OEN Member Spotlight – Roberto Aiello of Pocket Bounty

PocketBounty improves guests’ experience at resorts and events, directing guests to less crowded areas and to better deals.  This increases revenues and improves guest satisfaction. 

Q: What does your business do?
A: Pocket Bounty develops a product and provide service to improve the experience of guests at resorts and public events, directing guests to less crowded areas and to better deals.  This results in increased revenues and better guest satisfaction.

Q: What problem does it solve?
A: It solves the problem of crowds and long lines. Crowds cause revenues losses and reduce customer satisfaction.  Pocket Bounty also solves the problem of spoilage and closes the redemption loop in local commerce. 

Q: How did you come up with this business idea?
A: During my experience as Entrepreneur In Residence at Disney I worked on projects to improve experience of guests at Theme Parks.

Q: What are your biggest challenges?
A: The biggest challenge is to validate the business model, because it is a new angle for local commerce, that solves different problems for a different market segment with different metrics.

Q: What are your goals for the company?
A: I would like to grow the company to its full potential. There is a very large TAM: 300M/yr visit Theme Parks, 400M/yr visit ski resorts, 200M/ yr view professional sports at Stadiums in the US, 150M/yr visit US Summer Fairs. These segments alone provide $1B/yr of potential revenues. In addition Pocket Bounty provides more value to the customers than typical local commerce companies.

Q: Are you looking for funding?
A: I am considering funding because I think it will be necessary to scale the company. Comparables like Groupon Living Social, Scoutmob, and other local commerce companies show that the space provides interesting opportunities to early investors.

Q: What would funding enable you to do?
A: Objective of a first round would enable to validate all customer, problem, and solution hypotheses, to validate the business model, to complete the first product and to obtain first revenue.

Q: Have you been an entrepreneur before?
A: Yes. I founded two semiconductor companies in California from top-tier VCs, raising in excess of $100M.

Q: What brought you to OEN? What do you hope to gain from membership?
A: I moved to Bend a year ago and I would like to grow a company locally, starting from local investors.  I am also looking forward to networking with local entrepreneurs.

Q: What has been the biggest surprise in your entrepreneurial experience to date?
A: How big of a roller coaster a startup can be.