Like many entrepreneurs, Melonie Dando was inspired by a problem no one else had thought to solve.
Her platform, UseMyBooking, was as an idea spawned from a busy lifestyle working for large corporate organisations.
Her job would require her to travel at short notice, leaving her personal arrangements often cancelled.
After booking hotel rooms which were non-refundable only to have plans change, she was forced to offer the otherwise perfectly good bookings to friends to avoid them going to waste.
鈥淚 thought to myself, ‘there must be something out there that could help me in this situation’,鈥� she told 老九品茶Cloud.
鈥淲hat we’ve created, based off my experience, is a platform where you can list something in less than two minutes, on the go. It鈥檚 instant, right up until the time of the event.鈥�
Described as 鈥渁 full, collaborative and connected network system鈥�, it allows otherwise unrefundable bookings and tickets to be listed and bought for retail price or less in just a few minutes.
鈥淚f you’re stuck on a motorway going to a concert and you’re in a traffic jam, you have an opportunity to list your tickets for somebody to buy them without going to a ticket tout,鈥� said Dando.
So far聽the firm has focused on hotel bookings, a market that 鈥渞eally hasn’t been tackled properly before鈥�.
But start-up, which now has four employees in its London office alongside developers in Dubai, is planning to expand to make the same savings possible in business bookings and travel.
鈥淭he large corporations employ travel management companies to do their travel,鈥� said Dando.
鈥淎 lot of the large corporations’ policy is to find the cheapest hotel room, the cheapest train ticket, or the cheapest taxi or flight.鈥�
This policy makes a B2B offering an obvious next step and one which is being built into the firm鈥檚 app at the moment.
It will help to provide the 鈥榡oined up鈥� thinking which Dando says lots of corporates lack. Travel management companies, for example, won鈥檛 have to suffer the same losses on unused travel and rooms that its consumer users do.
But the policy also makes its listed cut-rate hotel rooms an obvious choice. 鈥淲e are launching, in the background, a B2B facility that will deal with major businesses in two areas,” said Dando.
鈥淥ne is going to be聽a white label facility, and another will offer businesses such as travel management companies the ability to use our platform to offer additional services back to the business.鈥�
Back to the consumer market, Dando said the firm is recouping the value lost in unused gift cards by adding the ability to buy and sell them in the coming weeks.
Thirty per cent of gift cards are left in drawers, said Dando. 鈥淚ndustry and businesses like to sell gift vouchers because they know 30 per cent of it is money straight to the bottom line for them,鈥� she said.
鈥淚f you can get some kind of cash back for that gift voucher, it’s better than not using it.鈥�
As a business model, the firm takes a cut of the tickets sold, but won鈥檛 charge sellers who fail to find a buyer. Those who are successful get their money 48 hours after the event, hotel booking or travel – provided everything goes well.
Dando said that the early responses to the app have been 鈥渁mazing鈥�, and these include attendees of the business travel conference.
It is now planning a global switch-on next year which will launch with nine new languages supported and the new B2B operations on board.