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- ⚡ How this Start-Up is Making Travel Transparent
⚡ How this Start-Up is Making Travel Transparent
Genius marketing hacks, Authentic Start-Up Stories, Fantastic Start-Up opportunities and so much more in this week's issue of Innovators Uncensored!
Richard Lee
September 05, 2025
Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…
🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
📊 How is this Start-Up making travel transparent?
💪 How breaking stereotypes gets you sales
🤖 A automation tool that routes tasks to the right agents
✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to apply for Antler, who are giving successful applicants £500k from day 1
Happy hustling,
Rich
🎤 Opportunities + Events
💰 Kat Weaver is looking to give $40,000 in cash to a female founded business, find out more here!
😇 Ella Molony Cook is looking to make 5 angel investments into Pre-Seed/Seed stage companies in FinTech, Future of Work, FemTech, Longevity and AI - Find out more here!
🎙 Brydge Club are looking to invest in early stage female Founders after just closing their first investment, find out more here!
We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!
💼 Start-Up Jobs
💸 Mistral set to close funding round at €11.6bn valuation. Sifted
🍏 Y Combinator says Apple’s App store has hindered startup growth. TechCrunch
📊 Klarna revives IPO plans, aims to raise $1.27bn. TechCrunch
🚜 UK government announces £12.6m AgTech competitions. UKTN
Planning a trip for business or pleasure?
Finalrentals, a pioneering car rental fintech headquartered in Wales, has revolutionised the industry with its innovative approach and product-centric strategy. By addressing key challenges within the car rental sector, Finalrentals has experienced remarkable growth, increasing its size sixfold in the past 12 months. The company's expansion is not limited to growth metrics alone; it has also successfully established a robust global presence, extending its footprint across the EU and the Caribbean.
Book your rental here!
Controversial marketing campaigns are far less regular these days, but Feisty Soda have jumped headfirst into one!
Their protein soda has been flying off shelves, but public perception is that only gym bros want protein. Feisty are trying to prove that protein supplemented products are for everyone, not just gym bros.
So, their latest campaign titled ‘Protein soda - not for gym bros’ shows all sorts of different people drinking their drink excluding gym bros!
Can you go against the stereotype in your industry with your marketing narrative?
Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.
Peakah Prime: Bringing Transparency to Travel
Peakah Prime was born from a simple frustration: travellers and businesses are constantly overpaying for hotels without even realising it. Luke discovered that online travel agencies (OTAs) quietly add hidden markups to the rates they show consumers, while wholesale prices sit just out of reach.
With Peakah Prime, he and his father Mark created a membership platform that gives people direct access to those wholesale rates. Members can save up to 50% on the very same rooms they’d otherwise book on Booking.com or Expedia. For individuals, there’s a VIP annual plan. For businesses, there’s a flexible subscription that covers unlimited employees. For both, the value is clear: genuine savings, transparency, and predictable travel spend.
A Family Partnership That Works
Luke didn’t have to look far for his Co-Founder - his father, Mark, became the natural partner. It may sound like a cliché, but in practice, it’s been pragmatic. Luke drives product, Mark focuses on operations, and decades of trust underpin every decision.
They also leaned on a tight circle of advisors in loyalty, GTM, and finance - ensuring they could plug knowledge gaps without inflating payroll in the fragile early days. “If you’re not family, find founders with complementary temperaments,” Luke often says. “One builder, one scaler - and alignment on sacrifice matters more than a perfect résumé.”
The First Customers: Proof Over Promise
Peakah Prime’s first customers came from a mix of partnerships, events, and scrappy outbound. They leaned heavily on existing networks; accelerator cohorts, Start-Up groups, niche travel communities, and reached out directly to decision-makers on LinkedIn.
But their most effective tactic was brutally simple: showing live savings. At industry events, Luke would pull up real trips from attendees, line up the OTA price against Peakah Prime’s wholesale price, and let the numbers speak for themselves. “Nothing converts like showing someone they’ll save hundreds on a trip they’re already planning,” he says.
Scaling With Discipline
Beyond those early wins, the team doubled down on what worked: affiliate and partner distribution, B2B outreach to finance leaders, and small but targeted programmatic ad tests. Two big unlocks helped them scale with discipline:
A savings calculator that made ROI visible and undeniable.
An automated demo-to-onboarding flow so warm leads could self-convert without handholding.
This lean, systematic approach meant they could grow without burning through cash.
Lessons From the Trenches
Luke and Mark learned quickly that:
Proof beats promise. A real side-by-side comparison closes deals faster than any sales pitch.
Partnerships trump ads. Associations, corporates, and card issuers delivered higher-value customers than ad spend ever could.
Keep it simple. Wholesale rates, transparency, and easy booking remain the core promise - add-ons can wait.
In hindsight, Luke admits he would have formalised partnerships sooner and tracked unit economics from day one. “We learned some assumptions the hard way,” he reflects.
Funding With Focus
Peakah Prime raised a small angel round early on, enough to fund the initial build and product validation. Luke personally skipped a salary, focusing resources squarely on product and partnerships.
Being cash-conscious became a discipline. Every spend had to tie back to revenue impact, and vanity metrics were left at the door. The company is now working toward net profitability - a milestone Luke is determined to hit.
The Hardest Part
The biggest difficulty hasn’t been strategy, it’s been stamina. Running product, GTM, and every demo himself took a toll. On top of that, integrating with multiple wholesalers and managing rate parity was far messier than expected, eating into early product polish.
The solution was to stop trying to do everything in-house. Peakah Prime brought in fractional specialists for integrations and shifted to a partner-first GTM model. The result: smoother onboarding flows, less bottlenecking, and a clearer path forward.
Lessons for the Next Time Around
Luke’s biggest takeaways?
Validate the buyer (finance teams, CFOs) as much as the user — they’re the ones who make or break B2B travel deals.
Build proof tools like ROI calculators that make savings undeniable.
Don’t be afraid to trade equity for distribution or engineering help if it accelerates product-market fit.
If he were starting again, he’d run a tight SME pilot in one geography, lock in a few strong channel partners early, and measure unit economics weekly. His philosophy is clear: “It’s easier to scale one profitable channel than chase a dozen speculative ones.”
Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.
P.S. Connect with me on LinkedIn…
