way, in one sentence: we are creating a cloud software for the hospitality industry, focusing on the vacation rental market.

What problem do you solve?

Overbooking from using multiple booking engines for vacation rental managers.

How did you get the idea for your startup?

I was working as a vacation apartment manager, renting out vacation apartments to tourists in Makarska, Croatia. I was losing hours and hours a day managing vacation apartment availability on multiple web booking engines. I searched for an online solution to help me out with all that work, but could not find any that suited my needs, so I decided to create one.

I called my friend Sinisa who was very knowledgeable about programming and explained the problems I was facing. All I wanted was a free reservations calendar and guestbook so I could have everything online, always available from anywhere.  With that idea I was accepted in to the Founder Institute – Zagreb chapter in October 2013, there I validated and perfected the idea, and also pivoted to synchronization as the main feature of Tourism4me, I graduated from the program on March 20th, 2014.

Describe your first steps with Tourism4me.

Sinisa and me developed the first version of the web service and many new ideas what to do next came to us. Now we are working on new versions of the original web application with a lot of cool features, but we will always have a free version for those that just want to keep it simple.

After the Founder Institute we got accepted into the ZIP (Zagreb Entrepreneurship Incubator) startup program in October 1014 and graduated in January 2015. Tourism4me was also one of only three European startups that were selected for the Advanced Founder Lab Program in Silicon Valley.

Where are you now?

Finally the first version of Tourism4me is launched – a simple but intuitive and efficient vacation rental management tool. I am very happy to share it with everyone, especially with vacation rental managers who like me only want a simple, but nice looking and efficient way to manage their vacation rental units online without having to go through free trials, or paying anything to anyone, because they felt there should be a free version out there somewhere on the internet, but could not find it. Maybe you don’t use any cloud or standalone software solution to manage your bookings, maybe you use printed out calendars and pen and paper, or even excel spreadsheets, but it just does not feel right. There should be a love based product already out there that is developed specifically for vacation rental, or vacation apartment rental management, I just could not find any version of it I was comfortable with, so with my cofounder Siniša we created one.

Tell us about your team: how many are you? What is important in a team member? How do you find them?

I think the five key elements for a successful startup are: team, team, team, business idea and funding. But since I think it is a mission impossible, to bring members to your team that really care about the organization and it’s goals – especially in the beginning when you can not offer any salary and usually founders try to compensate with equity in the form of 3 year contract with one year cliff – we are two people running Tourism4me.

Do you use the services of a professional accountant or attorney?

We do have a legal advisor for our startup, he is an US attorney and advises us on valuation cap and investment, equity sharing, hiring and bonus pool.

Your advice for other startups?

Where to begin…Ensure you have some money at your disposal before you start, you are going to need it for things you can not predict while starting out. Dont quit your job before getting a visa for the US, if your plan is to go to Silicon Valley – US investors expect you to have an office in the US, close to San Francisco at least, alternative destination in the US is Austin/Texas – a booming startup hub. London is a thriving startup hub, the biggest in Europe, be sure you and your startup are ready before moving there.

Focus on your customers, don’t count on accelerators to solve your problems, nothing better than revenue from your customers to grow. Talk to fellow startups, talk to your startup community leaders, go to pitching contests, go to various startup events, learn, grow, ask questions. Don’t forget to exercise, eat healthy as much as you can, don’t listen to those people who tell you that you need to work without rest, all the time of day and night, what’s the point of having a good startup if you are dead, or have made yourself sick. Beware of false productivity, just because you are doing something all day, it does not mean you are productive. MVP and validated business model are key to even ask for funding, by validated business model paying customers, at least a few who paid for your unfinished product MVP, that shows that your target customers are willing to pay for your solution even before it is finished, and that is important to investors. Know that your CLV & CAC = ROI, know your TAM, SAM and SOM. Metrics for everything, the sooner you start measuring, the better.

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