hello and good morning i'm in san antonio texas
i'm javanka mcgee co -host of vision pros live
please do me a favor share with me your first
name where you're located and the name of your
business yeah my name is alexander you can call
me alex uh i'm located in kiev ukraine and my
startup is uh named tea travel please do tell
me more about tea travel So it's a mobile app
that allows creators to sell their experience.
Basically, it's like your travel guide in a smartphone.
When you have a lot of information and you're
traveling a lot and you want to share it with
your followers or your friends, you can download
our app and easily, like in a constructor, build
your own itinerary. and sell it for uh anyone
who wants to repeat your journey or like um you
know have the same kind of uh experience that
you had so it's pretty convenient and it's all
about you know traveling in smartphone wow okay
so it's an app yep in that app will it you tell
at what city or country you're going to and then
you download the itinerary and then once they
record they're able to share it? Yeah it's actually
like anyone can build an itinerary especially
you know vloggers and people with experience
and then you know upload on our servers and share
it with people so yeah. Wow, okay. Well, Alex,
please tell me, why travel? Is that a passion
of yours? Yeah, it's actually, you know, maybe
it's a post -Soviet mentality, but we had a lot
of troubles traveling abroad before, I think,
2015. And it's like, I always dreamed of independence,
you know, see the world, other cultures. working
with other cultures. I like, you know, being
there and speak with locals, you know, what's
their passion about, what about their living,
and like hidden gems on our planet that I can,
you know, visit. So it's like... When I worked
in Poland, I left Ukraine for some period of
time, three years. I lived in Poland for a couple
of months. I've lived in London, worked there.
And I've used the time to travel. To travel,
to use these very cheap tickets around Europe.
And I've seen... really different dynamics from
what we had in our country like people are easily
entertaining themselves by going elsewhere you
know just like picking up something from the
list easily and like when it's for example it's
thursday right now and we're going on saturday
to paris like for example so it's for me it was
a revelation uh i haven't seen such behavior
anywhere like it's so easy for uh europeans especially
and like you i think for us people also uh to
travel around the continent uh with such an easy
you know approach it's like uh and i'm passionate
about it um i i like uh this type of behavior
this type of approach for for your living yeah
yeah and that's that's something that i must
say that i haven't done a lot of at least outside
of of the us and just just to hear how intriguing
it sounds to just be able to travel and you know
one day get up and say you know what i'm going
somewhere else and to be able to talk to different
people and understand their culture and where
they are so when when someone uses this app does
it and and then upload it to your system does
it sort of give the feeling of those such like
myself that don't go anywhere like i can actually
sort of be there you know what i mean yeah yeah
yeah definitely because um like um when we developed
this app we uh discovered that um people use
it for uh i would say three different uh purposes
or like in three different points of time the
first one it's like eight months or half a year
before travel to inspire themselves so they like
virtually already there and uh we did a lot of
itineraries by ourselves around ukraine for free
just just for people to you know discover uh
our country long before they decided you know
to go uh and visit ukraine for example of course
right now the situation is uh not uh very safe
right but a lot of people can see to our app
our beautiful cities you know and kind of be
inspired by our culture so the second point of
time is like two months or months before just
picking up the itinerary because our itineraries
have it all like all the suggestions where like
where to go where to book in like apartment uh
what kind of problems can be like with the credit
cards you know some kind of pitfalls so all of
this uh information is there we we do very detailed
itineraries and the third point of time when
you already on the spot like yeah you came to
Rome or Bucharest for example and you don't know
where to go or like start go like and you're
there for one day or two days for example maybe
your flight was cancelled and you are there just
because you were not so lucky or lucky I don't
know so you can afford to around and check it
out what's there so for each point of time our
itineraries are helping people to discover a
new destination wow i like that so in my mind
i'm hearing the planning stage the preparation
stage and then actually being there and either
by accident or You know, or by purpose. Nice,
nice. So, of course, because we're Vision Pros
Live, I have to ask you this question. Tell me
about your vision when you decided to do this
app and move forward in this career of yours.
Really, it's like I felt that our world and people
around the globe, they are. can like connect
it in a way that never we never had before right
it's like uh right now with the technology uh
with the internet connection with all the smartphones
uh with all the content that is pretty produced
by creators we can uh be anywhere like in a moment
virtually and pretty easy in a time period of
a week, for example, or like three days, four
days. So my vision and my co -founder's vision
was to support this connection, to support this
passion and give it kind of a form that can be
used by many. each person who have a smartphone
in their pocket you know so it's like a connection
because of this globalization and different uh
type of like uh different type of um experience
i would say living on like nowadays Yeah. And
you're right. It's a different level of connection
now, especially after the pandemic and things
that we've experienced and realizing that our
Wi -Fi and everything else is going to have to
take us to places we can't even go. So I truly,
truly can imagine what that feels like to have
a vision and to now. be able to give it to someone
in the palm of their hand so i i mean i don't
even think about things like that i don't because
i don't travel outside of the us it's like i
don't know but again the inspiration just even
talking you know talking to you alex is like
hmm maybe i should just figure out maybe i should
just try it yeah that's for sure yeah sure many
many people you know um or thinking like from
vacation to vacation but like part of the vision
to change this behavior because it can be more
dynamic it can bring you more joy even uh while
you're planning you know absolutely with with
the part of knowing that you've you've built
this app for people to travel what is tell me
a little bit about your coaching in this area
or is it in something completely different It's
a bit different because like my experience, like
I have 12 years of experience in IT and technology.
It started from quality assurance domain and
I was in like just... I would say quality assurance
experts, software QX expert and I started to
figure out different type of frameworks for the
companies and it allowed me to coach teams, coach
organizations, coach the leaders to be more adaptive
for like what is upcoming you know or what's
happening right now with the business with the
organization with like trends like global trends
that are that are here and now and we need to
somehow respond or adapt beforehand so it's like
kind of because of this experience I was in each
and every department of technological companies,
you know, because I've like coached salesperson,
like marketing, then like support department,
like IT developers, QAs, and I understood how
application can be built, how... people can be
hired like proper people what a skill set needs
to be filled for example and like this this particular
experience gave me a lot of understanding about
Not the start of the how the company can be built
and yeah, and then I started to travel with my
co -founders That you know, it's so funny. Do
you know? Mr. Potato head Do you know Mr. Potato
Head? Yes, the toy. So it's so funny. I'm thinking
like, I don't know what made me just think this,
but you have all the pieces to make a whole body.
Yes. And I was thinking of like, you know, because
starting out in quality assurance and then ending
up coaching in different areas and learning how
to hire different people. I swear it's so funny.
I know, Alex, but I was like. Oh, he was just
popping it together to make this whole body.
That's for sure. And now the whole body is a
grapple. Maybe still, you know, I'm like always
learning one eye is missing, but everything else
is in place. I know that was super random, but
that's all I thought of. And I love putting pieces
together, right? We always have this. thought,
imagination, to think about a puzzle, but when
you really want a movable body, you know, something
that really just, you could put your entire career
together to make this app, to allow people to
move around. I don't know, it just made me think
about that, but it also puts things into perspective
that you know what you decided to do right now
wasn't always the plan you had to take all these
pieces yeah and put them together to make something
that allows someone like myself to be able to
to travel or set up an itinerary or to visit
a place and actually have something to do so
yeah i know that that was a really really interesting
analogy yes so with this uh how long has has
the app been up and running it's uh up and running
from uh like uh august uh 2021 okay yeah so we
started from uh like local itineraries and we
had like very big hype around our application
in Ukraine. So we even made a small movie about
our country and presenting the application in
the end. This movie was in a couple of cinema
theatres. So people went to check it out to inspire
themselves and then we... tell them told them
that yeah we we have the application and it's
in your smartphone already you already can check
it out so yeah then uh as you know maybe like
full -scale invasion uh started in 2022 before
that we uh had like big plans and we actually
got to acceleration program uh but in like it
was the week at the same week like we on the
20th of february we went to this uh like grand
opening of acceleration program and 20 21st it's
like everything like shut down it was so intense
uh so we needed like half a year of i would say
uh different type of activities like bringing
like our relative to safety you know uh doing
a lot of stuff that is not related to our project
but then we discovered that yeah we still have
like not only fate in but also our strengths
you know and we still have a vision that we want
to implement and we started to work in half a
year like again to localize itineraries and to
bring it to other markets. So, for example, right
now our application is available in four languages.
It's English, German, Ukrainian and Italian.
So in it, like, I don't know, for some reason
it became popular in Italy and like for Italians
actually, for local use. And we have a memorandum
with universities and the students are building
those itineraries as a part of their program
in university. They are learning tourism field
and it's their kind of... end of the program
like they need to build this itinerary and present
it to the to the audience so like we have a lot
of activities that go abroad right now because
uh our market is stalled you know many people
are just forced to leave their houses but uh
still uh there isn't uh attention to ukraine
like investors are coming you know some people
are coming uh and we understand that the world
doesn't stop, it's still dynamic, it's still
great in a lot of senses and worth to see. I
love your positivity in all of this because that's
exactly what it takes to keep moving forward
is to be hopeful and optimistic. So I truly love
that. Please share with our listener where they
can find this app at, what it is, where they
can find you at and any of your social media
handles. Oh, it's easy. As I mentioned here,
the website is ttravel .me. So there you can
check it out and the application, the features
that we have and download on App Store or Google
Store. So it's the easiest way just from the
website to go to one of the stores and download
it on your smartphone. me, everyone can just
knock in LinkedIn and I will be very happy to
talk, to collaborate, to work together or just
share some thoughts about travel. So yeah, please
welcome. um i'm mostly using linkedin uh other
you know uh like twitter and instagram is just
for personal use and i'm not using it for um
sharing any insights we have official uh official
social media for tea travel and it's also links
are all available on ttravel .me website so we
have a pretty pretty good uh tick tock really
interesting you know and uh people people there
are you know more active than everywhere i would
say because they like travel so in a lot of creators
you know hanging there and checking out the content
so uh tick tock instagram um you name it it's
all there well thank you so much alex anyone
who's wanting to travel need an itinerary or
needing to figure it out go to ttravel .me you
can find all these things there alex thank you
so much for being with me today i loved learning
about all of this and i definitely am going to
need to download the app so i could travel somewhere
yes at least you know you can inspire yourself
and then plan ahead Yes. Well, thank you so much,
Alex, and have an amazing day. Thank you for
being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned
in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to
seeing your reactions as these episodes continue
to move forward. This is going to get more and
more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.