Customer Interviews No. 1

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to compete against other teams in the "3 Day Startup" competition held here at UF. On Friday, everyone came in with separate ideas and presented them to each other, to come up with the top 5 ideas that we would try and create. The group I teamed up with, was for a custom travel app to ease the pain of coordinating vacations. As a team we set off to interview future potential users around the University of Florida.

We decided to choose UF college-aged students not because it was easy, but because our generation tends to travel and explore more than others. We came up with a list of questions to survey to our target audience.

• Have you ever planned a trip to a major city that you've never been to? If so, what city?
• Have you ever used any travel apps to assist you with your trip?
• Did you speak to any locals about potential trip ideas during your stay?

We interviewed 52 people throughout campus and here were 5 responses we received for the questions we asked.

Have you ever planned a trip to a major city that you've never been to? If so, what city?

Chelsea, 22 

"Yes, I have planned several trips with my girlfriends. The most recent trip was to Orlando and we stayed 2 days."

Matt, 20

"Yes, most recently I planned a trip with my family to go to New York City."

Kyle, 21

"Yes, my girlfriend and I planned a trip to Tampa for my 21st birthday in December."

Irina, 23

"Yes, my friends and I planned a trip to Atlanta over the summer."

Josh, 26

"Yes, my wife and I planned a trip to Austin, Texas to visit family in December."

Have you ever used any travel apps to assist you with your trip?

Chelsea, 22

"Yes, yelp and trip advisor, as well as Google."

Matt, 20

"Yes, yelp, quite frequently actually."

Kyle, 21

"Yes, I mainly use yelp to find restaurant reviews."

Irina, 23

"Yes, when I planned the trip to Atlanta, I used trip advisor.

Josh, 26

"My wife and I used yelp to find good local restaurants."

Did you speak to any locals about potential trip ideas during your stay?

Chelsea, 22

"No, just used my phone to look up cool things to do."

Matt, 20

"Our family spoke with the hotel concierge to find the best local restaurants."

Kyle, 21

"No, I just used my phone to find information."

Irina, 23

"Yes, as soon as we arrived, we spoke to the doorman and hotel concierge for recommendations."

Josh, 26

"Yes, we talked to a local coffee shop employee and family about what to visit."

By surveying people, our team was able to learn so much from the experience. We figured out that people were using several different outlets to find information, but had no way to streamline the entire process. 

The biggest thing I learned from this experience is that people love to share information about where they've been or what they've experienced. I thought every person was going to shoot us down and avoid us, however, that was not the case.