How to Build Your Startup in 7 days - The Story behind Nomad Fly

At the 7in7 conference in Bangkok, we met startup founder Beck Power, the creator of Nomad Fly, a website and Facebook group for helping people learn how to book cheap flights.

What was your motivation for creating Nomad Fly?

Beck: I was a travel agent a few years ago. I worked at a travel agency and was weirdly good at it, because I had one strategy that other travel agents didn’t use. So I won a bunch of awards in New Zealand around that time. And when I quit that, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I tried a bunch of different things. Suddenly I thought, wait a second. I have all this weird flight knowledge. Why don’t I package it up in some way? So I’m not interested in booking flights for people anymore. I’m more interested in teaching people how to book their own cheap flights and not have to rely on a travel agent every time. And so I did that. I packaged it up and it’s been really popular.

How long did it take you to create the first version of your system?

Beck: It’s been changing quite a lot. My first iteration was literally a message in a facebook group “would anyone be interested in cheap flights?” And a bunch of people were obviously really into it. So that was my idea validated. I made a two-week e-mail course, and people still had a bunch of questions, so I put them all into an online course platform. I’ve since added all sorts of bits and pieces. But I’d say probably just a month for the first iteration.

A lot of people think that creating an app or website like this is going to be quite expensive and they need to get investment from somewhere. I guess that wasn’t your experience?

Beck: Not at all. One thing that I’m really into is creating things really quickly. I have another business called Idea Hustle. My goal was to build the first iteration in just seven days. So it didn’t really deliver that much value at first but by the seventh day - it was only seven days to launch it and make my first dollars from it, so it was awesome.

What's your advice to get started with a new startup?

Beck: Everyone overthinks the beginning bits. "I don’t know if this is going to work!" What I recommend is to validate the idea as soon as you can, because then at least if it doesn’t work, you’ll know. And if it does work, you’ll have started. There’s no reason to wait. Just talk to people in your audience and find out if they want the thing and if they’ll pay for it. And just take it from there. Really push and push and push.

If people seem to want it or be interested in it, your first idea is probably going to change and develop, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you should wait and wait and wait to launch it. Launch something and let it change and continue to build it.

You can visit Nomad Fly at http://www.nomadfly.me/