I am interested in LegalTech to make JAAS (Justice as a Service) service available to public unserved previously. I am dedicated to make an impact in the field of flight passenger rights to achieve better protection of passengers for flight disruptions.
Co-Founder of AirAdvisor, a socially useful company helping passengers to collect up to $700 in flight compensation for flight disruptions (flight delays, cancellations, denied boarding/overbooking, missed connections), ticket refunds and soon adding baggage bot.
Current Status
In approx 18 months:
Became finalists of MassChallenge Rhode Island June - October 2019.
Collected approx 200K USD in compensation and the pace is growing up significantly.
We have more than 10K customers already and number is drastically growing.
We have developed and launched B2B platform for travel, booking companies, insurance, banks, universities (corporate travel), influencers, etc.
More than 10 B2B partners, with couple large strategic partners signed up.
Starting an affiliate marketing program now.
Only team of 6 people now and activelly expanding to afford growth.
5 languages and addign 4 more in the next 2 months.
Adding baggage bot / claims within next 1-2 months.
Prepared and registered draft Law in Ukraine parliment (that's where we started) to improve regulations of passengers rights and target to start e-campaign to make it into the law.
Exclusive legal partner of Ukrainian Association of Tour Agents.
Market
Total global market is estimated at 4-5 billion of flight compensation per annum that does not include denied boarding and baggage claims.
important that statute of limitation is on average 3 years.
Trend:
East Europe 20% annual increase in passengers traffic.
Global trend 5-7% annual increase in passengers traffic. Will double in less than 10 years!
Airport infrastructure is outdated and is not developing up to date, which contributes to these problems to raise.
Some East European countries seen a surge of 40% in number of delays,
Problem or Opportunity
USA is lagging behind substantially on domestic protection of passengers rights, hence this is a huge problem for people travelling domestically in USA and to/from Canada and Mexico.
We suffered ourselves a few times and airline attitude was awful. Airline rep of United mentioned that United has a policy that passengers on economy basic fare should keep "quiet and be happy" as long as they are "delivered" to final destination within 48 hours of initial scheduled arrival time. This is not what travel should look like and it is defintelly a problem caused by lack of regulation.
Ukraine, Turkey, Russia and other countries have BETTER protection than in USA!
Canada has a draft law to bring their regulations up to EU level.
Also, we want to bring strategic large
- travel partners on board like Orbitz, TripAdvisor, etc to help with passengers to screen out historic bad flights and help passengers get compensation.
- Visa / MaserCard to afford discounted rate of 20% for premium bank card holders as a travel perk.
Solution (product or service)
Solution is developed already and we will be adding baggage bot first time ever to automate baggage processing claims.
Competitors
AirHelp
CompensAir
Refund.me
Skycop
FlightRight
Advantages or differentiators
Operating in some countries where has very limited competition.
The only company that seeks recovery based on Ukrainian law.
Once baggage claim is added will be among only 3 companies handling baggage claims.
Competitive moat: "Waren Buffet once said to Inc magazine: "In insurance business people assume there is no difference in quality of service provided, so their decision factor is COST. So my competitive moat is cost (to be the cheapest)." Once one business person said to us that we are a provider of FREE INSURANCE service and it is fair statement because people get the same thing on some routes but for free.
Because we initially started in Ukraine our overhead and others costs are on average 50%-70% less than of our competition.
Finance
It is self-financed and self-sustained startup.
Additional funding is desired for rapid expansion, automation, and adding additional offering to increase level of retention.
Many happy customers are asking us for other things and we consider additional offering.
Business model
JAAS NO WIN NOW FEE business model based on 25% success fee (not risk on consumers).
Money will be spent on
Automation to afford scaleable growth.
Product devepment - baggage bot and integration.
Marketing.
New Hires.
Offer for investor
We are only interested in a strategic partner with the right fit (from travel, tech or insurance) and sharing the same passion as we do to achieve win-win situation.
We had some interest from investors offering just money, we decided to look for smart money.
Presentation can be provided upon request (not for public use or dissemination).
Degradation of consumer protections in EU and other countries.
Incubation/Acceleration programs accomplishment
Finalist at MassChallenge Accelerator in Rhode Island 2019 (June - October 2019) ongoing now.
Winner at 128 Start-up battle by Startup Network in Kyiv October 2018.
Finalist at Startup battle by VC.Ru in Moscow December 2018.
Won the competition and other awards
Finalist at MassChallenge Accelerator in Rhode Island 2019 (June - October 2019) ongoing now.
Winner at 128 Start-up battle by Startup Network in Kyiv October 2018.
Finalist at Startup battle by VC.Ru in Moscow December 2018.