Problem: Group trip planning is always a mess

Planning a trip with friends usually starts with excitement and ends in a group chat with hundreds of messages and no decision. One person wants the beach, another one wants a city, while the third one wants to go hiking. Budgeting is also a huge issue, as well as everyone’s availability. And when all members finally agree, they realize that flights are on one site and hotel stays are on three others, so the search starts all over again.

I’ve personally experienced this issue lots of times since I travel a ton. This idea came to me pretty quickly during our team brainstorm, and we ended up sticking to it.

We’re building for friend groups in their 20s and 30s, college students, and groups planning around an event like a bachelor or bachelorette trip.

Competitive Analysis

We started by looking at what’s already out there and found Wanderlog and TripIt. Both are pretty good at what they do, but neither is really built for a group that has to decide together.

• Made for one plannerBoth apps assume one person organizes the trip and everyone else follows along. That’s exactly the “planner friend” problem, just moved into an app.
• None of them merges what people wantYou can share an itinerary, but nothing takes five people’s budgets, dates and must-dos and works out where they overlap.
• The AI is shallowWhere AI shows up, it writes a generic itinerary for a destination. It doesn’t know the group, and it doesn’t negotiate between them.

Features (MVP)

We decided to do things a little different here. Instead of one person collecting everyone’s wishes and doing the math, each person talks to an AI agent on their own, and the agent then finds the plan that works for the entire group.

• Join with a link
• Talk to the agent directly
• One plan from everyone’s wishes
• Flights and stays in one place

User Personas

Every group trip has different kinds of people, we picked those two common ones: the person who plans everything and ends up stressed out, and the laid-back one who just wants to show up. Our app has to work for both kinds of people, so we dived down on them. They’re early drafts based on our own trips and our target groups, and we’ll be updating them after our user interviews.

Maya

The always stressed-out planner

Age

21

Who they are

College junior, organizes spring break for her 6 closest friends

Role in the group

Does the research, makes the spreadsheet, chases everyone for answers

Goals

Plan a trip everyone actually enjoys

Frustrations

Nobody answers until the last minute. 50 different Chrome tabs open to look for flights, hotels, and plan what to do

Budget

Tight, every dollar counts

What Lynea gives them

The agent collects everyone’s answers, so she stops chasing people. Flights and stays in one place

Jordan

The laid-back a.k.a. plan-everything-for-me friend

Age

28

Who they are

Works full-time, part of a friend group planning a bachelor trip

Role in the group

Wants to go, but checks the group chat every other day at most

Goals

Know when, where and how much, then get on with his day

Frustrations

300 unread messages. Finds out the plan last, and the price surprises him

Budget

Comfortable, but hates surprise costs

What Lynea gives them

A quick chat with the agent on his own time, then a vote instead of a debate

User Flow + Lo-fi Wireframes

Status: done for the main flows

Before opening Figma, I sketched the main flows by hand. It let me work out the flow before thinking about actual design system.