AbilityTrip (www.abilitytrip.com) is an online community for travelers with disabilities and their companions seeking to learn or share information on the accessibility of destinations around the globe. The website features detailed, specific staff and user-generated content on the current state of accessible features for over 100 international destinations, and is supplemented with travel tools (e.g., packing checklist, translation guide), a monthly newsletter, and other features (e.g., trip planning services) designed to enhance the travel experience and increase member visits. AbilityTrip currently has over 3,000 unique visits and 13,000 user sessions per month.
Accolades
Winner: 2010 Harvard Business School Social Entrepreneurial Fellowship ($25,000 prize)
Runner-up: 2010 Harvard Business School Alumni Business Plan Competition
Management Team
Our team is rooted in real experience with physically challenged travel, having collectively visited 45 US states and over 20 countries. AbilityTrip co-founders, Darren and Faith, were both seriously injured in a vehicle rollover accident which rendered Darren with a high-level spinal cord injury resulting in quadriplegia. Darren Brehm, Managing Partner, has over 8 years of entrepreneurial and corporate experience; he is an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company and holds a B.S. in Finance from SDSU and a MBA with distinction from Harvard. Melissa Hayes, Managing Partner, has 8 years strategy and finance expertise developed through experience at Morgan Stanley and McKinsey & Company; she holds a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern and a MBA from Harvard. Faith Brehm, Site Manager, has 4 years of entrepreneurial management and administrative experience; she is a graduate of UMass, Boston, with a B.A. in Anthropology.
Current status and needs
AbilityTrip is pre-funded, using prize money and founders’ capital to build v1.0 of the website that will foster member-generated content, a strong sense of community, and will enable several revenue streams. AbilityTrip is seeking a CTO to lead our technological expansion, whom should possess the following:
Expertise in Drupal programming.
Capacity to invest in AbilityTrip on part-time basis - willing /able to conduct update calls on evenings / weekends.
Entrepreneurial mindset is a must – big picture view, patience for timeline and payoff.