What I Learned from Building a Global Travel Marketplace

We had cracked it. We thought.

We started working on with a platform idea in 2015, and BookNanook.com launched in 2016. Within a year, we had partners and tours all over the world. The following years we had growth beyond our wildest dreams. The platform seemed to take on a life of its own.

Until it didn’t.

COVID hit, and like a lot of great ideas, it went into hibernation.

We never managed to wake it up again. Not really.

This is the unstructured and unpolished story of how we built something we thought was unstoppable. And why it wasn’t. I might have forgotten some things along the way, but I think these lessons can still be useful.

What Inspired Us to Build a Platform

Back in 2008, I started a small adventure company called Norsk Gåsehud (Norwegian Goosebumps). We took companies and tourists out into nature, guiding them through climbing, paddling, skiing, hiking, surfing and other.

After a few years, sometimes we’d take cruise passengers on short hikes around Kristiansund. Picture this: a busload of 30+ people pouring out in a line, adjusting backpacks and cameras, still a bit dazed after disembarking. We earned about 500 NOK per person. It seemed fair for a simple guided walk with one or two guides.

But talking to the passengers we found out the cruise line had charged them four times that amount. At first, we were embarrassed. Felt like the tour wasn’t worth it. Two hours walk to a view point. It also pissed us off that the money didn’t stay local. The cruise lines, shore services…

Travelers paid a premium, but most of it vanished into a chain of middlemen.

And it wasn’t just the price markup that got to us. Cruise lines would book these tours a year in advance, but they still had the right to cancel just days before arrival. If it rained. Of course we refused to work with this industry anymore.

It didn’t matter much to them. They often sent their own crew along on the first few hikes, “learning the ropes” from us, only to replace us entirely the next season. They didn’t need us anymore, they’d copied the product.

It wasn’t just the cruise lines, either. We saw the same pattern with international tour operators. Most of the money never made it back to the people actually doing the work on the ground. Middlemen took the lion’s share while local businesses got scraps. We saw it again and again.

Before I started Norwegian Goosebumps, I was introduced the startup scene during my studies in Norway’s tech city, Trondheim. I became pretty nerdy about startups, to be honest. Maybe because I spent a few years working in a startup, I actually wrote my master thesis while working full-time with building a startup. Initially me and my fellow student co-workers became co-founders of AidCom – a company that built a system to monitor news and various sources, sending alerts about potential dangers to travelers.

I also had a background in communication. I was sure I understood how to build something better for the local adventure companies. I also took lessons in building mobile experiences at MiT. (We thought we were going to build an app, until we realized we needed a brand before an app etc.).

Anyway. I was convinced we could make a better solution. Skip the middlemen. Cut out the chains of bureaucracy and let the money stay where it belonged, with the people actually doing the work on the ground. I knew there had to be a way to create a direct connection between travelers and locals. A fairer way to experience adventure without feeding the profit machines of big operators.

What if we built a platform where the money stayed with the locals? Where the guides, the hosts, aka the real people who made the magic happen, got paid what they deserved?

We wanted a system where travelers booked directly from locals and small companies instead of going through international tour operators and middlemen. 90% of the money directly to them. Our clients saved 30-40% while the local companies earned more. Win-win-win.

That’s what inspired us to start BookNanook.com. A platform that empowered local guides and hosts, giving travelers real experiences without the inflated prices. We were ready to challenge the system. And for a while, it worked.

But reality hit us hard. The platform grew, but so did the complexity. We battled with algorithms, big platforms, and shifting consumer habits. COVID came like a sledgehammer, and everything we’d built went into hibernation. And when it was time to wake up, the world had moved on.

Still, I stand by the idea. The dream of cutting out the middlemen and creating a more honest, transparent way of traveling. It’s a story of ambition, a dose of naivety, and a reality check.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s not over yet. We still get some organic requests on a daily basis.

Lesson 1: Be Hard to Get

In the beginning, we welcomed everyone on board. Anyone who were local and offered tours could join. We wanted to get a good selection of products as we needed a critical mass of supply to get clients.

The platform was great. We searched long time, and finally we got developers in Austin, Texas to build a beautiful, flexible and very complicated two-sided marketplace ( 380,000 lines of code). It looked AirBnB ish, like most travel platforms at the time. We secured grants, raised money, ran campaigns, collected emails, and pre-registered hundreds. We felt the momentum. We launched it.

Then, at launch... almost no one registered. Not even the companies we knew. Not even our friends. We worked hard to recruit. But things went slow for weeks. 20-30 companies and 100 listings the first months? Not much more, for sure.

We had to change strategy.

We thought, “Maybe it’s too easy to join.” Maybe we look to desperate. So we tightened the rules. Made people apply to be part of BookNanook. Be hard to get. Like those popular bars with a line out the door. We wanted to create the kind of party that everyone wanted to join.

And it worked. Suddenly, everyone wanted in. We went from “Please sign up” to “Not everyone gets to be part of this.”Overnight, we became the party everyone wanted to crash.

And not to forget, we said no to many. To get in, they had to show a plan for sustainability action and prove they were locally owned. No shortcuts. No exceptions.

Lesson 2: Simplicity Sells

When we grew to over 16,000 listings, the platform became a labyrinth. In one way it was what we had dreamed of. A platform you could visit for hours and get lost in. At the time, no other platform had more trips than us in countries like Nepal, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka. Not even the big names like Viator, WithLocals, and GetYourGuide. Our nearest competitors: TourRadar and Bookmundi, had half of what we had in Nepal, as example. We were also in the top 5 for Kenya, Tanzania, and Indonesia. (In listings, not revenue.)

In Nepal alone, we had over 1,400 tours, mostly variations of the same 20 hikes. The paradox of choice hit us like a sledgehammer. Users were paralyzed. Too many options meant no decisions at all. Entering our page felt like going back to Google.

We realized we had to make it simple. We started leading people to landing pages with just three choices, or a maximum of 5-10. It worked. One cheap option with few features. One expensive option loaded with features. And one priced just a little lower than the expensive one but still offering almost all the features. Guess which one everyone chose.

It worked much better. But we were still nowhere near the numbers we wanted. Then, one day, inspiration struck, and we added a button on the front page:

"Tell us what you want, and the tour will find you."

That single button, launched just hours after the idea popped up, soon became our savior. It didn’t take more than six weeks before that button led to 80% of our revenue. We phased out most of the listings and doubled down on letting users just tell us what they needed. It wasn’t about offering endless choices. It was about solving one problem at a time.

After a while, 6 months or so, we took the hard decision to shut down the expensive platform and we replaced it with a simple Squarespace site with a Typeform. No more administration. 90% of the workload dissappeared. We could focus on optimizing that single button.

The old platform? We used it for indexing.

Because now, we weren’t just a booking platform anymore. We were a trip planning matchmaking service. We could focus on that one single button and build enough trust so that people would press it.

We learned a lot about why startups launch MVPs as fast as possible. All we needed was a landing page and a form. (Maybe we hadn’t got our partners without the initial platform though).

We thought building something robust and flexible would make it successful. Instead, it just made it complicated, and less flexible.

Lesson 3: Name Changes and the Hype Trap

Somewhere along the way, we changed our name to just Nanook. The domain changed to Nanook.travel. (.com was btw owned by a guy in Alaska, since 1995, he wouldn’t sell unless we paid him a fortune)

We’re still not sure if that changing name was a good move. At least not necessary.

We had got a lot of attention. Not superlots, but the hype was real. Media started comparing us to TripAdvisor. “Forget TripAdvisor,” the headline said.

For a moment, we believed it too. Clients loved our service. We were flattered. We leaned into it. Maybe a little too much.

But the noise got louder without necessarily translating into more bookings. We were one of many. Sometimes, hype blinds you to the reality of your own product. We learned the hard way that a media article without a link can only be used as social proof. You don’t get traffic.

Take the article in Conde Nast Traveler India, for example, naming us a major player in Nepal. Plenty of readers, apparently, a little hype about all our listings in Nepal, but no increase in traffic. It looked great on paper, our partners were shining, but in reality, it did nothing for the business. (I think about 80% of travelers to Nepal come from India btw).

It’s easy to get caught in the hype trap, thinking that attention equals success. But the truth is, people might love reading about you without ever taking action. Looking back, we should have focused less on the hype and more on what actually made the platform work.

Note: We did mostly say no to direct interviews though. Thought we were smart, cool and hard to get. Not sure about that decision either. In retrospect.

Lesson 4: Don’t be Afraid to Go Where the Magic Happens

We started hyper-local. Just wanted to make a platform for ourselves and other local companies. Local, but great. Then we got advisors. They told us to take it step by step. One year at a time. Norway first, then Scandinavia. The typical slow rollout.

Then one day, a small operator from Sri Lanka applied. We said no. Our advisors told us to focus on Norway first. But it didn’t sit right. We felt stupid. Then another application came in. This time from Indonesia. Then another.

Why limit ourselves by geography? A great experience is a great experience, no matter where it happens. So we ignored the advice and opened the doors to the world. Suddenly, Nanook exploded, reaching over 100 countries.

Note: This is not a necessarily a great advice. Actually I would not do it like that again. Niche beachhead markets are important. It’s almost impossible to make an impact without focus. I know that now. But for us, back then, this was essential for our rapid growth. Was it a big mistake? Maybe. But honestly, I’d probably do it again.

I also learned that advisors usually don’t know much. They had not built what we were building.

One interesting fact is that below one percent of our trips were in Norway, and less than 0,5% of our clients were norwegian. People from Australia booked trips to New Zealand, and a group of engineers from Nigeria booked a study trip in Ethiopia via our platform. It felt insane and amazing. We were really international.

Lesson 5: Build Trust, Not Volume

At one point, we were drowning in listings. 90% of our time was spent fixing bad photos and rewriting terrible descriptions. The platform was easy to navigate, but with all this content it appeared bloated and chaotic. So we simplified everything. One button. One solution. One way to book.

It wasn’t about being the biggest marketplace. It was about being the simplest. And simplicity made us profitable.

We started working closer with a few trusted planners. We followed a new principle: Instead of sending one request a year to 100 partners, we sent 100 requests to one. It built trust. A close connection.

I would say: Trust is everything.

I’ll try to explain the moment we understood this. We had matched a lady from South Africa with a partner from Lombok, near Bali. In our new system the partners could talk directly to the clients in whatever channel they prefered. Phone, mail, whatsapp or whatever. 4-5 weeks after the matchmaking I got a phone from the local experts in Lombok. He said: We’ve got a booking. It was in total 26000$, a group of 11 persons from South Africa. We want you to have 10%. How do I transfer?

We sent the partner regular requests. They liked working with us. A win win for both of us. Think about how great this was for us, and them. We have a lot of stories like this because we started focusing on working with fewer partners. Many of these got the major part of their income from us in relatively short amount of time.

We then established local country and region managers who managed the dialogue with our partners. Clients could pay directly to local businesses, who would then send us a cut after the trip was done. No international transfer fees. Win-win. Less administration.

Many clients were returning and came back year after year. Some even more frequently, and some still send us requests regularly.

It’s fair to say the trust based system worked.

Until COVID hit.

Overnight, we lost bookings worth 6.5 million dollars. We just had a cut of that btw. For a while, the trips were just postponed, and we held on to some hope. But reality set in fast, it wasn’t just postponed, it was gone.

And it wasn’t like we could charge the local planners who were in deep trouble too. We knew that forcing them to pay would just push them under, and we couldn’t be the ones to break their backs. So we took the hit.

Because trust goes both ways. You can’t build something meaningful by throwing your partners under the bus when times get tough.

Still. Many, maybe half of our partners did not make it through the pandemic. As a company. The trust we had built, were not easy to replace with new ones.

It doesn’t come over night. It takes years.

PS: Sometimes, when in doubt, we sent test clients to some companies just to see how they worked. We got so many requests so we didn’t care much if some fish swam outside the net. A great way of checking.

PS2: The second best way of recruiting companies, after being hard to get, is to send clients. Say you really want to help a client, ask if they can help you out. You have many requests but no partner to fix.

I promise you. Those local planners come back. They want to work with you.
If you have the demand side in order, most of the other things will work. In the next lesson I will explain how we fixed that.

Lesson 6: Mastering Pay-Per-Click

We didn’t just guess our way to customers. We pulled them in exclusively through Google Ads. Pay-per-click was our game, and we played it smart, we were not bidding on expensive popular terms, instead we were using long-tail search terms like:

“4-day safari in Lake Nakuru National Park.”

We knew exactly what each click cost. There was a clear, red thread from ad to landing page to a simple form. No distractions. No fluff.

And it worked. Every 10 clicks turned into a request. Every 8 requests turned into a booking. We had built a money-making machine.

Then COVID came. Suddenly, the landscape changed. Everyone started placing huge bids on every keyword, driving prices through the roof. Algorithms changed. Competition skyrocketed.

The machine stopped working. Our low cut couldn’t keep up with the rising costs. The entire model went negative. We tried adjusting, but nothing made sense anymore. The game had changed, and we were playing by yesterday’s rules.

Our most efficient customer acquisition strategy, the one we had honed to perfection, had just... stopped.

It was a brutal lesson. Even when you master the game, the game can change overnight.

Lesson 8: The Problem with Private Providers

Lesson 8: The Problem with Private Providers

In the beginning, we had this bold idea: Why not let private individuals offer their services on our platform? We thought it would be like Airbnb for activities, though we hated that term. We wanted authentic, personal, and locally rooted. We even partnered with insurance companies to give private suppliers the same coverage as professionals, convinced that this was the future.

It got attention. People loved the concept. It had that disruptive, grassroots feel. Private providers became the spice that made the platform exciting, they were the ones that drew curiosity and media attention. It felt fresh and different, and it gave us that cool, cutting-edge vibe.

But as soon as customers were about to book, they hesitated. They didn’t trust it. Suddenly, their excitement turned into anxiety, wondering if the person leading the hike or guiding the trip was reliable, professional, or even safe.

Private providers made sense on paper. In reality, customer fear was the biggest barrier. People liked the idea, but when it came to actually booking, they wanted more assurance. Turns out, people don’t mind staying in someone’s spare room through Airbnb, but hiring a guide for an outdoor adventure from a random person felt risky.

We quickly learned that trust is the most crucial factor when it comes to experiences. Private providers remained as the flavor and excitement, the touch of uniqueness that made the platform feel different. But when it came to actual bookings, they almost always went to professional operators. That’s where customers felt secure.

We had to rethink the whole concept and focus more on established operators with proven track records while keeping the private options as a little dash of character. In the end, the cool factor wasn’t worth it if it didn’t convert to bookings. We wanted clients to go to the professionals.

Lesson 9: Learning from Other Marketplaces

During this period, I was constantly looking at other marketplaces to understand what made them work. It wasn’t just about being inspired by other founders. It was about figuring out why some platforms succeeded while others didn’t. One of the most eye-opening moments was meeting Ruzwana Bashir, the founder of Peek, in Oslo. Peek was the platform that inspired us the most when we started. It showed how a combination of local experiences and streamlined booking could actually work. It made me realize that it wasn’t just about connecting people, but about making the whole process feel trustworthy and smooth.

Later, we set up a New York base at Voyager HQ, a co-working space dedicated to travel startups. It was buzzing with entrepreneurial energy, and I didn’t drop by too often, but whenever I did, I met people who were breaking new ground. One day, Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb, dropped by in one of their events. Just seeing how those guys thought and operated gave me new perspectives on what it meant to build something truly groundbreaking.

One surprising thing I noticed at Voyager was how small some of the companies actually were. Even the ones that appeared big and established online. Just like us. It was a wake-up call that the perception of success doesn’t always match reality. Seeing that firsthand made me realize that the image a company projects can be very different from what’s actually going on behind the scenes. Will not name anyone. Though they don’t exist anymore :)

It made me think about how we presented ourselves and the importance of being authentic rather than just trying to look big.

It wasn’t just travel startups that caught my attention. I started looking at successful marketplaces in other industries, like mobility, food delivery, and even services like TaskRabbit. Each was solving the same fundamental challenge: building enough trust that customers felt comfortable making a booking. It became clear that even if the business model looked different, the underlying challenge was often the same: earning and keeping customer confidence.

One memorable dinner was with the founders of Much Better Adventures. Back then, it was a small, ambitious company with a clear vision and a sense of purpose. It wasn’t just their passion that stood out, but the way they tackled the challenge of building a sustainable marketplace for ski chalets. (This was before they started with adventure weekends). It made me think about how we could be more deliberate with our own strategy, instead of just pushing for rapid growth.

The biggest takeaway from all these encounters wasn’t just about clever ideas or innovative tech. It was about how to make customers feel safe. Platforms don’t just need to work, they need to feel reliable. Once that sense of security is lost, no amount of features or flashy design will bring it back.

I realized that reducing fear is just as important as creating excitement. Building a platform isn’t just about giving people what they want, it’s about giving them the confidence to trust it.

Lesson 10: The Automated Reply That Filtered the Unserious Requests.

One of our biggest challenges was dealing with the flood of unserious inquiries. People would send out dozens of requests to multiple platforms and operators, sometimes 10, 20 at a time, just to see who would respond first.

We realized that timing was crucial. We experimented a lot: replying within one hour, two hours, even 24 hours. Eventually, we found the sweet spot: 18 minutes. That was fast enough to be among the first to reply, but also realistic to achieve.

But it wasn’t just about speed, it was about presentation. We needed a reply that felt welcoming and trustworthy. So we came up with Anna. Anna was friendly, had a universal name, and always sounded approachable.
Håvard, on the other hand, didn’t quite have the same effect. Anna’s persona worked everywhere.

I use Zapier for everything, and also here Zapier came to the rescue.

Every time someone sent us a request, they first got a response from our Anna:

“Hello dear Peter, my name is Anna, and together with our local partners in Nepal, I will assist you with planning your trip. I have just read your request, so let’s get started planning your dream vacation.

When going to Nepal, there are many things that can influence whether your trip is perfect or not, so I will start with a question: What is the most important detail to make this trip perfect for you?”

If the client didn’t respond, we assumed they weren’t serious. If they did, we knew we had their attention, and we could move forward with matching them to a local planner.

This little trick did more than just increase response rates, it helped us filter out the time-wasters and focus on clients who were genuinely interested. It was a small tweak with a big impact.

Lesson 11. Guidelines are much better than contract.

We had two guidelines. Follow them you’re in. Not. You’re out. Companies loves this simplicity. We had partners that also worked with bigger players like Zicasso, kimkim and Evaneos and the others I don’t remember the names of. They hated the bureaucracy (especially the french), and loved working with us. Though, we could not match the volume of the french giant, we had an advantage. People actually liked working with us. They told us we were more fair.

Final Lessons: The Planning Paradox

The problem with experience marketplaces is the paradox between planning too much and planning too little. On the one hand, travelers want their trips to feel spontaneous and authentic. On the other, they still need a sense of structure and security to make the booking feel worthwhile.

That’s the real challenge. How do you offer curated experiences without stripping away the magic of the unexpected?

Maybe it’s because travel planning isn’t really about data or logistics. It’s about opportunity, stumbling onto something unexpected, meeting people you never planned to meet, or finding a spot that wasn’t on the itinerary. It’s about creating the conditions for something extraordinary to happen, while leaving room for the unpredictable.

People might think they want a planned trip. It might feel comfortable and predictable. But the real magic? It shows up when things don’t go as planned. It’s in the little moments, a hidden café, an unplanned sunset hike, a random conversation that changes your perspective.

Trips aren’t problems to be solved. They’re experiences to be lived. Trying to plan the perfect journey is like trying to write a love story before you even meet your partner. It just doesn’t work. You have to let the unexpected find you.

That’s the paradox: give people enough planning to feel secure, but not so much that it kills the sense of adventure. That’s why experience marketplaces will always struggle to get it right. Magic can’t be scripted, and travel can’t be engineered to perfection.

It’s about stories, not schedules. That’s where the magic lives.

Let Me Try to Sum Up, and add a few More Insights

Building a global travel marketplace is like trying to build a plane while flying it. You make mistakes, you pivot, and sometimes you get it right purely by chance.

One of the biggest lessons I learned? Customers come first. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your tech is or how great your suppliers are. If no one is booking, it’s irrelevant.

We pulled 99% of our clients through Google Ads. Putting all eggs in that basket was a mistake. Sales should be diverse. Online, yes, but not only online. We could have done more with complementary partnerships. Traditional travel agents, visitor centers, hotel concierges. Even co-marketing with non-tourism businesses targeting the same audience could have given us a safety net. Diversifying revenue streams is crucial, especially when digital channels collapse.

And then there’s the tech trap. It’s easy to get lost in building the perfect platform. I thought making something as detailed as Airbnb would guarantee success. The reality? People don’t care about the tech. They just want great trips with great people. Airbnb didn’t win because of a groundbreaking algorithm. They won because they redefined how people think about travel and made hosts the heroes.

I learned that automation should come later. Don’t rush into building complex systems when you don’t even know what needs automating. Do the hard work manually at first. Answer every inquiry yourself, talk to your customers, learn what they really want. Only when you know the pain points should you start automating. Take that extrea work. Do things that don’t scale.

Another hard lesson: Go narrow and go deep. In the beginning, I was flattered by every new partner request. But spreading too thin made our offering less relevant in each region. It would have been smarter to start with a small, solid group of high-quality partners and build depth within that core area. More doesn’t always mean better. Sometimes it just means more noise.

And above all, be the brand early on. When you’re just starting, people need to know why you care. Your passion is contagious, and it can build a connection even when your product isn’t quite there yet. Share your story. Let people feel why you’re doing this. As you grow, make your partners the heroes. Like Airbnb does with its hosts. It’s not just smart marketing. It’s building a sense of ownership that keeps people invested.

And if you’re struggling with liquidity in the early days, don’t be afraid to make frenemies. Use other OTAs to boost visibility and cash flow for your unique offerings. It’s not a long-term strategy, but it can keep your partners happy and loyal when bookings are slow. Getting to much funding to early is a trap. Bootstrapping businesses do smarter choices.

In the end, the secret is simple: make your customers feel something. Surprise them. Inspire them. Show them why this trip is worth booking. It doesn’t matter how advanced your tech is or how many listings you have. People book stories, not platforms.

And that’s where the real magic lives.

Even if we didn’t succeed the way we planned, the idea still feels right. Nanook is not dead, but we are far from what it could have been. We still think a lot on how to wake it up. And maybe the next version of Nanook will be something completely different. Something simpler. Something real. Because if there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this: the most powerful ideas aren’t the ones with the most code or the biggest hype. They’re the ones that just make sense.



PS: A final word:

I do believe AI will take over most of the market. It might not be better than human planners, but it will be faster and good enough for most bookings. I find it hard to imagine that customers will keep waiting for weeks and paying much more when they can get quick answers at a fraction of the cost.

But here’s the thing: Travel isn’t just about efficiency. People still take time to make decisions, especially when it comes to big, meaningful trips. Quick suggestions are a bit overrated. The thought needs to mature. Inspiration needs time to take root. So while AI might dominate the transactional side of travel, there will always be room for stories, human connections, and that sense of adventure that can’t be planned or predicted.

So who knows? Maybe the future of travel planning is both, fast and thoughtful, automated but still deeply human.