The seed first took hold in 1999, while sitting on a beach in Byron Bay, Australia. Rob Evans was looking out over the blue Pacific, watching surfers ride the waves, and thinking, “How can I build a business out of this?”
That seed eventually matured into Backpacker College, a startup launched two years ago in Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre that connects those with a lust for travel with quality, inexpensive accommodation – mostly in university residences.
Backpacker College is something of a cross between Airbnb and Expedia. Travellers get access to clean, safe, affordable places to stay. Universities get to sell their unused inventory of beds during the summer months when students aren’t in class.
The idea went live early this month in the form of a downloadable app for IoS and Android and a searchable website. Users register, plug in their travel dates and preferences and Presto!, cheap accommodation is at hand.
“The [uptake] has been dramatic,” says Evans. “Given where we’re at this summer, we need more beds and we need them fast.”
Evans says Backpacker College now has access to dorms at “115 to 120 universities,” about 20 per cent of which are Canadian, “from B.C. to Newfoundland and between.” About 90 per cent of his available beds are in universities, with backpacker-style hostels and hotels making up the difference.
Wilfrid Laurier University, where Evans did his political science degree, was one of the first schools to jump on board. Talks, he says, are under way with University of Waterloo, too.
The universities pay a small monthly subscription fee to Backpacker College, which also collects from them a percentage of each transaction.
“Now you don’t have to spend half an hour online judging how creepy your host might be, or what the best deal is on Google,” explains Evans. “We’ve already curated a set of great options that are affordable, we’ve ruled out the high-end and the low-end stuff and provided that mid-market that’s safe and affordable for families, sports teams, young travellers, retirees, as well as small groups and student accommodation.”
The company’s advantage over travel sites like Expedia is twofold: It’s algorithm pushes university dorms, along with their lower cost, to the top of a given search. And the price that universities pay to Backpacker College is lower than that taken by a traditional travel website.
“It will be difficult for [a travel website] to compete with us on price,” says Evans. “They’re dealing with legacy system costs and thousands of employees.
And, he says, “a lot of people don’t have a personal affinity with the Expedia brand. Most people do have a personal affinity with the college or university they went to. That’s why I think Backpacker College will stand out.”
When students in North America and Europe head back to class this fall, thereby reducing Backpacker College’s available inventory of beds, Evans plans to bring university residences online in the southern hemisphere – Brazil, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand, and the like – because their summer happens during our winter, meaning students are out of class and those dorm rooms are free.
During shoulder periods, between September and November, for example, when students here are back in school but those in the southern hemisphere have not yet left for the summer, Backpacker College will depend on rooms in hotels and hostels. Evans has additionally formed a partnership with Expedia and other travel sites to bridge the gap.
And he says some universities are now making rooms available 12 months a year.
“There is a cyclical nature to our business,” he says. “It looks like 60 per cent of our revenue, at least in this first year, will come from North America’s summer season and 40 per cent will come from the rest of the year.”
Evans has an affinity for the backpackers’ scene. His trip to Australia took place in the middle of his university degree; he sold his car, paid off his credit cards and booked an air ticket, extending the duration of the trip by finding work in Australia in a backpackers’ hostel. Evenings were spent with friends at a nearby bar owned by actor Paul Hogan, of Crocodile Dundee fame.
“I needed to clear my head, get that spirit of what the world was like,” he says.
Once he returned home and went back to finish off his degree at Laurier, the idea for the business crystalized. Friends and family would express how much they would like to do a similar trip, but fears of various kinds, they said, held them back.
“The two things [I realized] were that essentially fear and cost were the two obstacles to overcome that prevented people from doing what I did.
“So, the business idea was, OK, if fear and cost are two obstacles that prevent people from travelling, where are there safe places to stay? Where are safe beds that people can stay in that are not being utilized?
“What I was looking to do was curate a set of accommodation options that made travel easy and would incite the desire to travel. College dorms came up fairly quickly.
“To get that same spirit for life, and the joy of travel, that is exactly what the concept of Backpacker College is about – enabling people to get that same spirit through making travel easier, more affordable and safer.”
The company currently has nine employees and Evans says he hopes to reach 30 before next summer. He’s aiming to find an investor or two by this fall; the funds will not only allow him to hire, but to open small offices in key cities around the world.
But Waterloo Region will be Backpacker College’s home.
“We are a Canadian company with Canadian IP, built by Canadians,” says Evans.
“I used to be a consultant for CTT (Canada’s Technology Triangle, which has since been folded into Waterloo EDC, also known as the Waterloo Economic Development Corporation). I would go to other cities and they would tell me about Waterloo. That was eye-opening. It reminded me of the strength of the business case for Waterloo. There’s lots of strengths and a great ecosystem here.
“If I was building a finance app, maybe New York would make more sense, but for what we’re doing, we can be anywhere. And we chose Waterloo.”
