Koala Club Helps Australians Discover Airfare Deals

Lachlan Nicolson, Co-founder of the Koala Club, helps Australian travelers discover airfare deals in one central place. Created for Australians, by Australians.

Lachlan is part of our Travel Massive Brisbane chapter and has answered a few of our questions to give Travel Massive readers a better idea of how the Koala Club works.

What inspired you to create the Koala Club?

My friends and I love to travel, and we’re always chatting about cheap flights and where we want to go next. One day after reading a study on travel in Australia, I realized it’s not just my group of friends who love to get abroad.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that over 30% of our population leaves annually abroad, it’s no wonder we love a good airfare deal!?

In another study, I learned that ‘Aussies’ rated saving for an overseas trip far higher than even saving for a home deposit! We all love a good sale, but no one has time to sift through search engines, swapping dates and waiting on those slow loading bars… so I built The Koala Club.

How did you build your startup?

I currently run a travel blog called AusTraveller.com.au which was gaining an active audience each day. I thought to myself “how can I help my friends and this extended audience find the best airfare deals?”. Later that day I discovered a local meta search engine called iwantthatflight.com.au run by a local guy named Gath. I sent him an email and asked if he had an API that could pull me these packaged deals the site was running. He was really friendly and introduced me to their affiliate program, which was completely free and easy to set up.

That night I gave myself an 8 hour overnight challenge… Build a brand, create the site and test the deals. The next day I sat at my local coffee shop sipping a double-shot latte (after a long night) and texting the web link to my friends. Koala Club was up and running!

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

Identify a market gap, big or small and give yourself a time limit to create your MVP.

Your first thoughts are sometimes the best, or ‘good enough’ to begin with. Just start doing SOMETHING and you can perfect it later.

Don’t get stuck on a name either.

Expedia, Viator, and Travello all sounded like pretty strange words until we fell in love with them. The name becomes significant after you push value through it.

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

Travel Massive events are great to meet other people in the travel industry, in a really relaxed and friendly manner. I also found it a great environment to pinpoint opportunities (market gaps) and even test ideas subtly in conversation with others.

Travel Start-Up is a monthly series that profiles unique online travel start-ups in the Travel Massive community around the world. You can connect with Lachlan and the Koala Club on Travel Massive and Facebook.