At Work Better, we love when our members are doing cool stuff, and we love promoting what they’re working on. Tiplr, one of our members at our Park Ave South location, is doing some amazing work in the travel industry with the recent launch of their app. Tiplr allows users to view and create travel tips for the world to see. We are kind of obsessed with it already, and members of our team are already sharing their tips and tricks for travelling not only in New York City but all over the world.
We sat down with Tiplr Co-Founder and Managing Editor, Tara Turner, to find out more about their app, the future, and how YOU can get involved in growing the Tiplr travel community.
Q: Tiplr was founded under pretty unique circumstances. What’s the story there?
A: The world needs a tool that helps all of us find authentic travel information and actually put it to good use. This became especially apparent to Tiplr Co-Founders, Carmine Savarese and Olivia Lentucci, during a monthlong Trans-Siberian honeymoon a few years ago. The newly married couple found themselves surrounded by other like-minded travelers who were also trying to navigate this completely foreign land. They exchanged advice and tips along the way, using others’ suggestions that couldn’t have been found in any guidebook they had packed.
Without this transference of knowledge, that trip wouldn’t have been the same. Having learned firsthand how crucial these kinds of interactions are to our travel experiences, Tiplr CEO, Carmine Savarese, set out to design something that could facilitate the same actions between an online community. He imagined having all of the information you could ever need in one place, and it would always be readily available in your pocket.
He kept this dream in the back of his mind until 2015 when he began to assemble a team. Stefano Bonini and I joined the project, and we created a website and began reaching out to fellow travelers who wanted to share their unique tips and experiences.
Q: What’s been your biggest challenge thus far?
A: The biggest challenge was launching an app that was a real MVP (minimum viable product), adding just the core necessary functionalities. In this first delicate phase of the project, we really had to scale everything down to not bombard users with too many features and to get straight to the point of Tiplr.
Q: Why a travel app?
A: Our founder said it best: “I have a travel platform in mind which combines a Lonely Planet guidebook with Instagram, making it incredibly easy to access smart travel tips and guides from anywhere! A tool as exhaustive as a guidebook but as immediate as a snapshot” – Carmine Savarese
Q: What’s next for Tiplr?
A: We've created an MVP. We are already working on future versions of both our app and our website to give users multiple options for creating, sharing, and saving tips. With our next big version, users will have the ability to not only save tips but to use them to create their own guidebooks. Instead of having to check emails, forums, documents, and multiple apps, explorers can have everything they need in one place.
Q: How can others get involved?
A: Download the app and start creating tips! It’s really that easy. Our platform is easy to use, and it’s a fun reference guide for building out your travel plans. You can download it here: http://apple.co/2gFiWAw
And there you have it! Let’s show Tiplr some love and start loading in some tips! Want more info on Tiplr? Check out their website and follow their blog!
