Good luck with your project Ross. I like your "build first" approach!
We spoke a lot to current / previous employees of JetSmarter and there is a lot of unrest there as their model isn't working in the way they wanted, and shareholders are now pushing back. They had time pulling in ARR subs, which dried up and they hadn't catered for different geographical markets.
For example, the middle east is a huge market for private jets, but JetSmarter's model failed there and they closed operations! It's a huge potential market for us and we have people ready to grow it.
If you look at JetSmarter, they are also a middle / app layer - They work with brokers just like we do to confirm/ fulfil their flights and have other companies that do the "VIP" service part. This is no different from everything we have in place now.
JetSmarter has 2 brokers, and we have the same number of planes as they have access to.
On top of that, JetSmarter have just been trialing "no fee month" where you can use jetsmarter without the upfront fees. So they know the model is broken... yet with VolAir we have completely flipped that model and give back to the user rewarding their loyalty! Why shouldn't they get something back too?
So we've done a lot of the ground work to make this work as a business. We have people ready to commit in nearly all our chosen locations to help us grow as a business in those places.
We've been working solidly on the technology side to ensure that we can offer the best services to our customers and our partners, maximising technology to leverage the empty legs of private jet flights and bringing them to our users, too.
Like I said, what you can't see in all of this is the work and research gone into understanding our competition in the market, where the real life gaps are and how we can use technology to give back to our users.
Any questions on it though, I'd be happy to answer!