Founder stories
A beautiful trip planner app for researching, organizing, and mapping your vacations with collaborative features.
How Peter acquired customers
Tools used to build Wanderlog
Peter and Harry Yu, twin brothers from Yale, built Wanderlog into the top-ranked trip planning app after previous bootstrapped travel ventures and stints at Stripe and Google.
Peter and Harry Yu are twin brothers who studied computer science at Yale. Before Wanderlog, they built successful, bootstrapped travel companies including BookWithMatrix and All the Flight Deals.
Peter worked as an engineer at Stripe and a consultant at McKinsey. Harry worked as a product manager at Google. Their shared love of travel and tech led them to build tools for travelers.
Wanderlog is the one-stop app for planning your next vacation, with a focus on excellent design. You can track your plans in a collaborative document, discover places to visit and hotels to book, and share travel advice with friends.
The company was part of Y Combinator's 2019 cohort. In 2021, they raised a $1.5M seed round from General Catalyst and Abstract Ventures.
Despite launching right before COVID decimated travel, they kept building. "Even during COVID, we've seen our userbase grow," the founders noted. They focused on the product, knowing travel would return.
Wanderlog is now the top-ranked app on the Android Play Store for terms like "itinerary" and "trip planner," and ranks highly on Google for "travel planner" and "itinerary planner." They facilitate thousands of trips per week.
Domain expertise from previous ventures accelerates new product development
Focus on excellent design to differentiate in crowded markets
Keep building during downturns - being ready when the market returns pays off
SEO for trip planning terms drives sustainable organic growth
Inspired by Peter's journey? Generate a business idea in the Travel space using AI and real founder data.
Peter achieved 3 milestones on the path to $10K MRR
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
See the complete breakdown: launch strategy, validation methods, startup costs, expert analysis, replication playbook, and more actionable insights.
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