Travel Flan

Kenneth Lee spent years working on data warehousing projects from 2000 to 2011, gaining deep technical expertise. In 2013, he quit his job and started traveling the world—South America, Europe, and East Asia. During his travels, a buddy working on an interesting project reached out. That friend, who was from the travel industry and passionate about travel, had no business plan but a clear vision: build something meaningful in travel. Kenneth joined forces, and they spent six months developing a business plan before officially launching Travel Flan in 2015.

The team took a unique approach to their first product. They started by identifying local, niche activities—specifically water sports in Japan—and promoted them to travelers in China and Hong Kong. The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Travelers loved the unique experiences and began asking questions about broader travel planning and destination advice. This feedback validated their core idea: there was real demand for personalized travel advisory services backed by data.

By July 2015, Travel Flan officially launched with a clear three-pronged revenue model: subscription fees from consumers, commissions from airlines and online travel agencies (OTAs), and data licensing to industry players.

That first year proved the concept worked. In 2015, Travel Flan generated $120,000 in total revenue. The initial customers came organically through their water sports activity listings and word-of-mouth from excited travelers who then asked for deeper travel planning assistance.

By June 2016, the company had grown to approximately 2,000 paying customers. The economics showed promise: consumers paid $10/month for premium services, while airlines and OTAs paid commissions averaging $15 per booked transaction. Most impressively, Kenneth had just signed two RFPs (Request for Proposals) with major airlines for data licensing at $60,000 per year—revenue that would begin flowing in September 2016.

Kenneth quickly realized that the B2C model, while tempting, wasn't optimal for the travel industry. Direct customer acquisition cost $20 per user, but churn was brutal—nearly 99%—because travelers typically only need services once or twice a year. After booking, they'd either return to airline websites directly or use other channels.

The breakthrough came from pivoting to B2B2C: partnering directly with airlines and OTAs through revenue-sharing agreements. This eliminated high customer acquisition costs and aligned incentives perfectly. Airlines and OTAs promoted Travel Flan's services to their users, turning the business model on its head. Suddenly, the unit economics made sense, and growth became sustainable.

By June 2016, Travel Flan was operating at approximately $50,000 MRR—breaking down as roughly $20,000 from direct consumer subscriptions, $25,000 from airline commissions, and the promise of $60,000 annually from two new data licensing deals. The team had grown to 11 people: four engineers, three operations staff, and four in sales and marketing.

Kenneth had been accepted into 500 Startups and received $125,000 in funding. He was actively fundraising for $1.5M at a $5M pre-money valuation, targeting a post-money valuation of $6.5M. Most of the team remained in Asia, though Kenneth and two co-founders had recently moved to San Francisco to immerse themselves in the startup ecosystem and strengthen the company's marketing and culture.

The vision was clear: dominate the B2B2C travel space globally by becoming the essential data and advisory layer for airlines, corporate travel programs, and OTAs.