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Ask HN: I'm building something for the airline industry..

5 points by faramarz ↗ HN
..and I'm stuck at a point of whether I should allocate more resources (time and money) to building the product, or going out there and asking the airlines for ideas/needs behind the scenes.

It's really a business development question I have. I'm currently building what I assume is highly attractive to the airlines and consequently their customers, but my feature list is running low because I can't justify anything beyond the minimal stuff.

1) If you're in my position (2 person team), how would you get in touch with biz dev guys at airliners? I'm assuming they're the right people to try to contact for partnership deals.

2) There is an opportunity to take what I've done + the idea and apply to a local incubator. It's a summer program, and the deadline is approaching FAST. Biggest downside is that they're asking for 10% with $5k + $5k per founder. It won't get me in the same network caliber of ycombinator, but it's probably better than doing it on my own.

Any advice? Thanks

13 comments

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asimjalis
You could just call the airlines and/or drop by their offices. Wear business casual.
faramarz
My last resort is to cold call. Though i'm not sure it will get me in the room with senior guys.

How do I introduce myself? As a founder or ceo? or biz dev and sales?

gyardley
I'd just use LinkedIn to find the people you're looking for. You might have to pay LinkedIn a nominal fee to contact them with 'InMail' if they're not already connected to your LinkedIn network somehow.
faramarz
I did not think of this. I'll have to brush up my profile first, then ping them. Thanks.
byoung2
what I assume is highly attractive to the airlines and consequently their customers

You have to be certain that it is highly attractive...enough for them to pay you money for it. You're also going to face a huge hurdle with bureaucracy and proprietary technology (if it's an app).

I worked for a hotel marketing company a few years back, and we had a proprietary booking engine that connected in house reservation systems with web-based ones. There was a team that went around just building code on top of each hotel chain's proprietary software that would tie into our system.

I had a similar idea for a comparison shopping app back in 1999 where I would compare prices between different brick-and-mortar stores and allow people to shop online for a list of items, and show them on a map the fewest stores with all of the items at the cheapest price, or the cheapest price, regardless of the number of stores, or the shortest drive with the lowest price. That never got off the ground because there is no easy way to get all of the stores to give you an up to date XML feed of their current inventory and prices. Not in 1999 anyway...maybe it could be done now, but I'm not so sure. My idea was that I would start with a website in 1999, and maybe in 10 years we would have mobile technology that could take advantage of the backend data. I was right about the technology part.

I'm not sure what your idea involves, but I would try contacting a few airlines to see if it really does solve a problem, and if so, how many more does it create?

faramarz
Thanks for that. Yea I figure the bureaucracy friction will only multiply if I act alone and without a network support.

As far as the app allure. I've seen it work BIG TIME for a different industry and the timing is right to sell them on the model. Both airline and consumer will benefit greatly.

I guess my question really is, How do I come up with leverage before I approach these guys.

aristus
A friend of mine wrote a reservation system for the Aloha Airlines. (Aloha is now out of business, but I don't think that was the reason. :D) Ping me (email in my profile), maybe he can give you some advice and / or contacts.
faramarz
That would be fantastic! email on its way...
rms
From my experience working at US Airways, they will never buy whatever it is you are building, even though their business is crippled by the 70's era software that the entire operation depends on. Do you have any background or connections in the airline industry? You need to talk to someone at the airlines, and soon.
CyberFonic
Does your solution make money? Lots of it? Right now? If so you'll get a good audience. If not, as pedalpete suggests, implement Steve Blank's Customer Development Process.

Rather than going direct to the airlines, how about sussing out angel investors who have contacts in that area?

pedalpete
Before heading for the big airlines, if this is a product that might suit smaller airline businesses like charter business or something, you might want to talk to them first.

Even if they aren't your target market, if they can relate to the issues you are trying to solve, I suspect they would be much more approachable than the bigger airlines.

The key thing is get out there as soon as possible, and talk about the idea. From the sounds of things you are building a product for a specific customer and you haven't approached that customer at all yet.

You may think that you understand the customers problem, but you might not.

If you haven't checked out Steve Blanks's Customer Development info, I suggest you do.

harnhua
Are there industry seminars or travel tradeshows in your area where the airlines come out to interact?

Perhaps small / budget airlines are good targets to start with.

If you can reach out to their customers via a forum, that might indirectly validate your product and bring attention to the airline companies via those customers.

lukelockhart
This is (IMHO) how you should go about doing it yourself:

1) First of all find out who your looking to speak to. Airlines are huge. Who in the airlines owns the process/es that your solution addresses? Who in the organization would benefit on a day to day level from your solution? - If you can't find this info from secondary research your going to have to try to speak to someone in the industry who can help you figure this out.

2) Contacting People - Try your best to get an introduction from someone (Anyone - friend of a friend, in-law's cousin, alumni, whatever) in your network to someone in the airline. They don't have to be the right contact to begin with. Sometimes they're just contacts to get more contacts. - I agree with what others have said about big companies being harder to break into. People at smaller companies often know counterparts in larger companies. So this can be a good first step. - Cold calling probably has the lowest success rate (you will have to make a ton of calls to even speak to someone useful) - Random LinkedIn messages are better, but will go mostly unanswered. - Join their forums, groups, sign up for their blogs.

I could go on, but I have an incubator interview myself tomorrow I have to prep for.