718 Samantha Patil:

Building a great product is never enough. No matter how many cool differentiated features it may have, if no one knows about it, or has a reason to emotionally connect with it, the startup will struggle to succeed, especially in a noisy marketplace.  My guest today – Samantha Patil – is an expert in all things marketing and brand building, and when she took the leap into building a travel business, community was at the center of her successful strategy.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who ignored the naysayers, followed her intuition, and took the leap into the travel business in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Samantha Patil is Co-Founder and CEO of Well Traveled, a growing membership community for modern travelers. Samantha has always loved travel, and prior to her leap into entrepreneurship, she built her career in consumer tech and marketing where she led go-to-market strategies, international marketing, and member monetization programs at some of the world’s biggest consumer brands.

Samantha will be here in a moment, and first,

There is something about travel, especially the exploration of different cultures around the world, that inspires creativity, open-mindedness, and inclusivity. Yet our hard-driving American culture, where most people don’t even take all of their comparatively meager vacation time, that conspires against it.

Samantha Patil wants to change all of that, and I know from my own experiences traveling the world and living abroad, that my best ideas and inspirations often come when I am traveling and not in the normal work grind.

Travel was always her passion, and marketing her jam, so when the Pandemic hit, she had a counter intuitive thought. Why not create a community for a new way of traveling, one aligned with our growing digital nomad gig economy?

Well Traveled is now growing fast, thanks to Samantha’s proven expertise at brand building, community building and masterminding successful marketing campaigns – for Pandora Media, Snap, and Dollar Shave Club. Samantha has shared her expertise across numerous top-tier publications including the Wall Street Journal, AdWeek, Travel + Leisure, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and New York Magazine, and she was featured in Travel Massive’s Top 100 Inspiring Women Travel Founders for 2020. She’s also a proud member of the Female Founder Collective, Dreamers and Doers, and All Raise’s Visionary Voices.

Today we talk about why travel is core to the human experience, traveling as a woman, plus the secrets of brand and community building for female founders, and much more.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Samantha Patil and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Samantha, welcome to Wings.

Samantha Patil:

Thank you. So excited to be here. Appreciate you having me on.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m so curious about the counterintuitive nature of your jump into the travel industry in the middle of the pandemic. What was the light bulb there that makes you say, “Okay, now is the time that I’m going to do a travel business.”?

Samantha Patil:

Right? I think a lot of my friends were like, “Is Sam okay? What is she doing?” But yeah, I mean, I can explain a little bit how we got there. I have loved travel since I was very young. And I sound like I’m from LA, but I’m actually from England, and I spent the early part of my childhood there, and just spent a lot of time traveling back and forth and around Europe with my family and then turned that into a career, which I’m sure we’ll get to at some point.

But it had always been something that was so important to me. And I’d come up with the idea for Well Traveled in 2019, after having this lightning bulb moment, as you put it, that I kept getting so frustrated, feeling like it was so hard to find relevant information or recommendations I could trust, especially as a young, or maybe I’m not that young anymore, I’m an elder millennial, female traveler. And I just realized that none of the tools that are out there were really designed for me. They were designed 20 years ago, big Yelp, TripAdvisor, all of these big platforms. And they were built by a bunch of guys. So, it just didn’t feel like there was a lot of empathy from my experience as a consumer.

So, the pandemic was definitely not something I was expecting at the time. But what I will say is that, I think because when we launched in May of 2020, and we were never going out to people and saying, “Hey, “Come book your trip. Get on your next trip.” It was more like, “Hey, the internet is kind of a messy, complicated place for travel right now.” And there were a lot of complicated emotions about travel. So we were saying, “Why don’t you join our community? Come share experiences from past trips with other travel lovers. Get inspired and excited for your next trip.” Because we will travel again. Humans were not designed to stay indoors. And so, we just wanted to be there and sort of create that community from the ground up from that perspective. And I think that’s a big reason of actually why we’ve been so successful to date.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what a wonderful story. I want to know a little bit about what Well Traveled does. I mean, it is a membership community, so what are some of the services you provide? It’s very interesting how you started out, like, “Hey, just share your experiences and whatnot.” But how did that evolve and what is it doing right now?

Samantha Patil:

So, the feedback that we had gotten from a lot of folks, and we started talking to people about this concept initially, was, what are the tools that you’re using right now to either plan your trips, get inspired for a future trip, or get advice? And it was varied, but we tapped a little bit deeper to get into the pain points. And the biggest things that people said is that, it’s really time consuming, trying to kind of vet all the information that they get. Right?

So right now, the internet is kind of overwhelming and it’s really hard to find relevant information. It’s like that paradox of choice, right? So, you don’t necessarily want to see 10,000 restaurants that might be good for lunch. You want more like 10 that you know you’re going to like. So, that was the first thing.

And then the second thing was, it was really hard to filter feedback on a site like Yelp or TripAdvisor, when you had really no idea who these people were, what kind of things they were interested in, and if you were going to share the same sort of preferences and interests. For example, I don’t eat meat, I’m pescatarian. And so for me, I’m looking for restaurants that can cater to that dietary restriction. But if I were to go then get feedback from someone that’s a meat eater and said they hated this restaurant because there was no meat, that’s not super relevant for me.

So, we designed this site with those two things in mind. And then again, because it is a female-founded platform and women are controlling the majority of the spend in the travel space, we wanted to approach it from a slightly different perspective in terms of what was important to them. And that’s community. So, it has this very much people-centric focus to it.

So, I’ve heard our members describe it as travel Pinterest meets Yelp. And that’s sort of true, I think. You can add different spots and recommendations to the site. People can leave reviews, they can share photos, you can do all of those things. But I think what really makes it special, is that it has been built around this membership community of people that are excited to share their travels, read about different people’s travels, and provide advice and feedback for other people.

Melinda Wittstock:

So Samantha, in your traveling experiences yourself, where was the gap between what you wanted to experience traveling and what you described earlier as kind of the TripAdvisor, the big platform, all these things invented for a completely different demographic, very male focused, all of that? Where was the gap? How did you want to experience travel yourself, personally?

Samantha Patil:

Sure. I mean, I think a lot of the products that I’ve seen on the market today are very feature-driven. Right? So, a lot of them share the same features around reviews or lists and things like that, or itinerary planners. But from our perspective, travel is less about features and more about people. I think the best recommendations that you typically get are from a friend of a friend or someone that maybe you follow on Instagram that you’ve connected with, or you read about in an article from a blogger that you enjoy reading their pieces. And so, we wanted to make it more about people, which is why we kind of designed it to be more of a social platform where people can kind of connect with others that share their interests and be able to find relevant content in that way. That was, I think, the biggest piece of it.

Samantha Patil:

I also felt like a lot of these sites, I think what really bothers me about the travel industry is, it’s very vanilla. It’s all very mainstream. There’s sort of this one size fits all, and that’s just not really the case for most people. Right? People have different things that they want to experience when they’re traveling. There’s all these sort of, I call them, niches, but they’re really not niches because they’re massive, massive groups of people. Female travelers, people traveling with their pets, the LGBTQ travel industry, people all over the world want to experience different things. And they have different values that they’re really looking for. And so, we wanted to create a brand that people could really see themselves reflected in.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, I love that. So, how big is your community now?

Samantha Patil:

We have a couple thousand members now, and It is a membership community, so you do apply to join the platform. And I think in terms of building the initial group of people, it was really important that we were bringing people into the community that really wanted to be there. I mean, we accept like 95% of people that apply. But I think just that layer of validation is really helpful for the other people in the community, and it makes it feel more special.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. So, how has travel changed for you? Tell me how you travel. What do you like to do when you’re traveling?

Samantha Patil:

I’m a pretty active travel. I like to get out and do things. I’m not very good at sitting still. So, I’m typically one of those people that’s like, drop the backs at the hotel and then I’m out and about, whether it’s just walking around. I’m a big runner, so one of my favorite things to do is go for a run in a new city, because I think you can very quickly kind of get your bearings and figure out your location, and sort of where you are in this new place.

Food and drink is mainly what I organize. If it’s not an activity or something… I’m a big skier, I plan a lot of skiing trips. If it’s not something like that, then it’s usually, where can I find a great place to get some great food, maybe a good view.

And then I will say one of the things my husband and I love doing is, finding a cool bar and talking to bartenders. This is like a good travel tip maybe, if people don’t know this. Bartenders have the best recommendations for things to do, because they’re not necessarily incentivized to provide specific recommendations, like sometimes the concierges might be. They’re just giving you kind of like their real opinion. And they tend to just be people that are very in the know and they know where the fun restaurants are and things to do in the evening. So, we’ll typically go grab dinner at the bar and chat at the bartenders and get their insights for what to do next.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, that’s fantastic. So, what about traveling as a woman? Have you ever gone traveling on your own as a woman?

Samantha Patil:

Yes, I have done that quite a bit, actually. So when I was building my career prior to Well Traveled, I spent most of my time helping brands launch and grow their marketing operations overseas. So, I was traveling alone quite frequently. And actually, I have a short story about one trip in particular.

So I was in Paris at the time, for Snapchat. And I’d been there for the week and most of the team, it was Friday afternoon, early evening, and had gone home, they had their own plans, et cetera. And so, that night I was like, “Okay, I can either order room service and just sit here in my room by myself or I can go out, find somewhere to go to dinner, and have this lovely Paris night by myself.” So, I chose the latter. And now, there’re some things that you obviously have to keep in mind, which is your safety. I stayed to very main roads. I walked the whole way because at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable taking a taxi by myself. So, I walked the whole way, stayed on really busy streets.

I got there, sat at the bar, had this wonderful dinner, ended up meeting this older guy who was a pilot for American Airlines. And he was telling me about his travels. I was trying to explain to him how Snapchat worked. And he was just really lovely, and was like, “Get home safe.” And I had this really awesome time. And I remember getting back to my room thinking, “Wow, I could have missed all of that because I was too scared to go out there or be out there by myself.” So while there’s definitely precautions you should take, I’m a big advocate for getting out and traveling, and getting outside your comfort zone.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, I love that. I did a similar thing way back, when I used to live in London. I was a London Times media correspondent. And I was in Cannes for the film festival and I just thought, “Oh, you know what, I’m going to take a couple days. I’m going to go to Paris.” And I went there on my own. And I did the same thing. I just went to places and it was great because it really forced me to actually speak French, because I had to. But I had these amazing meals, I would go to Brasserie Coupole or wherever. But I remember being terrified and I was in my mid 20s. I just did it anyway, and it was amazing.

Samantha Patil:

Exactly. I think just doing it anyway, and then you just end up having these incredible experiences. That’s a big… Do it anyway. Even if you’re scared, even if you feel like you’re not ready, a hundred percent.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Exactly right. So I’m curious though, what your journey was leaping from sort of the corporate world. I mean, you were in marketing, you were working for some pretty major brands, like Snap and Dollar Shave Club and all these folks on the kind of marketing side. And I get that you’re really passionate about travel, but did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Did you always have that kind of in your roadmap, that one day you were going to launch a business of some kind? Or what was that impetus to go from a steady job to the ups and downs of entrepreneurship?

Samantha Patil:

It’s a great question. I don’t know that I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I have always loved to build things. So in each of these companies, in each of these roles I’ve had, I’ve been the first person in those roles. So, it’s really been me crafting what the role looks like, what my team looks like, how do I want to approach this? And it’s for the most part, been at either very early stage startups or still pretty early in their life cycle. And I’ve really just helped build and launch the international marketing organizations within those companies.

So, I think when I started thinking through Well Traveled more and the opportunity that was there, I just, I knew that I had so much to give in terms of making this a reality. And I just truly believed that it was something that needed to exist. And so, it felt very natural to me to take kind of everything I learned in startup land and be able to apply it to something I was really passionate about.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah. So, what’s next for you? I mean, how is your company, Well Traveled, going to grow? What are your plans?

Samantha Patil:

Yes. So, we are going to be hiring some additional roles. We have seven people on my team. They’re all incredible. Mostly remote team, so we’re going to be bringing on some additional folks to help us grow as we scale our membership. We are about to launch our mobile app, which I am so excited about because it’s just going to be an infinitely better experience for users. We can use things like location services, it’ll have better messaging features. And I think it’s just really, really going to be exciting, now that people are more on the go again. So, those are the two biggest things I’m excited about.

And then truly, our platform is an online community, but we’re very much focused on getting people outdoors and out into the real world. So, we’ve been getting quite a lot of requests from our members to do some type of in-person events. So, I’m excited to start being able to do things like that again.

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm. Fantastic. So, what have been the biggest challenges for you? Have there been any kind of like heart stopping fail moments or parts of the business where you’re like, “Oh my God, what am I doing? Or how can I get over this hurdle?”

Samantha Patil:

I mean, like every day.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, tell me about them-

Samantha Patil:

I think-

Melinda Wittstock:

… because we like to demystify those here, because it’s part of the entrepreneurial journey. It just is.

Samantha Patil:

It is. I think that’s the biggest thing is… So right now, we’re part of Snapchat’s Accelerator Yellow and that’s been one of the most rewarding things, is just being able to have a ton of time with other entrepreneurs that are either at a similar stage or slightly behind or slightly ahead of you. And it’s just nice to know that, I think every entrepreneur goes through this sort of emotional rollercoaster, sometimes on a daily basis of like, “Oh my gosh, we’re crushing it.” to, “Oh no, I can’t believe we messed this up so badly.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Samantha Patil:

I think the key is to just know that’s normal and things break all the time. But it’s very much this like, you keep going. Right? And I think that’s why it’s so important when you’re hiring people to support you, that they’re really bought into the vision and the mission of the company. Because that’s what really helps get you through those, “Man, I can’t believe this thing broke again.” or, “How are we going to solve this problem?” Or, “Oh no, we really screwed up.”

And I think also just bringing those things to light and talking about them. Every week our team will share their oh shits of the week and their big wins as a way to be like, “Hey, what did you mess up this week? Because I know we all mess something up.” And just sitting in that discomfort and being okay with it and kind of like you said earlier, doing it anyway and moving forward anyway. That’s definitely something that it’s just part of entrepreneurial life.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Yeah. A hundred percent. So you mentioned, Samantha, being in part of this kind of, is it kind of like an incubator with Snap Because it’s so important to have that mentorship or have a mastermind or something where you’re not isolated.

Samantha Patil:

Yeah. I think that’s really important to build a supportive founder network, because it can be very isolating. So Snap, it’s an accelerator, so it’s a 13 week program and it’s coming to an end next week. And it’s a cohort of eight companies, and we’re all just kind of together and have a lot of communication with each other. We met up in person the first week, we’ll get to meet up in person again this last week. And it’s been a great way to just connect with other founders that are building really interesting products, and learn from each other as we’re sort of on this journey together.

But you also don’t need a formalized way of doing that. Right? There’s lots of free communities and groups and programs and events that you can go and meet other founders. And I would highly, highly recommend doing that because most founders want to help each other. I try to help as many founders as I can. And I think it can be a really supportive community of people, because we’re all going through the same things together.

Melinda Wittstock:

So you bring to this, a lot of marketing expertise and brand building. So, what are your strategies in terms of actually growing and scaling and getting the brand known? This is so important. So many founders go into this and they build the app and they build the product and all that, and then the marketing is kind of an afterthought. But it sounds like with your background, you’ve had marketing at the forefront of that. So, what are the strategies that you’re using and how are they working? And what are some of your secrets for getting known and building community quickly?

Samantha Patil:

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think a lot of founders can overlook marketing. And again, you see a lot of like technical co-founders in Silicon Valley and I think that can be great, but I do think that anyone can build a good product. There are a lot of very talented engineers out there, but I think it takes a lot more to build a great brand or a great company that people, again, really see themselves reflected in and really believe in. Because that tends to be the separator between companies that really create a massive impact.

If you look at, for example, Airbnb, it’s not that there weren’t companies that were doing what they were doing. They just realized that there was a huge group of people, specifically younger people, that weren’t really being spoken to by the more established brands, like a HomeAway or Vrbo. And they were able to really tap into that market and show that they understood this consumer and what they were looking for and wanted at the time. And a lot of that involves building your brand, which isn’t just imagery and pictures and words, it’s sort of like the heartbeat of your company. And if you don’t have clarity around that, then how is your customer supposed to have clarity around that? So I think it’s critically important, but often overlooked.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, one of the things that you’re doing though, that’s very intriguing to me is, you’re building this whole social community. And there’s so much that’s wrong with our social media right now. That’s a whole other topic, but how are you approaching social in a way that’s different or kind of, let me just say it. I’m going to show my biases here, is actually useful, is actually illuminating and empowering to people. What’s your approach? How can we remake social, in whatever vertical?

Samantha Patil:

So my take on this is, I think there’s going to be a huge rise in vertical specific social communities, which is really, more or less, what Well Traveled is, focused around travel and experiences. I just think social media has gotten to this point where it’s really overwhelming for people, it’s gotten pretty combative, and a lot of it is… it’s fake or not useful in a lot of ways. So, I think one of my frustrations with a lot of the travel social accounts is, it’s pretty picture and some silly message. Which okay, maybe there’s a place for that.

But with the things that we’re posting, we’re really trying to promote, one, our members, because they’re doing a bunch of incredible things and they’re just really unique, wonderful people. Again, keeping it about people, right? Or some useful information or some insider tip or something that we think our followers might actually gain some value from. Or maybe it’s just something funny, because that’s great too, right? Sometimes you just want to see something light that sort of makes you giggle and improves your day. But yeah, I think we’re trying to really create value for people instead of just taking up space without anything to really add.

Melinda Wittstock:

I hear you. My own company, Podopolo, it’s a podcasting platform, but it’s socially interactive. And with the social part of it, like you said, is all about making sure that people have connection around actual shared interest. And a podcast is a good organizing principle or a genre of podcasts, because people are already having in depth conversations about that topic, whether it’s true crime, travel, entrepreneurship, crypto, comedy, whatever.

And so, there’s a shared interest in really how to architect that in such a way that the conversations are actually informative, uplifting, useful information, not disinformation, hopefully, and that it actually adds something. So, I think we’re moving into a whole new direction. Is there an element of Web 3 to what you do, as you enhance and begin to get into the mobile, more of the technology part of your business?

Samantha Patil:

Yeah. I think it’s an interesting question. And it’s one that’s come up a few times. I think for us, there’s a lot of principles of Web 3 through that can be applied to what we’re doing. Right? And I think if you look at the evolution of the internet, you’ve got Web 1 was brands… is media companies, right? And then you’ve got Web 2 was individuals or people of interest or influencers as media companies. And now what you’re seeing is communities as media companies. And what I mean by that is, I’m a woman, I’m traveling by myself. I don’t want to hear from a brand, I want to hear from other women that have also traveled.

Samantha Patil:

If I’m traveling with my dog to this hotel, I don’t really want to hear from the hotel. I want to hear from other people that have brought their dog to that hotel, and what was their experience like? So, I think you’re going to see more and more of that because from what I can understand, people just want… they want to hear feedback and information from other people that they can relate to that haven’t been paid to talk about it. So, I think a lot of that community-based media and exchange of information, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is definitely applicable in the Web 3 space. Which, I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how that plays out.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wow. Samantha, I love what you’re doing. I think people should travel more. I say this as a Canadian because I read somewhere once that 95% of Canadians have passports, but only 5% of Americans have passports. And-

Samantha Patil:

That’s fascinating.

Melinda Wittstock:

…. I don’t know whether… Yeah. And I don’t know whether it’s just because our culture has so little in the way of vacation time or because we live in such a big country that it’s a hassle to travel internationally or what it is. But I, like you, believe that travel is one of these things that just really enhances us in so many ways. It just opens the mind. It provides so many more benefits than not. And I’ve always thought that if people traveled more, the world would be kind of a nicer place. We’d understand each other better and all of that. So, I love your mission. What can you do to get Americans traveling more outside the U.S.?

Samantha Patil:

Yeah. That’s a great question. And I completely agree with you. I think the more… I mean, the thing with travel, when you travel, you learn so much about other cultures and the world and your place in it. But I think you also learn so much about yourself as a person and your tolerance for risk, like, how do you travel with a friend or a family member? What do you do in these uncertain situations or where you feel uncomfortable? And I think you’re right. Just being able to connect with other people in person and get outside of your bubble and spend time with people that look different to you, sound different to you, come from different backgrounds, it would make such an impact in terms of helping us feel more connected and having more empathy for people. Right?

As far as how you do that, I don’t know the answer. But I think it starts with helping teach your kids about travel. I mean, I was really lucky. My parents kind of took me all over the place because it was something that was really important to them. But if it’s important to you, I think you can introduce your kids to travel too, at a young age, even if it is a local weekend trip and kind of build them up to getting out of the country. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, well I guess I must have done something right, because my daughter just went to college in Liverpool. She was like, “Great. I’m off.”

Samantha Patil:

Oh, nice. I love it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So yeah., No I’ve always been a really avid traveler. I think that’s one of the reasons why I moved to London so young, because I had the opportunity to go there. I had an English grandparent, so I could get a work permit there. And then that allowed me to travel all over Europe easily. Right? And then that expanded from there. And then I came back state side. But you know what an amazing experience. I mean, it’s a lot… has made me who I am.

And now as I build a company that’s global in its footprint, it helps. We have a team of people all over the world. Had I not traveled, would I’ve been able to have done that, across all these cultures? Maybe not.

Melinda Wittstock:

It does open the mind. Well, this is wonderful. So, how can people find you and work with you and join your community?

Samantha Patil:

So, you can find us at welltraveledclub.com. We’re also on Instagram and TikTok at Well Traveled Club. And to join the community you just apply at the website.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, Samantha, congratulations on all your… Samantha, congratulations on all your success and thank you for putting on your wings today and flying with us.

Samantha Patil:

Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. Appreciate it.