As was widely reported Tuesday, Gtrot has totally rejiggered its business model. Crain's contributor Steve Hendershot caught up with Gtrot CEO Zach Smith to talk about the repositioning of the site. First big takeaway: a recognition that trip-planning is a tough business to gain traction in. Second: That the local-discovery model Gtrot is now pursuing will put the Chicago-based startup in direct competition with some heavy-hitting rivals.
Here's the opening to Steve's Q&A with Zach. Click here to read the complete report.
Gtrot CEO on the social-travel site's radical revamp
The Chicago-based, Lightbank-funded company relaunched today with a built-from-scratch site that encourages users to make lists of their favorite hometown hot spots, then allows others to compare lists. Functionally, that's similar to the old Gtrot, a social-trip-planning site. But CEO Zach Smith is betting that with a local focus, the revamped Gtrot will become an everyday destination for users.
Last November, when Mr. Smith launched a second iteration of the site, he noticed some of Gtrot's 16,000 users were making local lists on the site. Before long, a third version was in the works — a re-envisioning of the company that he describes in this Q&A.
