Footy mates who have made $5million from their Facebook travel app – and here’s how they did it

Two footy mates have made an eye-watering $5million from their ‘Facebook for travel’ social networking app, all with absolutely zero prior experience in the field of tech entrepreneurship. 

Mark Cantoni and Ryan Hanly from Northern Queensland, took the plunge and decided to quit their day jobs – as a recruiter and high school physical education teacher respectively – to pursue their idea.

The friends noticed that despite there being a huge variety of social media apps, there was a lack of apps specifically tailored for travel. 

They founded their app Travello in 2015.

‘When you travel you’re still relying on serendipity to meet someone, you cross paths or hear an accent,’ Hanly told news.com.au. 

‘You don’t know if you’re missing out on people staying a street away or two floors down. We thought, there’s got to be a social network for travellers.’ 

The app was founded in 2015 and differs from other sites such as Trivago in that it focuses on helping travellers to meet up with one another on their trips.

The app describes itself as allowing travellers ‘to discover and connect with other like-minded travellers in a new, or future destination’.

The app focuses on helping travellers to meet up with one another on their trips

Users are able to share their experiences and get travel tips and advice.

It is currently used in more than 180 different countries and has more than 350,000 members, mostly in Australia, the UK and America.

Mr Cantoni and Mr Hanly are investing their revenue of $5million into expanding the app which they hope will have one million active users within a year.