LCO is Offering a New Offline Travel App

Saki Kobayashi, Co-Founder and COO of LCO is opening the doors to travellers by providing travel tips and maps completely offline.

Saki is part of our Travel Massive Singapore chapter and helps travelers avoid inconveniences and discomforts they may experience during their travels, by providing an offline travel app.

LCO is a Singapore-based travel tech startup and the creator of “TravelDoor” – a travel app that contains city guides for over 50 cities around the world.

What inspired you to create this startup?

During my college years, I backpacked across Asia and Europe. One afternoon, my flight to Siem Reap was cancelled at the last minute and I had to spend the night in Ho Chi Minh City. With no guidebook and no information in hand, and without access to the internet, my first visit to Vietnam ended up being very stressful. I wish I’d had a tool in my pocket, a sort of travel companion, which would have made my travel experience more convenient and stress-free.

How did you build your startup?

Yuki, my co-founder, and I, raised angel funding and made a prototype within six months. Using this prototype, we conducted market research in Southeast Asia by travelling around the region. We also started to prepare for a company establishment in Singapore and began to meet with potential investors for VC round funding. One of the main reasons we founded our company in Singapore was to focus our business (including O2O) primarily in Southeast Asia where the economy is rapidly booming and because of its mature startup ecosystem.

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

TravelDoor, is a leading mobile travel app in Japan which contains city guides for over 50 cities globally. Each destination has its own city guide, with exhaustive travel content and useful information for the global traveler. A key feature of the application is the offline maps and navigation function. This ensures that travelers can navigate around their destination without the need to have Internet access, a local sim card or incur high data roaming charges.

We directly collaborate with locally based publishers and travel agents who provide local information to traditional guidebooks. Thanks to these strategic partnerships, we have high-quality, accurate, and frequently updated travel content.

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

When Yuki and I first started this business, we did everything – we traveled country by country, while also conducting sales, product development, content creation and other administrative tasks to get the business going. Many of the choices that truly got our start up off the ground didn’t come from perfect strategies, but rather from multiple trials and errors.

We gained traction by being officially recommended by the Singapore Tourism Board and featured on various media outlets. Launching a co-branded app with Skyscanner on App Pass, a play store operated by Softbank, a major telecommunications company, also gave us an opportunity to reach out to their mobile subscribers. 

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

No matter what happens, keep trying! The important thing is to never quit.

 As a startup, what benefits have you seen from being a part of Travel Massive meetups?

I attended a Travel Massive event in Singapore back in April – WIT x TM presents: It’s All About Content – Sponsored by Trip101 and Travel.jp. It was one of the most valuable and relevant sessions that I have ever attended before and it gave me the opportunity to meet with like-minded people from the travel industry!

Anything else you would like to us to add to the interview?

We are currently looking for sales partners, technology partners and strategic partners! If you are interested in collaborating with us, feel free to contact us at info@lco-creation.com or contact me via Travel Massive.

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