THE THINKING TRAVELLER'S SUITCASE
Gaston Blanchet, one half of
the team behind a smart bag called Trunkster, reveals the frustrations and
research that fuelled their innovation
Walk into an airport and
the sight that greets you is that of travellers carting away their slick bags.
Most of them are Up In The Air Ryan Bingham-esque regulars who know the drill
by heart; some relish it. But even the most frequent flyers will agree that
sometimes, they could use a smart bag.
So Bingham's “What's In
Your Backpack“ philosophy has been given an update by two Miami-based friends
Gaston Blanchet and Jesse Potash who have developed Trunkster, a top
retractable hardcase -that comes in both check-in and carry-on sizes. The bag
has features like zipperless entry, charging socket, an embedded digital
weighing machine, and an optional GPS locator.
The duo say the idea
originated from their own travel frustrations, and found success on both
Kickstarter where their $ 50,0 0 0 goal was fulfilled in an hour.Later, they
successfu l ly negotiated a deal on Shark Tank with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner
for $1.4 million.Blanchet spoke to ETPanache via email about the duo's
innovative travel idea, how they handled their negotiation with Cuban and some
smart travel hacks.
Is there a nightmare
luggage story that led you to create Trunkster?
For three years, both my
co-founder and I had been travelling the world and became hyper-aware of the
frustrations of typical luggage -broken zippers, low quality wheels and flimsy
handles. The worst incident was probably when Iberian Airlines lost my checked
bag while I was travelling to Spain. I wore the same outfit for a week before
finally recovering it. It wouldn't have happened if we had the tracker.
How did you determine the
features you wanted to incorporate?
In our market research, we
had ma ny requests for features, but we had to for features, but we had to make
some compromises.We researched the favourite features and incorporated the most
requested ones: battery, tracking and sliding door. For in stance, if we had
the Trunkster Tracker, the Spain incident would never have happened.
Has the GPS tracker come in
handy for your customers yet?
Lost luggage is a huge
problem and having the ability to track its whereabouts is a huge relief for
travellers. Even in the prototype phase, we had a tester locate a lost suitcase
and he was thrilled. The airline had left it at his departure airport and he
was able to call them and help them recover it. Pretty cool, right?
What did you do right when
negotiating with Mark Cuban?
We analysed previous
episodes to see what deal structures most resonated with the investors. Instead
of proposing a simple equity percentage, we pitched them a structured licensing
deal with specific terms that had them thinking. This focused the negotiation
on the smaller details and not the larger valuation.
What are some of your smart
tips for the savvy traveller?
Pack light, always travel
with a carryon when possible, and sign up for the express airline security
programs, like TSA pre-check in the USA. This will spare you the most
frustrating part of travelling, which is waiting in long lines at the airport.
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tasneem
balapurwala
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ET13MAY16
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