Colette Grgic and husband Vinko were cycling in South America when they came up with the idea for Arribaa; a marketplace which connects travellers with locals who can offer experiences for a fee, from bar tours to photography classes.
Their vision is to allow travellers and locals to connect, so that travellers stop worrying about being ripped off, and locals can develop a relationship with visitors, rather than get frustrated about visitors flocking to their town or city.
“We have 200 people on the site now,” says Colette Grgic.
“We’ve got some amazing guides with good feedback. We can call them anytime.”
Arribaa has attracted a mix of different people to the site; “I’ve learnt how to segment and profile users,” says Grgic.
Some of the guides “buy into the thinking that this is going to change the world”, whereas others “like the practicality as they can get a job” and make an income doing things they enjoy.
The pair moved to Sydney in June, after Colette accepted a job as a program manager with PushStart, based out of Fishburners. She had applied to take Arribaa through the program, but just missed out.
She says getting a an actual job with the program proved beneficial as it exposed her to a bunch of other startups, mentors and startup approaches. With co-founder and CTO, Roger Barnes, based in Sydney, they saw benefits to sticking around.
Advice: talk to everyone
Grgic’s advice is to talk to everyone about your idea: “we didn’t have to pre-pitch because it was through connections that we got introduced.”
Arribaa has received some funding from abroad, which has allowed the team to pursue the startup full-time. A Chinese businesswoman got in touch through Grgic’s network and offered to invest.
“I was shocked when we got an email that said she’s really interested in investing. That buys you six months.”
To outsiders, it might look like an angel investor just appeared out of nowhere, but money never appears out of nowhere, and without Grgic’s tireless evangelising about Arribaa, the connection to the investor might never have happened.
Next: trialling new features
A new live chat function and active support for guides has been helpful for people wanting to use the platform. With a startup, says Grgic, you just don’t know what that “the one thing that makes it go pop” will be.
The team are now working on putting together an information pack for guides, redesigning their landing page and improving the functionality of the site.
“It’s the number one thing that keeps me up — the uncertainty. You have to keep trying, and get faster at iterating.”
There are some challenges in launching a global marketplace: “We have the full intent of being everywhere, and every place has its own market.”
A big difference between cultures is something Grgic descibes as the “time-money equation”.
“Vinko (Grgic’s partner) is from Croatia. It’s so different there; you can call anyone now and they’ll walk over. It’s surprising because here people want to plan weeks ahead.”