Minicase: The Quest for Differentiation and Profits at EpicTrip.com

MINICASE: The Quest for Differentiation and Profits at EpicTrip.com
The phone started ringing as you arrived in the office. You picked up the
receiver and immediately recognized the familiar soft voice: “Hey there, it’s
Steve-O!” You had not heard from him in a few months, but in a split second
his whole work history flashed in your brain. Steve Yu, Steve-O as his closest
friends called him, went to work for a large corporation right after college. As
the executive assistant to the president of one of the largest hotel chains in the
United States, he had the luxury of being involved in high-stakes strategic
decisions, without much of the responsibility. But as an entrepreneur and a
dreamer at heart, Steve quickly became disenchanted with the corporate
lifestyle. As a former Marine, he was fond of saying, “Life’s too short not to
chase your dream.”
The genesis of Epic Trip stemmed from Steve’s interest in studying
television commercials while attending college. He believed commercials told
compelling stories when emotionally connecting with consumers about the
possibilities of what the product could help the customer realize or achieve.
About a year and half ago, Steve resigned from his job as executive assistant
and founded his own firm. With one childhood friend and a lot of ramen
noodles, they began developing what would soon become EpicTrip.com
(Figure 5.1). An arts enthusiast, Steve brought significant design sensitivity to
the team, while his partner brought the technical skills. The vision behind
EpicTrip.com was to revolutionize how people purchase travel.
The Epic Trip website read: “Epic Trip is a new and unique way for
travelers to know what their destinations and their hotels are all about, even
before setting off. We aim to become the premiere multimedia travel search
engine and social network on the web by connecting travelers with videos,
virtual tours, reviews, and their experiences.”
The Internet travel market was crowded with sites that focused on listing as
many options as possible and finding customers the “best deals,” so Steve
believed there would be value in focusing on the experience of travel, even
before the trip started. Through the use of rich media (videos, virtual tours,
photos, and audio), Epic Trip was designed to help travelers get a feel for the
unique offerings of their destination before arriving—and to dream about new
ones. Epic Trip also focused on community, with tools for members to share
their experiences and photos and to connect with other like-minded travelers.
Still in beta version, without any formal marketing campaign, EpicTrip.com
was attracting some attention from bloggers, travel industry insiders, and
travel enthusiasts. The consensus was that the Epic Trip site was visually
appealing and extremely easy to navigate.
“What’s up, Steve-O?” you screamed into the receiver, a bit too loud for the
early hour. “I know that you’ve been doing some eCommerce consulting for
the travel industry as of late,” said Steve, adding with a chuckle, “I keep up
with you, my friend.” You fire back: “I’ve been monitoring your progress, too.
I see you have launched in beta already.” “We’re at a crossroads,” Steve said,
his voice becoming serious. “We have the site up and running, and we have
the partnerships in place with the major travel distributors. The site is fast, and
we have rolled out the members’ area and the platform for featured
destinations” (Figure 5.2).
“Nice going, Steve-O!” you exclaim, excited about the progress. “Time to
make some dough now, buddy,” Steve replies. “As you know, we originally
thought about a referral model, taking a cut when people follow a link from
our site and purchase some travel product.” “That’s a tough business,” you
interject. “Exactly,” Steve replies. “It appears we have people doing research
on the site, but they don’t go straight through. They may come back over and
over, and later book or even call an agency or a hotel themselves. We don’t get
paid that way. In addition, we just learned that Expedia is now offering free
production of virtual tours to hotels to be featured on their site.”
With very limited resources, Steve knew he had to quickly come up with a
solid value proposition that differentiated Epic Trip and a revenue model to
approach potential investors. “You’re my eCommerce guru; I need some
guidance. I have some ideas, but I would love your take. I need to start
monetizing this platform we’ve built,” said Steve. “Absolutely!” you reply
without hesitation. “Give me until the end of the week to study this and I’ll
call you with some ideas.” Steve answers, “Thanks bud, I knew I could count
on you. Talk to you at the end of the week.”

Discussion Questions
1. What kind of information do you think you need to seek out as you
formulate your recommendations for Steve?
2. How do you suggest that Epic Trip think about driving revenue? What are
some of the options? How would you rank them relative to each other?
3. What would you suggest Epic Trip do to differentiate itself? How can
Steve ensure the long-term viability of Epic Trip?