We are your source for travel #inspiration.

We’re passionate about travel, with broader ambitions.

We are your self-curation tool, in a world of overwhelming choice.

We’re Tedd, Pierre, Freddy, Jen, Laurie, Huu Da and a virtual army of supporters.

We are TripTuner: a self-funded, profitable #startup celebrating 6 years of fine-tuned #travel.

We’re inviting you to join us on this journey of discovery. You down?

Three years ago tonight, my lead developer Pablo and I were pecking out messages on Skype, knocking out a seemingly never-ending checklist of tasks.  It was a Friday night and we’d been working nonstop all day until around 8pm, when we flipped the virtual switch and pushed a web app called TripTuner live.

There was no launch party.  No throng of users enticed with sneak previews, or bloggers given special codes in a cleverly crafted pre-launch marketing plan.  We didn’t have time to build hype.  We wanted what we built to BE hype.  So our launch went completely unnoticed.  But man was it a great feeling to see an idea come to life.

Three years later, with equally little fanfare we – and by “we” I mean a virtual team spread across three continents — celebrate the sucessful culmination of years of hard work and perseverance.  A rollercoaster of ups and downs, sometimes on an hourly basis.  Quick reactions, changing priorities and rapid iterations are the norm, but the vision of discovering ideal options — for nearly anything — remains unchanged.  We’re executing on that vision and are well on our way with a growing, profitable company.  And a kick-ass product.

TripTuner began as a great way to find personalized destination ideas.  But we had no idea if it would work.  There wasn’t a test that could prove whether or not it was viable.  We had to build it to see if users thought it was as cool as we did.  Of course, everyone we showed it to said they liked it.  But everyone will tell you that.  There’s only one way to tell, and that’s to put it out there.  Fortunately, users responded with enthusiasm.  “It’s like it knows me”, tweeted one.  “So freaking obsessed” twote another.

Now, in addition to TripTuner.com, we create custom “discovery engines” for a growing array of partner sites that help users find their ideal destination, beach, island wedding, hotel…or dress.  As a result, we’ve focused more on our partner’s needs than our own over the past few years.  But we’ll be updating TripTuner.com soon to give you, our fans, an even better way to discover great places to go.

I thank you deeply for your support during these first three years and look forward to many more years with you as we move into the next chapter.  #StayTuned  – Tedd

Haven’t posted here in awhile, mainly because we’ve been keeping everyone updated via our Facebook page so please check in with us there to keep up to date, OK?  Thanks and #stayTTuned

It’s been WAAAY too long since we’ve posted here – but all for good reasons.  We’ve been busy working behind the scenes, and for better or for worse we’re generally more focused on DOING than TALKING about it (which isn’t the best PR strategy I must admit – but I’m getting better :).

Bob Marley photo thx to The Independent UK / Getty Images

Becky and I have both been travelling on and off over the past several weeks.  Just this month I went to London for World Travel Market and met with my partner par excellence Pierre Alzon in Paris.  After just a few days at HQ in Washington, DC I flew off to Scottsdale, Arizona for the Phocuswright Conference where we introduced TripTuner to the heavy hitters of the online travel industry.  Add in some travel to see family and a few days of skiing in Vail, Colorado over Thanksgiving here in the US and it makes for a busy month.

Since our last post we’ve also received a ton of new fans from some great press in The New York Times, Business Insider, The Kim Komando Show (which is huge…who knew?), an Italian blog and even from a Danish magazine.  ALSO we’ve also put a few new wrinkles into the TripTuner based on feedback from our users: larger photos, a regional filter so you can find new destinations within a certain region (our default setting: ANYWHERE, of course) and a cool map view that will adjust to your regional settings as well.

All of which means we have a ton of work to do amid the end of the year rush, so I thought it would be appropriate to ease things up a bit with a Bob Marley-inspired title to this post.  But then, you already knew that.  Thanks for hangin’ with us, there’s more to come soon (or “soon come” as they say in Jamaica).  Stay tuned!

Saw a TechCrunch post last Tuesday on how Marissa Mayer, the recently-appointed CEO of Yahoo has decided to allow the removal of “The R”- their registered trademark symbol – from their logo.  I guess that’s one way to leave your mark (so to speak) on a company but to be honest I hadn’t really noticed it either way.  It’s one of those ubiquitous symbols that you take for granted and don’t notice until you really look at it.

Now while a large established company like Yahoo can rest assured that it’s trademark is safe, a young startup trying to establish an identity in an industry filled with big players is another matter.  As it turned out, that same day I got a text from my wife about a big package from the US Patent & Trademark Office.  Our trademark had been registered!

Not a huge deal, I know.  Like any young company we’ve got a laser focus on what really matters – growing our bottom line – but it was really great to see.  I guess that in the topsy-turvy world of entrepreneurship it’s one of those rare outcomes where you feel like you had some measure of control over a well-defined process (the antithesis of startup life, really).  At any rate, we’ll take your R, Ms. Mayer.  And we’ll roll with it.