The small day-to-day details of a trip are not always reflected in a photograph and are not always perpetuated in memory. At least that's what young Roger Planas thought while traveling through Iceland in 2018: "I wanted to freeze and eternalize moments, instants, of that trip and I realized that I couldn't, that I didn't know how to do it, beyond taking a photograph or jotting it down in a hurry in a notebook, and that I would have to wait to get home to put it in order."
And from that personal concern, from thinking that upon returning to work, daily life would leave him little time to organize everything accumulated on paper and in his phone's photo gallery, the company 51Trips and the mobile application Trip Book have emerged. "We are more than a photobook, he assures, because the memory is more alive and has more contextual elements of where, when, and why it occurred."
The app can be downloaded through Google Play and App Store and has a technological development that allows recreating a trip by dedicating only three to five minutes daily to selecting and introducing photographs, noting titles, dates, visits, locations, kilometers traveled, itineraries, highlights, and daily summaries.
Furthermore, it is an "ideal" solution for family outings or groups of friends because it is a collaborative application, so it can be shared with a maximum of eight people, simultaneously from several mobile phones, to create a common memory. "If users of the application should have something in common, it is their passion for travel and the need to perpetuate their experiences," he states.
Once the trip is finished, with one click the album is saved online and can also be sent for printing, "and we have it available in a week thanks to an agreement with a Scandinavian multinational that has printing points in practically all over the world," Planas specifies.
Roger Planas, an elite former motorcyclist who has traveled all over the world, developed his business idea until 2020, just when the pandemic broke out, so he had to adapt his initial project and launched 51Trips as an e-commerce of travel notebooks and planners in physical format that, similar to a diary, could be used to incorporate memories and photographs from previous trips. Planas shared his concerns, his traveling spirit, and his passion for technology with Armand Dalmau who, from the beginning, joined the project.
With a personal initial investment of 28,000 euros and in the midst of covid, 51Trips decided to focus on the travel notebook brand and on creating all kinds of content, from audiovisuals with information on various destinations to specific Trivial games, for social media. "This allowed us to validate the product and have some income, while confirming that there was a latent demand. In fact, in just over a year we already have a community on Instagram, with 130,000 followers in Spain and 33,000 in Italy," explains Planas.
Planas and Dalmau opened their first funding round in December 2020, with 122,000 euros, and a second three months later, for 105,000 euros. These resources have been allocated to the development of the mobile application and to setting up the team of 14 people that 51Trips currently has, in the Barcelona office.
To advance in the commercialization of Trip Book, the startup has opened a new funding round worth 400,000 euros through Sociosinversores.com. With 70% of the amount raised, 51Trips will increase commercial traction through marketing and will serve to implement a multichannel strategy to promote the product in various markets. The remaining 30% will be used to develop the product and increase the workforce.
The company has an open funding round worth 400,000 euros that will be used to open marketsRight now, the brand has some traction in Spain and Italy. The latter market generated 30% of the 200,000 euros in sales in 2021. "We will focus on growth in Spain and Italy, but in July we will enter France and Mexico, and we expect to exceed 150,000 trips created with the application after the summer," states Roger Planas, and anticipates that before the end of the year they will also open markets in Brazil and Argentina, because "many of our followers on social media are Latin American." Regarding turnover, forecasts for this year set the goal at 700,000 euros, and to exceed 2 million euros in 2023.
Of the total business, 1% is allocated to various sustainable projects, such as the World Comes First initiative, helping associations that fight to maintain the integrity of the planet and living beings.
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