From The Founder: June to September Update

June to September Overview of BudgetBro

Right, I owe you more than one recap.... September recap snuck up and I thought, you know what, let's do one big one properly. So here it is. I'm happy with where we've landed, even if the road was a bit bumpy.

Finishing Grandad's House

The last update left off with us heading home to renovate Grandad's forever-home, the thing he always wanted done. Well, it's done. Me and Samar completed the full renovation, and it's now up for rent. It looks amazing, and we know Grandad will be proud.

I also filmed the whole thing for TikTok and YouTube, and that series did better than anything BudgetBro has ever posted, with videos in the tens of thousands of views and a couple over 100K. People followed the story, and I'm grateful to every one of them. Grandad would have loved watching strangers care about his house. TikTok @joshstartsup Youtube @joshstartsup

Moving Back to Brazil

With the house finished, Samar and I moved back to Brazil to be with her family. It's winter turning to spring here, so there's been a lot of bad weather, which has meant lots of time to dial everything in. It's a lot more expensive than when I last lived here, which was a bit of a shock. But we've had loads of family time, and three beach days in the six weeks we've been here, so I'm happy.

The trade-off is that I can't hop on a £30 flight to Milan for a video any more. It sounds like a problem for a day trips business, but it's pushed me to get smarter. The site does the work, the data does the talking, and I show up to camera with real prices.

The App

The BudgetBro app is live on both the App Store and Google Play, and it's where all of this started. It's still doing its thing, helping travellers keep their spending in check, and it's what taught us everything about building for people on the move. Day Trips is where most of my energy is going right now, but the app is part of the family and isn't going anywhere.

Building Day Trips

The idea is simple. Anyone can find a cheap flight. Almost nobody tells you what the whole day costs once you add getting into the city, food and the hours you actually get on the ground. So that's what Day Trips shows: the full day, priced, from UK airports, cheapest first.

Over the summer we built the lot. Accounts, search, trip pages, emails, payments, the paywall, the lot. We spent a lot of time getting the flight prices right, because I refuse to show you a price that jumps when you click. We chose our data sources, tested them, dropped a few, and ended up with a setup I'm genuinely proud of. Every trip carries a "checked" time, and we never feature anything over £100.

Launch

We soft launched just after midnight on 1 October so Samar and I could sign up, pay and refund ourselves on the live site, which is not the glamorous launch you imagine but it's the sensible one. We went fully live on 2 October. That's earlier than the 13 October we'd planned, because we were ready and I wasn't going to hold it back for the sake of a date.

The founders offer is live. £19 a year, locked for life, for the first 1,000 people, against £39.99 a year or £4.99 a month for everyone after. When the 1,000 are gone, that price is gone for good.

What I'll never forget is where the early supporters came from. Most of our founders found us through Facebook groups, people I'd never met backed an idea because it made sense to them, that means more than I can say.

Milestones We've Hit

A few things I'm properly chuffed about:

• Day Trips is live, with accounts, search, trip pages, payments and a members area. It went from idea to real people paying for it.
• 20 founding members have joined at £19 a year, for life.
• Flight prices now come from a proper data setup, every trip shows when its price was checked, and trips are sorted cheapest first.
• Christmas market day trips are built for 35 markets, plus Lapland.
• Our affiliate scheme goes live tomorrow 6th October, so bloggers, Facebook group admins and creators can earn 20% for spreading the word.
• Our first social posts for Day Trips landed, with the Milan football video reaching over 9,000 people and getting shared by mates sending it on.
• The BudgetBro app is still live on both the App Store and Google Play.

The Struggles (Because There Were Plenty)

You know I'll always be straight with you, so here's what was hard.

Money. Everything I have is in BudgetBro. There's no safety net, so every decision gets weighed against the runway. That's why I held off paying for flight data until the site was ready, and why we're careful with every pound. Brazil costing more than I remembered didn't help.

Views. After the renovation series ended in mid-September, my TikTok views dropped off a cliff. The Day Trips videos sounded too much like ads, and people swiped. It stung, but it taught me exactly what works: football, beer, lads, real stories, and me being myself. We're rebuilding that now, and Instagram has already shown the way, with our Milan football post reaching over 9,000 people and getting shared by mates sending it on.

The pressure of launching. Putting everything you have into something and hitting go is nerve-wracking, no matter how ready you are. Our investment has been used up, and we are now repaying the government-backed Start Up Loan while trying to survive. We are on a knife edge, but we can see the way out.

What surprised me is that this launch was less stressful than the app. Doing it all myself, with Samar, meant we could react to things and fix them on the hour. Years ago I'd have said a big team meant success. Now I'm seeing that the smaller the team, the more reliable and the more successful it can be, within reason.

Every one of these was a lesson, and we're better prepared than when we started.

What's Next

Getting Day Trips in front of more people. More trips, more UK airports, Christmas market days out, half-term trips and Eurostar days to Paris and Brussels in January. We're also opening an affiliate scheme so bloggers, groups and creators can earn 20% for spreading the word. And I'll keep posting every day.

Final Thoughts

Four months, one house, one country move, one launch. We're tired and happy in about equal measure.

If you've followed us, backed us, shared a post or just stuck around, thank you. If you want to see what a day trip really costs, have a look at budgetbro.app/day-trips and tell me where you'd go first.

Josh