Kevin Corliss, Christopher Kenyon, and Douglas Franklin, three graduates of the Northeastern University developed an online platform called Treehoppr, which keeps track of accrued time off and offers a savings account and travel information so users can go on vacation. They decided to start working on it when they realised that although they had earned paid vacation time, they were discouraged from using it.
“There was this sense that you weren’t a dedicated worker if you actually went on vacation, and stopped working while you were gone,” Corliss said. They wanted to help people eliminate the barriers to travel such as time, money or the know-how when it comes to a foreign country. According to Kenyon, another of Treehoppr’s founders when a company offers paid time off, they’re holding that money in the books. He added “Imagine 30 employees leave a company on the same day. All of them need to be paid out for their unused time off, and that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. That could sink a company.”
Treehoppr aims to fix that. It has partnered with an online banking company, which allows users to set up and manage their own financial fund within the program. The founders have also curated a massive database of information on where to go and what to do in various countries, as well as set up software that presents users with estimated flight and trip costs.
The three of them each bring something unique to bear. Corliss, who conceptualised Treehoppr while studying at the university, has a degree in business administration. Kenyon studied computer engineering and computer science. And Franklin started as a business student, but switched to computer engineering. “We’re tackling core blockers to travel right at the root,” Franklin said.
Shahjadi Jemim Rahman