P1t Inc. is born! (Launch event speech from Oct 16th, 2015)

The journey to the formation of P1T Inc. began with several decades of critical social science research documenting how tourism objectifies and exploits the subaltern.

However, our research also reveals that involvement in tourism microentrepreneurship sometimes allows locals to earn a better living and influence how tourism develops in their community. 

Tim Wallace, whom you have met, is a founding partner of P1t, and he has a rich record of applied anthropology research on how indigenous Maya people react to opportunities and challenges posed by tourism.

Here, today we have several Applied Anthropology and Equitable and Sustainable Tourism students – can you raise your hands!  If you are curious about this type of research be sure to quiz them in a little while.

Many locals want to share their knowledge and their life experiences with visitors.  Indeed, there are several of those here with us today.  Could the P1t entrepreneurs here today raise their hand! 

But, if there are locals like these interested in selling experiences to visitors, why is it so difficult for us to find them?

Why can’t we escape the mundane predictability and staged theatricals of the mass tourist destinations?

Our research with now more than 150 tourism microentrepreneurs in North Carolina alone, revealed that the most significant barrier to their involvement in the tourism industry was lack of access to markets.  In other words, the formal sector naturally commands retail channels and locals are relegated to the role of passive tourees.

It is under this context that sharing economy websites are now proliferating.  Most of us know Etsy, AirBnB, etc.  In Vayable, locals can sell tours in major cities all over the world – but not Raleigh, nor in rural areas. This is pretty typical. To quote one of our 2014 FB posts “will sharing economy ventures like Feastly, AirBnB, Etsy, etc... really bring new income-earning opportunity to people that need income; or are they just new glitzy ways for hyperconnected urbanites to do business with each other?”

The economic power of the emerging sharing economy is largely being tapped by “hyperconnected urbanites!”

So we felt that there was the need and opportunity to develop a system connecting buyers and sellers with a broad spectrum of connectivity.

 

We developed a system connecting high-feature web browsing with the ubiquitous connectivity of SMS in simple mobile phones.  This invention allows us to sell tourism experiences offered by billions of microentrepreneurs worldwide.

But, must the P1t marketplace be a huge anonymous shark tank?

Our company’s success depends on the success of each microentrepreneur selling experiences in our website – and research suggests that networking is crucial to success.

That’s why we are here today, right?  To network with each other.

So we adapted best practices from microfinance, and organized our entrepreneurs in regional networks of locals that collaborate and compete with each other. We want P1t to be a “tide that lifts all boats” as was explained to us by Capt. Andrews, a fishing guide in Pamlico Sound.

OK…  and how can we recruit all these genuine locals interested in selling experiences to visitors?  At the global scale? 

In each region, we develop strategic alliances with government organizations like Cooperative Extension, or with non-profits, like Causeworthy projects.

These empowerment partners know their communities.  They know which members are ready to become involved in tourism.  We connect them to the market and we provide them data of the performance of “their locals” – which they need so they can document their impact in the communities they serve.

So the P1t marketplace only includes microentrepreneurs vetted and accompanied by a local empowerment partner organization. 

Over the last four years we have worked in a true convergent manner to design, build and improve functional components of a machine that we have affectionately named Bruno [Broad Resource Unified Network Organizer].

Bruno, the machine, is designed to receive web reservations from interested tourists; communicate with microentrepreneurs via coded SMS; process payments via mobile banking; and keep us and the local empowerment partner abreast of the transaction. Bruno currently incorporates several inventions of our authorship (i.e., P1T Application, SMS Communications Broker), and we hope that P1t Inc. will strengthen the unique People-First Innovation ecosystem developing at NC State so as to fuel the development of additional functionality (i.e., a payment system allowing international money transfers to mobile banking).

This work was directed by John Bass.  He is a founding partner and Chief Information Officer of the company, and is the Technical Director of NC State’s Institute for Next Generation IT Systems.

Much of the coding was done by hand-picked Computer Science students working in ITng.  Some of these students have graduated, and they often single out their work on P1t code as one of the most meaningful experiences in their education at NC State.  Some of them are here today - I hope you’ll speak with some of them in a few mins!  These two in the picture, Megan and Spencer are also here – Spencer, can you come up to share a few words! …

As unreservedly nerdy academics, we surrounded ourselves with people willing to invest themselves in the project, and they went way beyond common sense to ensure the success of P1t.

First, Megan Hall, a design professor at UNC Charlotte, and also a partner of the company. She leads all our design decisions integrating graphic design, web development, and user experience.

Carl Bauman, our business coach from SCORE has been meeting with us regularly over the last three years – he logged 77 hrs of consulting hours, 22 trips from Chapel Hill to Raleigh, and many many hours at home revising our business plan drafts.  If you want more details about our business model and current business analytics, please do follow-up with Gene brothers, also a co-founder and the company’s Chief Business Analyst.

Wade Furlum, OTT helped us navigate the process of creating a tech start-up at NC State.  And, OTT is also responsible for providing us access to HQ Raleigh – Note that it is not the shared office space we cherish!  It’s the entry to this strange subculture of inventive, smart, idealist people devoted to changing the world through the power of innovation and business.

And, Elizabeth Benefield, director of Socio-entrepreneurship in NC State’s Institute for Nonprofits coached us on how to make sure this new corporation could be set up so as to ensure our desired impact in the world and on NC State’s scholarship and innovation to benefit equitable development.  She will now share with you news about the formation of a People-First Innovation fund.

We started this project and this company to disrupt false economic imperatives reigning in today’s tourism industry – and to fuel win/win/win solutions for equitable prosperity.

Based on the enthusiasm we received over the last year, we feel that we’re moving the the right direction!

For example, we create landing pages for NC and for each county in which we have experiences for sale - so VisitNC, and DMOs from those counties are thrilled to feature us in their materials, their web sites, and their social media.  Our genuine experiences make their destinations richer and more competitive.

We also create landing pages for local food restaurants like Centro, and microbreweries like Crank Arm. [both are catering this event] They source their produce and their hops from local farmers.  Now they are excited to be able to tell their patrons “if you like this food or this beer, you can visit the local farmers that we support.”    We help them demonstrate their commitment to the local food, local brew movement! 

As P1t thrives, the destinations win, these businesses win, and most importantly our microentrepreneurs win.

We have identified several revenue streams for the company; but initially we will primarily support the company by charging an admin/connection fee to the prices charged by the locals. 

This fee is exactly $1 + 14% on top of the service price.

In this chart, we want to give you a visual illustration of how success of our business translates to exponential income to the local microentrepreneurs, and a significant indirect economic impact in their communities.

We all admire companies that thrive financially while also pushing for desirable change.

Patagonia was born in 1970 in California and it continues to revolutionize the apparel industry.

7^th Generation was born in 1990s in Vermont, and is now here as well, and this company inspires the natural personal care industry to be greener.

People-First Tourism Inc. is born right here in Raleigh, right now at this event!    We will use the economic force of tourism to foster a world where travelers develop deep connections with their hosts, they experience genuine local cultures, and improve the lives of the people they visit.

Thank you for being here celebrating our birth. 

Now please nurture our growth by supporting us, advising us, investing money in us, buying our tourism experiences, and telling the world about us on social media – through #peoplefirsttourism.

Duarte B. Morais, CEO P1t Inc.