Meet Sharmaine
Hello! It’s Sharmaine. Throughout my career, I’ve explored so many different industries that I eventually decided to focus on Travel as my next big venture. I began traveling when I was just 2 years old to the Grand Canyon. Not that I remember it, of course, except through pictures.
It’s been the same mentality about life ever since—exploring new lands, both virtual and physical. Even work is this way. I’ve moved laterally from industry to industry to keep my mind engaged and excited! From riding the E-commerce boom in ASEAN, to diving into Innovation in Big Data in Finance, all the way to the latest Sustainability boom, I love challenging myself.
These horizontal industry explorations tie the world together in my head, and I’ve made leaps in the types of companies I’ve worked for, from startups to enterprise. I’d say the journey has been pretty thorough.
One of the last things I’ve been exposed to all my life but never tried was figuring out entrepreneurship and impact! A course I took at DesignCouncil Singapore brought me the lens of Design Futures, though I had already been curious and keen to take a Design Management Degree with Parsons in New York, I wasn’t able to due to various reasons. I ended up geeking out about IDEO and other similar frameworks in the industry. I remember the Design Management Masterclass vividly. What if we could vision emerging technologies in a world 50 years from now. What would you come up with? I couldn’t fathom. In fact, we end up looking back to the inspiration of others, sealed in books. Flying cars, for instance, was an idea from as long ago as in the 1960s. Many illustrations of these visions were available in the libraries. It’s funny to see this come to live in pop culture, like Star Wars.
Where innovation materializes is, really the right timing for it and the right technology, and whether that translates into something that is available to the public depends on everyone’s taste for it!
So when I joined the Innovation Labs at Refinitiv, it was the most exciting opportunity ever. I was contending with my own personal goals and ceilings of designing way past my comfort zone and thriving, and was stoked at the idea of maxing out. The fun thing about Refinitiv Labs was that it was really about Applied Innovation, projects that can materialize now based on today’s cutting edge technologies. At the time, it was machine learning and data science.
Bringing that to Tourism and Travel Mobility is a fun thing for me. I see so many permutations to elevate our human experience of travel. Life can be really rich mentally and physically, and that’s where the gap lies, our ability to action it. I firmly believe everyone should have the opportunity to experience it fully, and so this journey is really about that, for those who dare to take that journey.
What inspired you to create Hackglobe?
The original, original trigger was watching this friend who was lugging three huge luggage bags across Europe. I didn’t realize it was such a huge inconvenience if you didn’t approach it with that laser-focused, problem-solving mindset. Most just bring everything, or travel home for the rest of it. In this day and age where sustainability is top of mind for so many, I want to translate that desire into something manageable on the road.
I sought out the most comfortable, technical performance clothing that would work for most situations, and I tried to stuff everything into one of these organizer-backpacks. I was able to fit seven sets of clothes but quickly realized how many things I not going to be able to do if I was planning for a year away, which felt like a huge blocker for traveling long-term. For instance, if I wanted to explore Latin America with its changing seasons and then trot across Africa and all that, it would be pretty sad to have to travel only with clothes I’d prepared for winter in Europe. So I thought, what about… multiple backpacks!? Like RPG game style, where we could figure out a way to make last-mile logistics cheaper. I basically discovered that microshipping was a global challenge to be solved! I was all in for solving for it.
And then there’s the Travel Bucket List problem! The pain point was I’d always be scrolling and learning random amazing places, writing it down in lists where, I know it exists, but one fine day when looking for a place to go to and staring at this detailed list, I’d find no inspiration from it. No visuals? No feelings. The trouble was also that I had to now manually search Google for everything appropriate in that list and still make a decision with friends which fit better, and we’d end up somewhere convenient. All those lost gems, it breaks my heart. Sometimes I’d end up looking for it and it would be closed right after.
How nice would it be if it just showed up right when you needed it?
Passing thoughts about places I thought I saved and want to add into my trip, and other places with no current intention to travel to and left in a list. Mean it’s never a priority to include in my style of spontaneously booking trips. (I get bored if I plan trips ahead of time and do deep research, I really rather not know too much about the place.)
In the end, it becomes such a strange challenge to pull that information back into the plan when you finally decide on a place you want to visit. Wouldn’t it be great if an app could recommend places you saved before so you don’t need to go through Top 10 blog posts all over again to find that one thing?!
That flexibility of being able to just whip up an app and say, “Yeah, let me get that bag over here—is it far? And what options do I have that I love?” That’s exactly why we created the Hidden Gems and Bucket List features. Being able to remember a place exactly as you first saw it is a definite Win.
What makes Hackglobe unique compared to other travel planning tools?
I’d say what makes us unique is consolidating all your unconscious wants and desires into one app through your saved social media content, and then getting those places recommended to you when you finally take that leap to travel.
Plus, we let you connect with your chosen travel tribe who share the same interests. All these potential experiences are already hidden in your saves—we just need to create more opportunities to connect over what we love. That’s the perfect icebreaker, you know?
It’s difficult to always know someone and what they love upfront, and this is the most spontaneous way to break new ground together.
In Singapore, we have this perspective where traveling together is considered a litmus test for the strength of a friendship or relationship. I think it comes down to being able to actually decide on those places to visit and getting equally excited about them.
Having everything out there on a single page with our opt-in feature, means I know exactly who to ask out next time when it comes to specific experiences, and it gives room for newer potential interests to develop. It’s like watching a cross-pollination of dreams happen.
Can you walk us through the user experience from saving a post to generating an itinerary?
What happens on the app is that you’re first greeted with a prompt to integrate your social media accounts. We then grab your saved posts, hidden in that dusty little spot in your Collections folder, and use AI to sort everything for you.
You create high-level Trip Plans where you’re essentially saying, “YUP. These specific people, that exact destination—we’re definitely making this happen.”
You plug in your gems, which are already tagged with their respective addresses, and they get shared based on their proximity to the place you want to visit. For instance, if you want to go to Berlin, and you have 10 saved places plus a few in nearby Leipzig (about 2 hours away), you can easily plan a day trip over there.
Everyone else in your group plugs in their hidden gems as well. Then you tap on “Generate Itinerary,” which gives you all the places grouped into pools of gems where you can decide how many days you want to spend in each location, in which order to visit them, check opening hours, see who wants to go to what, and so forth.
Then you wait for all your friends to opt in, and cancel out any places that don’t fall under anyone’s radar. Or you can make something a private gem—one that you just hop off on your own to experience.
How do you ensure that the itineraries are personalized and relevant?
They’re super personalized right from the start because it’s all your own saved content! And if you come across anything new you’d like to add later, you can just have it sync up, and your itinerary will be updated automatically.
We haven’t put this in the release plan yet, but ideally, you’ll be able to drop a YouTube video into the app, and it’ll identify and extract the featured location. You can remove anything irrelevant, and the best part is that it saves the original URL and post so you can see it in full high-definition again later—complete with directions, too.
Are there any AI-powered features in Hackglobe?
Yes, definitely! The sorting and tagging of content happens with AI. Our route planning feature is also AI-assisted to create the most efficient travel planning, hopefully to rival customized tours!
Not yet, but we’ll be happy to implement something like this if it’s what our users want. At the moment, we’re considering inclusive travel features which can suggest alternative plans for those who might have physical disabilities. We want to ensure that travel plans can include a more diverse range of individuals and accommodate different needs.
How do you keep users engaged and coming back to use Hackglobe for future trips?
Hackglobe functions like your personal travel vault which you fill with treasures and goodies over time. We’re planning to create some interesting curated collections through collaborations with influencers, film producers, and other wiki-like directories of wildlife.
You know, like, when planning a scuba diving trip, it’s not usually top of mind to research exactly what marine life is in that particular area. But with Hackglobe, I could potentially discover that a pyjama shark actually lives in that location nearby where I’m currently at, and I should consider taking a side-trip to see it. The app opens things up for curiosities you might have had in the past that aren’t normally top of mind when planning.
What advice would you give to SaaS Founders entering the travel tech industry?
The travel tech space is one that has traditionally remained quite static, and so the common preconceptions are whether you’re an OTA, DMC, or travel comparison marketplace. We’re actually none of those.
I’d say Hackglobe is more of a SaaS platform with a dream to help people “one-bag” the world and live their fullest lives.
For anyone who wants to enter the travel tech industry, I’d say just jump right in and embrace what excites you the most about it. Then, learn about all the types of partnerships you can build with people who get excited about the same things you do. That’s where the magic happens.
Did you enjoy our interview? Do you have anything to say to our community?
Yeah, absolutely! It was really fun to talk about what I love and share my vision. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, Delon!
