Building friendships through exploration

Murray Hurps: All right, uh welcome to UTS Startups Confessions [Applause] so the point here is to just talk to different entrepreneurs about what they've done so that other people think about entrepreneurship can know how to start or learn from what other people are doing please welcome Steffi from Kultura Trail. 

Applause 

Steffi Audrelia: Thank you. 

Murray Hurps: Okay in 10 seconds what is Kultura Trail? 

Steffi Audrelia: Kultura Trail is a modern day self-guided treasure hunt experience exploring Sydney's cultural pockets. 

Murray Hurps: Okay and it is beautiful thank you I was just playing around with it before I've not seen an app that gives like people hear about virtual tours and think oh okay it might look like this no this actually looks like something you'd want to use it's really beautifully interactive and how I kind of gamifies things is really interesting as well but we'll get into that uh could you take us back who were you before starting this? 

Steffi Audrelia: Um well professionally I've always bounced around different professions um I was in digital marketing in one of the main recording labels in Sydney in the music industry and then it wasn't really for me so I left and packed my bags and moved to Spain for six years I ended up staying there for six years working as an ESL teacher and then came back just before covert was about to start a travel Consulting role but obviously the board is closed and didn't really ended up starting in that role and then went on to start Kultura Trail instead. 

Murray Hurps: Okay cool I love how every single one of these stories has a reference to covert in it I will skip over that could you take this back what are your first memories of the idea where did it come from? 

Steffi Audrelia: Yeah so it was around August September 2020 I was just scrolling through photos reminiscing about my travels in Europe when I was living there for six years I think every other Travelers were sort of you know dying to get out dying to travel again so I was just flicking through my gallery on my phone and then I was on a FaceTime with one of my best friends we were living in Madrid at the same time and we were just talking about our experiences the local bars that we used to hang out in the you know the best local potatoes Brothers plays around the corner from our apartment and it just sort of ignited this like desire for me to share all this knowledge and experiences with other Travelers and locals alike as well and that's when the idea sort of came to me and I don't know if you guys heard of The Amazing Race this year so I sort of Incorporated that idea of you know that fun kind of like you go with a team or a group of people going to different parts of the world or the city in this case and it's educational it's informative but it's also gamified and fun and accessible as well so you don't have to travel you know far uh well this talking before about like we live in a beautiful city in Sydney and no one takes any time to explore the city around them so I understand you've got a couple of maps worked out already and what are they for? 

Steffi Audrelia: So we have two trails at the moment and one is just around the corner in Chinatown obviously highlighting the Chinese not only the Chinese community and cultures but also other Asian cultures as well which is beautiful um and we have one in Marrickville focusing on Street arts and the breweries that are sort of you know popping up in in that area. 

Murray Hurps: Okay beautiful so we'll see how many people we can get in the room to sign up and then do the tour after this so uh just be prepared how did you develop this as something. 

Murray Hurps: How did you develop this as something that looks as wonderful as it does what did that look like? 

Steffi Audrelia: A lot of research a lot of reaching out to people who have done it who have gone through the whole web design um you know coding and customizing everything hard coding everything as a non-tech Founder myself it's always a very intimidating venture or sector to jump into so I did a lot of research a lot of reading just reaching out to people on LinkedIn which I thought would be you know a really good sort of sounding board but yeah and then I just reached out to a bunch of people web agencies and Upwork so I ended up hiring one offshore so you know because one of the advice that they gave you is to build your MVP always start lean just spend as little amount as possible and then test it out and then need to write and keep its writing so don't go too big the first time so just get a an MVP just anything just out there to test. 

Murray Hurps: Would you recommend Upwork to other people based on your experience? 

Steffi Audrelia: I definitely would but I think if I were to go back I would probably be a lot clearer in terms of what you were after in terms of like what your specs are so you can actually communicate that better and find the right people for the job. 

Murray Hurps: Okay but every day we come across people that are looking for Tech co-founders or take people to join their teams [Laughter] but if looking back would that have been a better Arrangement or did the Upwork arrangement work out okay? 

Steffi Audrelia: Um I think for where I was at that point I think it was wiser for me to contract someone externally just because I needed something to show and start testing in the market as quickly as possible I think with the tech co-founder it would be a lot more sort of like negotiating a lot of the paperwork and all that kind of stuff it needs to be the right fit also first of all and you know you can't just sort of find someone okay yeah he has a qualification but it needs to you guys need to gel as a co-founder first and having sharing the same vision so I think that would have taken a lot longer um for me to be comfortable to actually share that um but so I think yeah having someone external was was the right fit at the time. 

Murray Hurps: Okay yeah and what gave you the confidence in pursuing it at the start so it's a big kind of leap to take? 

Steffi Audrelia: Yeah um to be honest again covert time I wasn't really doing anything so that kind of propelled me to take the risks and you know I've sort of said to myself I've got nothing to lose and I really owe it to my parents I was able to luckily live rent free which is you know taken a huge chunk of financial stress of my head to be able to start a business so that really helped I think in terms of the financial side and I think emotionally having the right people around you who have gone through the same things or are going through the same experiences as you and being able to kind of share the wins and the losses have also you know been a big help there. 

Murray Hurps: I miss living at home living at home was fantastic and I think it's it's really hard to go back in lifestyle at any point in someone's life so I think it's an underappreciated attribute of students in particular that generally the cost of living is lower and you're not taking on giant mortgages or having kids yet or other things that start to make it more complicated so your ability to sustain a small income while building a company is quite you know a unique attribute in your life at that point. 

Steffi Audrelia: Exactly. 

Murray Hurps: So you launched uh start of last year? 

Steffi Audrelia: We launched our MVP November 2021. 

Murray Hurps: Okay so within a year of the idea um we well yeah I sort of launched it very very early on and actually later down the road one of my mentors told me oh so you actually started selling your MVP and I was like well yeah I have a product why would and I put in the market right and then apparently the best practices you test it out for free for the cus for the potential users to sort of you know come on board and like test the idea and they were actually surprised I'm like well good on you like you actually started making money from day one yeah so if you believe in your idea like why not if you have a product that you think people would buy um so why not kind of you know start making money from jail yeah if you can it's fantastic I I feel like that's a maybe it's an Australian thing the kind of hesitation to make money to say I'm doing this and I need customers to pay money for it I don't know or maybe it's a new product thing as well yeah I mean okay this is not good enough um I think having paying customers is a wonderful reason to make something better absolutely you know the incentive is immediately there and you can resource actually improving it as well so yeah so since then what has a growth looked like and what kind of lessons have you learned of course along the way. 

Murray Hurps: Um definitely um keep iterating uh keep doing your research talk to your customers you know those are the basic you know it's never going to go away I think you just constantly Do It um but I think also again finding your tribe it's a cliche but it is super important having the right people around you because that's gonna make the difference between you know a bad feedback on one day and then have being you know a better day the next day so having you know a group of people that you can you can trust that you can share your wins and losses it's very useful good point all right how do you find them? 

Steffi Audrelia: LinkedIn um actually I was accepted into Tech ready women Academy so that's a great program for female Founders out there especially if you're looking into um yeah into the tech space I would really recommend you guys you ladies applying for it it is scholarship based as well and they have put a lot of focus on minorities Founders as well so yeah that has actually given me a lot of connections and networks and being able to pitch in front of 150 people last September yeah that was a great opportunity and a great Community as well. 

Murray Hurps: Okay nice I love their work so I'll finish up I'll say how has so this is your first company yes I was running this change to you as a person? 

Steffi Audrelia: Um changed me a lot obviously I think to be able to believe in myself a little bit more you know I think I've built a lot of self-confidence and self-belief in in running this business or starting this this business um in the first place um yeah so like even three years ago if I if someone told me like you're gonna run a startup a tech startup it I would be like that's an insane idea let alone like being here being interviewed by you Mari um it's yeah it's definitely been a treat and it's definitely grown um I've definitely grown for the better for it. 

Murray Hurps: Beautiful and this lovely idea of all the people walking past behind us myself included that have no idea what they're walking past in different precincts around here or wherever they're going to as well that there will be a solution one day that is entertaining informative uh Taps into the history in a place and is well adopted and well regarded by a lot of people so it sounds like you're well on your way to getting there and you'll have another 50 or 30 people from the room on here by the end of tonight and a bunch of people at home as well so where should people go to find out more? 

Steffi Audrelia: Yep so you can check out our website culturatrail.com so it's k-u-l-t-u-r-a Trail um and the handle is also cultural Trail on Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Tick Tock everywhere. 

Murray Hurps: Okay beautiful uh we'll put a link in the video description below as well uh we'll wrap up that and I will say every Friday at 3 30 we do these events at UTS startups at Central there is great pizza great drinks thanks to Amazon web services uh thank you very much Amazon for your support we're going to turn off the camera and go into a private q a session which is also another reason to come down and join these as well please join me in thanking Steffi. 

Applause