The next-generation gifting platform offering a smart, easy way to gift air travel…

Fernando Camara, Co-Founder and CEO of Skyhour (creating the ultimate air travel currency that powers travel across platforms and industries), joins John Matson and Bess Chapman in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.

In this episode:

• Gifting travel, inspiring friends to become better people, inspiring people to go to new places and get new points of view, make an impact in their lives, travel is the best thing you can do
• How it started, a friend wanted to travel
• $140B on gift cards and less than 1% is spent on travel
• The goal of connecting giting and air travel industries
• Offering flight hours for $60/hour, and the ability to apply to virtually any airline
• The opportunity to crowdfund a flight
• Being able to sell tickets without dates or destinations
• Like creating a new currency
• Getting around liabilities in some restrictions
• The money goes to escrow accounts — if you don’t use the hours, the money goes back to person you gifted to
• Works with Sabre for accessing the inventory of airlines
• Being a JetBlue Technology Ventures portfolio company
• Potential partnerships with hotel chains, clothing brands, etc.
• Camara’s other companies in digital marketing, real estate, then told a friend about the Skyhour idea, and how he needed someone to help build product, and thinking about hiring agency and agency (which loved it so much, sold the company and brought best the guys in to work on it)
• Why New York is the best place to launch company in the US
• A $5.5M seed round, working on Series A
• Raised an initial round starting with cold calls
• Seasonality, ebb and flow—flight frequency varies but people give all year round
• Dealing with gift card restrictions
• Only make money when people book a flight
• Time between buying and booking, prompting booking and re-gifting actions

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