From The Founder: We're Building the Day Trips App

Right. I said I'd keep you in the loop, so here it is. We're building an app.

Day Trips went live on 2 October. Ten days ago. I knew people liked the idea of flying out in the morning and being home for bed, but I didn't expect you to take to it this quickly. Honestly, it's caught us a bit off guard (in a good way).

How's Day Trips actually doing?

In the last two weeks we've had 3,036 visitors and 6,270 page views. The bit I care about most is that the average visit is 3 minutes 10 seconds. That's not people bouncing off a page. That's people sitting there planning a day in Gdańsk or Copenhagen on their lunch break.

Google's starting to notice too. Clicks to Day Trips from Google searches went from 11 to 87 over the last month, compared with the month before. Small numbers, I know. But it's all heading one way, and it's been ten days.

So the question stopped being whether people want this. It became how do we make it easier for them.

Why an app?

Because nobody wants to remember a website. Here's my thinking. When you're bored on the train home, you don't type budgetbro.app into a browser. You open an app. Probably Instagram, if I'm being honest. I want the app you open to be the one that shows you £54 flights to Copenhagen.

The website isn't going anywhere. It's the brain of the whole thing, and everything you do there carries over. But the app is where Day Trips should live day to day.

What will the Day Trips app do?

• Same account, same membership. Sign in with your BudgetBro account and everything's unlocked if you're already a member
• Today's picks, the cheapest full days we've found, on the home screen as soon as you open it
• Search, the same as the website
• Every trip page, with the day laid out and the price with when we last checked it
• Your saved trips, synced with the website both ways
• Alerts when the price drops on a trip you've saved, plus the cheapest trips every Sunday

That last one is the big one for me. You shouldn't have to keep checking. If a trip you want gets cheaper, your phone tells you. That's it.

When does it launch?

In the coming weeks. I'm not giving you a date I can't promise, because I hate being late (I've been late with these recaps enough times for you to know that). We'll test it ourselves first, then it goes on the App Store and Google Play.

Why does your membership matter?

I'll be straight with you. Building an app isn't cheap. There's the build, the app stores, the servers, the flight data behind every price you see, and the hours. We're working day and night on this, improving the platform every single day, and I mean that literally. A lot of what you see on the site was built late at night.

Memberships are what keep this going. Every person who joins is telling us to keep building, and it's the reason we can put the app out at all.

If you've been using Day Trips and getting something out of it, this is the best time to back us. Founders pay £19 a year, for as long as they stay, and your membership comes with you into the app.

Become a founder for £19 a year

What's next?

We keep building. More cities, more airports, better prices, and the app in your pocket. I'll update you here when it's out.

Thank you for backing us. Genuinely. Ten days in and it already feels like something.

Josh