Team: Al-Hassan Hleileh | Elika Mahdavi | Manh Hung Le | Meghbartma Gautam
Mentors: Ethan Kurzweil | Alan Chiu

• How do we revolutionize travel in a hyper competitive space (conc on EM)
• Why’s booking such a pain – so many websites, too many deals, not sure, unreliable
• What do consumers want: great offers, as well as rich and meaningful experiences, and social connection in travel. Through technology and a focus on the untapped middle east market, we are launching a game changing technology
• Makemydream.com, from booking your flights, hotels, flashsales, group-discounts, to sharing you experiences through instant messaging, photo sharing and uploading, as well as memory slides when you are done, which can be shared publicly or privately
• Make my dream – will realize user dreams and etch them in history

$ 51.25 Billion
$ 10.26-12.81 Billion
The Middle East experienced the world’s highest regional average annual tourism growth rate;
9.6% YOY; 60.3m arrivals, with $850 average spend (2010) latest number I could find. The total size of the market is $51.255billion.
However online bookings are currently a fraction of that with estimates of 20-25% of travel occurring online, which comes to US$10.26-$12.81billion.
Endogenous shocks in SR will curtail growth this year, but positive LR outlook

1) Young and Single:
Elmira Shans
* Grew up in Dubai
* Currently in London for graduate school)
* Travels ~ 1 every 3 months (Europe, Middle East, North America)
* Travels in groups with friends-publicizes travel
2) Young and Married:
Asal + Hubby
* Grew up in Toronto, parents live in Middle East
* Went to school in Chicago
* Travels ~1 every 4 months (Asia, South America, Europe)
* Travels with her husband and blogs about her experiences

Hotels
Airlines
Events (Festivals)
Car rentals
Promotion companies
Deal listings
State Tourism
Travel agents
Conventions (CES)
Business Schools
(Study groups)
Product Dev
A/B testing
Relationship with hotels; airlines; car rentals
Sourcing deals
Acquisition, retain customers
Market understanding
Best in class product
Relationship with partners
Human Capital
Lowest price
Best inventory
Convenient
Experiential UI
Social Validation
Create a Community
Multiple options
Best Actionable deals
Relevant locations
Trusted relationships
Successful partnerships
Brand awareness/ identification
Pilots
Cross pollination
Events (Parties!)
Web and mail
Advertising
Social Media
Word of Mouth
Referrals
Customer call centers
Magazines
Young and the affluent
High Disposable incomes
Willing to explore
Young and single
Divergent origins, same destinations
Social media savvy
Young couples
Trendsetting behavior
Young families
Best education for kids
Cultural experience
Trendy destinations
Human Capital
Product Development
Advertising costs
Maintaining relationships
Refunds
Percentage of booking costs
Percentage of hotel/package (s)
Advertising revenues
Event of the month
Exclusive partnership with events

We are working with Dummy data
We are working such that the happy path use case goes through
This means that we are not stopping and throwing catch blocks to catch errors
Our mantra is iterate, iterate, iterate
So we need to get something out, this need not be perfect
We are working with LEAN model – this means extreme agile and not waterfall
I encourage us to have 2 channels of thought
1. What can be implemented right away
2. What can be a vision for the long term
This needs to be done fast and done right (approximately)
We will learn and work on this together
And MOST importantly Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Over e-mail, calls. We will sync everyday, even if it is for 15 mins

Redirected from anywhere
Feature Set
Travel alert on app
• Home page
• A blurb on what we do
• A 10 second pitch
• Email signup
• F connect
• Highlighted deals
• Timing of deals
• Adventure trips
• Custom itinerary
• Group deals
• Go where your friends go!
• Search for hotels
• Search for deals
• Filters applicable
• Search for reviews
• Search for advents
(adventure deals)
• Reviews by the community
• 1st person reviews
• Reliable and brief
• Pitfalls and Pleasures
(Avoid) (Go-to)

• Book the deal
• Cash on delivery
(initially)
• Share the deal (f/t)
• Send the itinerary to friends
• Share experience
(f/flickr)
• Photos and updates
(w00t)
• Reviews and recommendations

This is not a wireframe. It is a list of the features in priority order
Normal Database/search
Adventure events sorted by location and interest
Flash sales and packages
Search for tickets/destinations
Social Sharing
Share Deals on Facebook
Community Reviews
Group It*

These are specific events and adventure deals. Store them in a database. The fields are
1. ID
2. Type – Adventure or Events
3. Country
4. Price
5. Rating
6. Review (free text storage)
These should be sortable by all the fields. Use filters to enable sorting.
Sorting is a priority 2 feature

GROUP IT COMMUNITY TALK TO US
SEARCH FLASH SALES
TICKER
WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING ON THE SITE
ADVENTURE EVENTS

These are specific sales and package deals. A variety of things can prompt this. Some of them include – introduction of a new airline, special last minute deals in hotels, going out of business deals. As always, Store them in a database. The fields are
1. ID
2. Type – Stand alone or package deals – Stand alone means only one deal on airplanes/hotels. Package includes two or more (rental car deals for example)
3. Country
4. Price
5. Rating
6. Review (free text storage)
7. Keep a blurb to denote what sort of a deal this is. Plane for airplane, Hotel for hotel deals and a gift pack for package deals
These should be sortable by all the fields. Use filters to enable sorting.
Sorting is a priority 2 feature

Standard search architecture for booking flights. The code is open source and has been shared with you in another mail. All we need to do is to implement that and make it look pretty.

This is pretty standard. So after booking, you should be able to share deals on FB/twitter and within the site as well. All that needs to be done is to implement a share button snippet from
FB
Currently the payment system is a dummy system. We will not hook into anything yet except store contact details of the person making the bookings.

Any community member can write reviews on any of our deals/sales/destinations. There is plenty of code lying around on the internet for this. Just take and tweak 
This will later be refined to a person only being able to write reviews for a place that this person has visited. (Priority 2)

This is our key differentiator. So I want us to implement this perfectly.
Concept –
If I book a deal, my friend also wants to book that deal. I will share that deal and he will book the same deal.
Implementation –
The deal that a person books should be shared. Another community member will look at that deal and book the same deal. If the deal is different in any feature (not the same airline, not the same hotel) then the person will be notified. Even if there is a difference in the prices of the bookings, the person must be notified. If there is no difference, the same booking must go through. So there must be a way to store the operations of a booking. Since, at this moment this involves just hotels and airlines, this operation will only involve storing these 2 data points in the database.
Since we are working with Dummy Data, the complex use cases that must have occurred to all of you will not be surfacing.
I cannot stress enough how this is central to our business idea. Implement this as a Priority 1 feature