Dubbi Targets The Tip Sharing Travellers Online

Marcos Arata, co-founder and CTO of Dubbi, helps travellers to plan travellers trips with the collaboration of an engaged community of passionate travellers.

Marcos is a part of our Sao Paulo chapter and is passionate about building startups in the tourism sector. He has created Dubbi with this passion, a community of travelers who love to travel and share unique and valuable tips, recommendations and experiences.

What inspired you to create this startup? 

The idea came to me during a backpacking trip through Europe. We wanted to visit a mountainous place called Cinque Terre, recognized by the UN as historical heritage. However, we forgot the name of the place while on route and decided to continue our trip to Barcelona instead. As we lost the opportunity to visit Cinque Terre, we later realized that we could build a platform where travelers could ask questions and exchange information as a collaborative community. Dubbi is a Q&A (questions and answers) travel website, where users can ask travel questions and receive the best tips from our community of travellers.

How did you build your startup?

Dubbi was founded by 3 friends in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. We financed the project with our own resources (bootstrap) and developed the platform over long nights and with the collaboration of several friends and supporters of the idea.

What makes your startup different from other similar startups out there?

Dubbi is a unique platform where travelers can ask questions and plan their trip with the collaboration of an engaged community of real and passionate travellers. Through our alghortim we identify the specifications of the questions and find the best travelers to answer, based on the location and your travel preferences. Our mission is to encourage more people to travel and experience new places, cultures and people. We were considered one of the most innovative solutions in the travel industry in Latin America by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Panrotas, Campus Party and Cisco.

Dubbi team at Campus Part 2016

How did you get your startup off the ground and gaining traction?

We launched the platform in March of 2015 and began with a few early adopters. We grew our community based on word-of-mouth since then. Currently, we are one of the largest user generated content (UGC) platforms in the travel industry in Brazil with almost 30,000 registered users that contributed more than 15,000 travel tips.

Travel Massive is about empowering change in travel. How is your startup changing the future of the industry or helping to make travel better?

We are building an innovative solution for the Brazilian travel industry and we are encouraging more Brazilians to travel further and better. We truly believe in the concept of ‘collective intelligence’, therefore the connection between travelers with real experiences can generate the best answers and tips. In addition, we expect to boost the entire industry and open new and interesting opportunities for all stakeholders and players.

Photo Credit: Shutter Stock

Do you have any tips for new entrepreneurs who want to create a successful startup?

Passion and resilience.

Travel Start-Up is a monthly series that profiles unique online travel start-ups in the Travel Massive community around the world. Connect with Marcos and Dubbi on Travel Massive, Twitter and Facebook.