This Thai robotics grad is building a marketplace that matches tourists with locals

Taro Armornched, CEO and co-founder of Take Me Tour

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

In this episode, I talked with Taro Amornched, co-founder and CEO of Take Me Tour. Take Me Tour is an online platform that matches travelers with local experts who can show them around. Travelers can browse tours, chat with local experts, and book their trips directly from the website.

Let’s dig in.

What did you do in the past and what led you to become an entrepreneur?

I’m originally from Thailand where I got my bachelor’s degree. Then, I got my master’s degree in robotics engineering in Europe.

Right after I graduated, I got a chance to start working in Singapore as a software engineer. Then, I just got an idea about tourism since everyone likes to travel. So, I started Take Me Tour about five years ago as a hobby, and I just kept going.

But I didn’t really have any knowledge in business at all, and that’s when I decided to submit a job application to Google Singapore. Fortunately, I got accepted and worked there for about three years, mainly in advertising and marketing.

After that, Take Me Tour got funding, so I quit my job and jumped right back on the Take Me Tour journey to work on it full time.

Tell us about the company.

Take Me Tour is like a marketplace for local tours. We’re based in Thailand but we started expanding to Cambodia just last month. We’re looking to expand to Myanmar hopefully by next month.

On our website, a traveler can browse tours, itineraries, and experiences that are offered by locals. Currently, we have more than 20,000 local experts from 55 different cities. It’s like having a friend, some people you can trust, to show you around.

So, once you’re logged into our website, just select the city you’d like to visit. Then, you can choose from the list of experiences available, which are categorized accordingly. We personalize the user experience so that you’ll keep seeing relevant tours based on your preferences and behavior on the website.

Once you find what you like, you can either view the calendar or chat with the local expert to check for availability. Then, you can book with them directly.

These are all one-day tours or experiences. All the local experts speak Thai and English. We have been focusing on English-speaking travelers in the past two years, but starting this year, we will start focusing on a third language. That means you would see local experts who can speak Japanese, Chinese, and French as a starting point.

What inspired the idea behind Take Me Tour?

When I started my master’s degree, I was in a program called Erasmus Mundus where I had to travel to several countries. Every time I moved, I had people asking me, “Hey, Taro, show me around,” or “What is there to do in Vienna.” Then, it dinged at me. When people go to new countries or new locations, they actually look for people who’ve stayed there because they have more local history.

How do you earn from this?

How do you ensure safety and the local experts’ trustworthiness?

You were recently a part of Alibaba’s eFounders Fellowship. What did you learn from that?

What’s your advice for an aspiring entrepreneur?