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#121: Samantha Patil, Founder and CEO of Well Traveled, a Members Only Review Platform for Millennial Travelers

May 24, 2020

Samantha Patil is the founder and CEO of Well Traveled, a members only platform for trusted travel recommendations and reviews. The growing platform, currently in beta, is designed to streamline travel discovery and planning, through a community driven approach to content curation. Well Traveled's content library of trending hotel, restaurant, nightlife and activity recommendations is member sourced and endorsed and is constantly evolving based on member feedback. Membership is on an application basis and once accepted, members can endorse, review and contribute to the content collection, providing a relevant list of travel recommendations sourced directly from and vetted by their trusted network.

A graduate of the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business, Samantha has her background in marketing. After working at a number of startups, she took the leap to work full time on her own venture in 2019. She brought on co-founder Casey Hough, and Well Traveled recently soft launched. When Samantha isn't hard at work growing her new business, she can be found riding her Peleton bike, playing with her labradoodle puppy, or baking.

Connect with Samantha Patil

Some of the Topics Covered by Samantha Patil in this Episode

  • How Well Traveled is coping as they launch during the COVID-19 crisis

  • What is Well Traveled and how the idea was born from a sense of information overload

  • Samantha's process in the early stages of building the concept

  • The challenge of getting a developer

  • Building up a "fellow founder network"

  • How Samantha and her co-founder Casey split responsibilities and balance each other's roles

  • The value of setting aside weekly meeting time for strategic planning

  • The ongoing customer discovery process for Well Traveled

  • How Well Traveled is prioritizing the expansion of features

  • How Samantha made the leap from nights and weekends to making her startup her full time gig

  • How Samantha and Casey have managed the financial journey of their business so far

  • How to fund raise among friends and family

  • What questions to ask in building your pitch

  • How they began building their customer base before launching

  • Samantha's vision for the growth of the company

  • How they built their revenue model based on annual membership

  • How they are adjusting their model amidst COVID-19 to focus on local travel and make their platform more accessible given the current climate

  • The "everything is figureoutable" approach

  • The biggest challenges Samantha has faced building her company from scratch

  • How Samantha structures her workday and manages her time

  • Samantha's approach to weekends

  • The importance of disconnecting

  • Resources Samantha recommends for entrepreneurs

  • What Samantha does to recharge

  • The biggest lessons Samantha has learned along the way so far

  • Samantha's long term vision for Well Traveled

  • Potential opportunities to work for Well Traveled

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