Members of the month: Flightfox!

The friendly folks from Flightfox took some time (rare!) for a couple of questions in our member of the month section. Tadaaaa:

Introduction round: Who are you guys and where are you from?
We're Flightfox, a marketplace for crowdsourced flight search. Todd, Lauren and Vanessa are Australian, and Oscar is Nicaraguan. Together, we're software engineers, web designers, and world travelers.

What made you come to Berlin this winter / spring?
We came here for many reasons: to attend ITB (big travel conference), to find people to join our team, and to indulge in a European coding getaway. We also heard great things about UI/UX designers here, and coincidentally, we're looking for a designer to join our team (jobs@flightfox.com).

What exactly does Flightfox do? How does it differ from conventional price search engines / algorithms?
Unlike searching yourself with search engines, our 'flight hackers' know the industry well and can cover more airlines, more routes, and more deals, much quicker. Case in point, the Flightfox team flew to Berlin in first class for the price of economy. No search engine can do that. If you have even a mildly complex trip, our hackers can help you save time and money, and get you on better flights.

How did you come up with the idea? Your rather "advanced" traveling habits (crossing Gobi Desert on foot, climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, etc.) might have had an influence?
The more we traveled, the more we learned we were doing it wrong. We'd see equally poor backpackers flying in the front of the plane, with free-flowing red wine and lie-flat beds. So we had a choice, dedicate the rest of our lives to becoming flight experts, or build a marketplace to leverage the skills of others. We also loved the idea of creating a reliable income for these experts. One of our experts in the US uses Flightfox to support the home-schooling of her five children.

What are your plans for the next months? What is in the pipeline?
We're a human-to-human business, so we're mostly focused on improving satisfaction. For customers, we're streamlining the experience to help them book better flights with less effort. And for experts, we're making the platform more efficient so they can earn more money per hour. Lots of brainstorming, design, development and deployment.

What is the benefit of using a coworking space for you (if only temporarily)?
By far, the biggest benefit for us is not having to build an office. We don't have to decide on desks, sign 20-page leases, or turn on electricity. As a team, we can pack our bags, hop on a plane, and be up in running in a weekend. And that's in a foreign city on the other side of the planet. For a company that espouses unending, untethered travel, it's a good excuse to practice what we preach.

Did you find some good spots in Berlin since you arrived? Something to recommend / consider for people coming here?
Unfortunately, we don't get much of a break. People use Flightfox every hour of every day. And being human-to-human, the site is high maintenance. We hope to get out a little more, but in the interim, feel free to drop by at Office Club Berlin Prenzlauer Berg and say hello. We loving talking shop and will shout you a coffee. That said, on previous travels we enjoyed the DDR museum and the underground bunker tours. Most of all, we enjoyed walking from one end of town to the other on weekends, dropping by markets, cafes and whatever we ran into.


We say: Thanks for your time, all the best for the future and that you may find the occasional hours to see some more of this city! :)