Traveling to a new and unfamiliar destination can be challenging at times. The myriad of issues could range from spending exorbitantly on something out of the lack of familiarity, to committing offences out of ignorance. It may even be getting lost due to language barriers. 

Taking all of these into account, people tend to seek for solutions to avoid these kinds of problems - This is where Tralulu comes in. 

Tralulu is a digital booking platform that connects travellers around Southeast Asia to quality local guides who can provide local experiences.

The idea for its existence came from the founder, Andrew Cua - who envisioned a world where every traveler can travel like a local, and to create more opportunities for local guides generate more sustainable income and gain more exposure online. 

Andrew also mentioned that a huge part of the inspiration for Tralulu came from his first-hand experiences with local travel guides. 

As their team is made up of avid travellers who have visited many parts of the world, they've come to realize that local guides are one of the most undervalued travel resource who could bring lots of value to travellers. Not only do they bring down the cost of traveling to certain destinations, they bring out an entirely different travel experience that's unattainable from regular tour packages.

Andrew also noticed that many travellers were looking for something different from the tour packages that were commonly offered in other travel booking platforms. Tralulu was created to fill the gap between the untapped local guides and the traveler market segment looking for local experiences.

So how does it work?

Getting started on Tralulu is a fairly straightforward process. Upon landing on the website, users are presented with a clean and simple interface allowing them to search for a place that they're travelling to, or choose from an array of featured travel experiences.

Upon selecting a destination, users can easily make payments for their bookings via a simple form on the website. Payments can be made via direct deposits or Paypal, whichever is more convenient for the user.

Since it's official launch in August 2016, Tralulu has been focused on trying to find a product-market fit. One of the challenges faced is to understand more about the market needs as well as ways to package services offered by local guides more effectively. 

As of today, Tralulu is receiving an average of over 50 bookings monthly, generating approximately USD $2000 - $3000 in revenue monthly via organic growth.

To step up their game, Tralulu is presently in the process of raising their seed round to increase their marketing efforts and to expand their guide community by providing trainings and awareness, which ultimately brings up the revenue potential of the business.

"Before we built Tralulu, we were all employees working for somebody else. Our work in our old jobs were mostly specialized and focused on a specific function. However, in Tralulu most of us have multi-functional roles that enable us to grow in different areas. We've learned so much with regards to raising funds, community-building, managing resources, marketing, and entrepreneurship in general. This journey has given us an unparalleled learnings that we might not have learned in a more traditional work set-up.", mentioned Andrew Cua.