Travel Loyalty for Financial Services Startups

Welcome to Travel Buddy

In this episode of Travel Buddy, we explore the critical role of travel loyalty programs for financial services startups with guest Nowell Outlaw. Discover how Switchfly’s innovative PRO platform allows these startups to swiftly integrate travel perks, boosting customer engagement and growth. Whether you’re a financial startup seeking rapid market entry or interested in enhancing your rewards program, this episode provides invaluable insights on navigating and optimizing travel loyalty solutions. Key Highlights: The essentials of integrating travel as a perk in loyalty programs for financial service startups. Detailed overview of Switchfly’s PRO platform and its quick implementation process. The importance of backend services, including fraud prevention and supplier management. The necessity of localization in travel bookings to enhance customer experience. Challenges faced by startups when opting for traditional loyalty solutions and how Switchfly addresses them. Unique cases, like crypto startups, and their integration hurdles. See more at switchfly.com.

Transcript

Brandon Giella (00:01.304)

Hello, Nowell, and welcome back to the Travel Buddy podcast. Last week we talked about bundling and saving a lot of money on your travel purchases as a consumer. know, you some travel hacks that are really helpful. But this time we’re gonna talk about loyalty, especially for financial services startups that are needing to bolt on a loyalty program, get up and running really quickly, and add that to their client base.

So tell me a little bit about what you guys are working on at Switchfly that can allow that to happen and some of the, maybe the mechanics of it, the pitfalls of it, why would somebody be interested in this, what’s helpful about it, that kind of thing.

Nowell Outlaw (00:41.523)

Sure. Thanks, Brandon. I think the interesting thing, there’s a lot of financial services, credit card startups out there, right? The credit card companies, and there’s some great startups that let you run those programs really, really quickly, right? If you wanted to start up a credit card for dog groomers, you could probably do it, right? In like a matter of weeks, right? Or start up a credit card for podcasters or whoever with

with kind of those things. And the interesting thing in the startup world is that the, you know, it becomes how you also reward the consumer, right? And a lot of people have built, you know, points programs and what they end up with when they’re starting their credit card is a cash back model, right? So you spend, you know, a thousand dollars, you may get, you know, 1 % back or 2 % back or 3 % back. And that’s just cash that credit’s going to serve hard.

But a lot of those programs realize that they need to be able to offer perks and benefits, if you will, that let the user or the consumer purchase more through their card and get the benefit of points. So the big guys do this at a massive scale, in the billions and trillions of dollars. Everybody uses their American Express or Chase Rewards card and things like that. But when they go to the shopping cart,

they’re also purchasing more travel on those things. And what we’ve seen is in the startup world, I probably have five that we’re talking to now that are trying to start these credit card programs and they need the ability to have travel. so Switchfly actually has a program that we call PRO, and its job and its go -to -market is really to help those startups.

Add travel to their platform as a perk right or as a benefit is the way you think about it and as a travel startup company You can add our pro platform in as little as like two to three weeks, right? And we we have customers that have gone from contract signing project kickoff to in production ready to go in less than 30 days, right and And that’s what it takes. I think the one thing is

Brandon Giella (03:02.343)

Amazing.

Nowell Outlaw (03:06.751)

Now, if you are a travel startup, if you are a loyalty program startup or credit card startup, you don’t have months and months and months to do this kind of work, right? You need to basically be able to flip it on fast and be in the market and have the solution. And there’s a lot of existing kind of loyalty travel program partners that it will take months. It could take nine, 12 months for it to be implemented.

And our job is, you know, here’s an API. Code to the API. You’re up and running right and we did and we did a another integration for another deal a couple of months ago and it took three days right so it’s really it can be really really fast for those those startups in the market and now they have you know the interesting thing about travel is. People always think about just the tech piece and you you have to think about the broader.

Brandon Giella (03:50.661)

Wow.

Nowell Outlaw (04:05.295)

spectrum of what’s really there, right? So when you think about, have a loyalty startup travel credit card, right? If you will, if that was your startup, I need to add all the backend services, right? Or financial services credit card or another built writer or things like that. Well, it’s more than just being able to shop for flights or hotels. It’s also the backend things about, well, who are the suppliers? Who am I connecting to? What?

what happens when something goes bad, right? So all the call center support and also don’t forget about fraud and abuse, right? Because there are people out there trying to hack, fraud, you know, and abuse those systems. And so it’s also tying all of that into one box so that you as a startup don’t have to worry about any of that, right? And now you can have a great travel reward program tied to your points program in the system.

Brandon Giella (05:00.864)

That you’ve mentioned before that localization is really important too. Like you’ve got to have a system that accommodates, you know, if it’s on Australian dollars and the currency exchange rate and all that kind of stuff, there’s a lot to think through.

Nowell Outlaw (05:09.289)

Correct. There is, and I think the, you know, we see, you know, it’s the littlest things that drive consumers nuts, right? And I’ll give an example just with the dollars. If you don’t have the ability to show the currency and the local currency, then the customer is making a decision based, let’s say, in dollars, and they’re having to try to figure out, get their calculator and figure out what that means in their local currency.

And then, you know, and so they’re confused, right? They may not hit click and they may not hit buy because just in the currency you’ve made it confusing for them, right? And we all know you can follow user flows through the process. Any of those touch points that make them stick, it’s probably, you know, going to create problems. And it is about getting that booking conversion for the actual user to actually buy their travel, right?

Brandon Giella (06:07.369)

Yeah, that slowed me down. mean, when I’m traveling, sometimes I’m looking in pounds or euros or whatever, and I’m doing in my head, but there is that psychological like, that’s more expensive than I thought. I don’t know if I want to do that kind of thing. What’s the challenge to doing it the more, let’s say traditional way with one of the large players that you feel like, is it, you know, is it technological? Is it like the contracts or the terms, or is it the backend, like you’re saying all those suppliers and vendors, like what’s been the, what’s

Nowell Outlaw (06:11.647)

Correct.

Nowell Outlaw (06:16.563)

Yeah, for sure.

Nowell Outlaw (06:35.305)

You know?

Brandon Giella (06:37.342)

the holdup from doing this quickly.

Nowell Outlaw (06:39.711)

You know, a lot of suppliers, right? So there’s, I mean, we have competitors. If you’re a travel, or not a travel startup, if you’re a loyalty startup, right, or a credit card startup, financial services, and you call those companies, the first question, and I’ve been a startup in my life, and I understand how this feels, and I hate it, where they’re like, the very first question is, well, tell me how many members are in your program? And you say, you know, I’m a startup and I have 5 ,000, and they go, well, you know, call me back when you get a million.

All right, thanks. And that sucks, right? Because, you know, as a true startup, you’re trying to grow your business. You’re trying to do that and you need partners who will sit by your side and do that. You know, I know one of our competitors, I heard this from a sales guy that their minimum deal size is $100 million in gross booking value, right? I’m like, whoa. So if your minimum is $100 million,

man, is a massive, I mean, that is such a big program that any startup on the planet is never gonna be close to that, right? Even a built or some of these things that have scale, they’re probably not even close to that as far as being able to do that in travel rewards. And so, you know, the other players in the market, you know, if you get their attention, right, because even if you’re small, maybe they like your idea.

And then it becomes a discussion about, you know, that’s going to take nine months to a year to implement and you have to pay for all the implementation services in order to get that done. So a startup in my mind is never going to write a $500 ,000 check to do professional services, right? They think and operate as they should like a startup, right? Pennies matter, Nickels, quarters, dimes.

Unless you’re a series D and you’ve raised 250 million and most people are not, you have to have something that’s able to deliver quickly without spending all of your money. Because while you’re trying to build your business, you have to show support and growth fast. Especially today, if you’re a startup, you’re trying to raise money, the first question, there’s total addressable market and all that other stuff.

Nowell Outlaw (09:05.375)

The second question is growth, right? So how are you growing? How fast are you growing? And if you’re flat, you’re probably not gonna get a lot of great meetings, right? But if you are showing this like rocket ship growth and adoption and things like that, and also how fast you’ve added programs and things to service those consumers or members, that’s what people are looking for, right? They’re looking for that fast moving, that fast twitch in startup world.

Brandon Giella (09:31.799)

Travel is such a high demand. mean, everybody loves travel and especially on a rewards program, loyalty program. And if you can plug that in, yeah, huge value, huge value. Yeah.

Nowell Outlaw (09:42.557)

Yeah, for sure. For sure. the people that we’ve talked to, we try to measure those implementations in days, right? Not weeks or months, because our whole objective is getting them to the path, what we call the path to bookings. So how fast can I get to actual consumers making bookings? Because that’s where the revenue stream is.

Brandon Giella (09:52.842)

Wow, yeah.

Brandon Giella (10:08.874)

Yep.

Yep. That’s right. Yeah. As founder of a startup myself, it is every dollar and every day matters every single day. If I miss a day, it’s tough. So yeah, that’s amazing. What’s something, this last question, what’s something that’s you found surprising going through this, this, this process of building out this product, but then also interacting with financial services company, something that they’ve asked you, you found during the process that has kind of like, I didn’t see that coming or they didn’t see that coming. And it’s been kind of a cool story.

Nowell Outlaw (10:15.167)

correct.

Correct.

Nowell Outlaw (10:34.639)

no.

I think the interesting one is when you talk to crypto startups because they want to talk in crypto and you know the big suppliers, right? They don’t they don’t operate that way, right? And so it’s like, you know, yes, crypto is cool and all that other stuff, but I really can’t go to Marriott and pay Marriott in crypto, right? And I can’t go to the airlines and pay for my flight in crypto, right? And so

Brandon Giella (10:49.214)

That’s funny.

Yeah.

Brandon Giella (11:02.131)

You

Nowell Outlaw (11:07.935)

I’ve had a couple of conversations with crypto folks where they want to use Switchfly, but they want us to accept a crypto payment and then translate it into dollars and things like that. That’s not our business model. It’s like I’d rather have them convert it to dollars and take the risk because they know that kind of the market personally.

Brandon Giella (11:21.33)

And how did that go? I’m so curious.

Brandon Giella (11:27.409)

Sure, yeah.

Brandon Giella (11:31.603)

Sure.

Brandon Giella (11:34.909)

Yeah.

Nowell Outlaw (11:37.233)

I don’t own crypto. I’m not a crypto guy. I’ll take dollars all day and every day. And that’s the way, you know, travel. I’m sure there’s elements of travel out there that I don’t know about that are doing something with crypto. But in mainstream, you know, all the hotel supply chains, know, air supply chains and all those things, it’s, there’s no one really, yes, well, you can pay for your flight using crypto, right?

Brandon Giella (12:04.208)

I think what’s so neat about that though, you kind of alluded to it is just the culture and mindset that you all have at Switchfly, you know, having this, not scrappy, but you guys just have this, like you get it. You get what it’s like to be a startup. You get the tech scene and you’re able to at least connect on that level, even if you don’t literally accept crypto, but you at least have that kind of vibe that with smaller companies, startups, you get it. And you can understand your tech stack works with them and you can get them started up because you understand their pain points, which is really, really cool.

Nowell Outlaw (12:16.041)

Correct.

Nowell Outlaw (12:23.327)

Yeah.

Nowell Outlaw (12:33.267)

Yeah, for sure. there’s, you as you raise from series A to series B to series C and series D and all that other stuff, like the requirements change, right? And now, I mean, one of the interesting things about Switchfly really as a product is it’s global capable, right? And one of the biggest mistakes I think you can make is, well, let’s go with the cheapest solution as a startup, right? So, you know, you’re a...

Angel round, your seed round, you pick the cheapest thing that you can to check the box. But then now things start moving and it’s series A and it’s series B and you realize like, you know, we would need to launch outside of the United States or outside of this country and the platform that we selected can’t handle it. Right. And so now you have to go through them and you don’t have the time to do that. Right. Because you’re always on a, let’s say an 18 month clock.

as a fundraising capability, if all of a sudden you have to pivot and switch out, let’s say, your rewards platform or your loyalty platform or your travel platform, that’s going to take months, right? And so, you know, choose wisely, I think, is my kind of guidance here, because you need a platform that can scale with you and grow, right? So I had a call earlier this morning. It’s a group in India. They’re a startup.

They went with a, you know, Indian partner that only services India. And guess what? They’re stuck. Right. And now they’re like, well, we need to be able to do this. And they, and they only offer certain things. So they, they basically chose poorly and now they have to go through this, this huge effort to basically port their platform. It’s going to slow them down. And now they’re, you know, basically the initial dollars that they spend are throw away and now they’re going to have to spend more money to pivot over.

to basically have the right solution, right? So it’s just one of those things. I get it, as a startup entrepreneur myself, it’s super hard, right? If people are sitting there going, well, you you need to pay us a quarter million dollars to use our platform. You’re like, I don’t have that, right? So you end up making those decisions. I would say that just, you know, I support startups personally. So like we’re open and honest with people who are.

Nowell Outlaw (14:52.883)

know, seed series a all those guys like more than happy to talk to him. See if we can help him.

Brandon Giella (14:59.669)

What I heard is Switchfly can be your travel buddy as you scale. And that’s really great. I’m just kidding. That’s so great. Nowell, thank you. This is super cool. I’m excited about this product and how you’re able to service startups. Because I’m super passionate about startups. I know you are in the entrepreneurial world and you get it. And so I’m really grateful you guys are building this and I think it’s so cool. So can’t wait to hear more about how it goes and we’ll talk to you next time.

Nowell Outlaw (15:04.121)

there it is. You are a marketing guy. It’s crazy. Nice.

Nowell Outlaw (15:26.077)

All right. All right. Thanks, Brandon.

Brandon Giella (15:28.746)

All right, thanks, Noah.