Today we’d like to introduce you to Calvin Iverson.
Calvin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts and studied public relations at Syracuse University in New York. After I graduated, I moved home and landed a job on the consumer PR team at Weber Shandwick, a global PR agency with a great office in Boston.
At Weber I was very lucky to get to work with quality clients like L.L.Bean, Life is Good, Perrier and the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative. I love reminiscing about the days when I managed media opportunities for the L.L.Bean Bootmobile, a giant vehicle in the shape of a Bean Boot. We created the novelty car for L.L.Bean’s 100th anniversary and took it on a tour – we even managed to schedule an art car campout with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, Peeps Peepster and Lindt Chocolate Gold Bunny, which was a memorable highlight.
After three and a half years at Weber, I was ready to try my hand at in-house PR. I handled consumer PR for Drizly, the Boston-based alcohol e-commerce company, for a year before I saw a job posting for a PR manager at TravelPirates and decided to give it a shot.
Like most people, I love to travel and I love finding a good deal, so the TravelPirates business model appealed to me. We have a team of deal hunters who find the best deals out there and then share them with you, free of charge, to book yourself. I knew it would be a fun place to work, and it still is, almost two years later.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Working for a startup in its first few years of business is never easy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it. I handled communications for the company by myself for over a year, which was a huge responsibility, but also a welcome challenge. TravelPirates didn’t have a lot of name recognition when the company was founded, so I had to get outside of my comfort zone and brainstorm some creative ways to get the word out, like identifying the best beer and brewery hotels in the country and recommending shark diving destinations for an adventurous honeymoon.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about TravelPirates – what should we know?
TravelPirates is a free-to-use travel search platform powered by our team of expert deal hunters who provide you with the best value-for-money deals on flights, hotels, vacation packages and more. You can check us out at TravelPirates.com, download our app for iOS and Android, or find us on social media and messaging services – we’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and WhatsApp.
We stand out from other travel deal platforms by using a combination of proprietary travel search algorithms and the human touch to provide you with unbeatable low prices for destinations you might have considered unreachable on a budget – think Boston to Europe for $199 round trip, or to Hawaii for $374. We’ve even found affordable private islands and trendy accommodations like glamping and treehouse hotels.
One of our specialties is finding error fares (pricing mistakes made by airlines and hotels), such as flights from the US to Chile roundtrip for $171 or a night at the Godfrey Hotel in Boston for $20. Unlike our competitors, we grew our business on social media, primarily on Facebook – in fact, we just hit 10 million fans, which makes us the largest travel brand on Facebook in the world. We’re pretty proud of that.
This year, we launched a new TravelPirates app for iOS and Android that makes it easier than ever to discover amazing travel deals. The new app features a sleek user interface and an easy-to-navigate platform that allows for personal customization via filters and push notifications. On top of that, you can also sign up for deal alerts through Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp in order to stay up-to-date with the very best travel deals or book time-sensitive error fares.
What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
I pretended to be a chef in order to purchase two huge tubs of seaweed at a questionable seafood supply store in New York for a PR event.
Kidding – that really happened, but I’d have to say my proudest moment was probably earlier this year after I went on Cheddar TV to talk about TravelPirates and we had just wrapped up two massive travel trade shows. It was a really good feeling to look back on the past year, when most people didn’t know who we were, and see how far we’ve come.
Journalists proactively reach out to us to cover us now, and at the travel shows, we met all kinds of people who had heard about us in the news or on Facebook. It’s hard work, but we’re getting the word out and seeing some great results.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://travelpirates.com/
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/travelpirates
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Travelpirates/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/travelpiratesus
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/travelpirates/
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