GARY: Next on Start Up, we head to Detroit, Michigan, to meet up with Achsha Jones, the founder of TripSlip, a digital platform that streamlines permission slips for parents, schools, and venues.

All of this and more is next on Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: If your career is on pause, you can earn a business or tech degree from Walsh College, with a flexible schedule for working professionals who want to expand their skills for a changing marketplace.

Learn more at WalshCollege.edu Walsh College is a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Whether your business is starting up or scaling up, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation can connect you with services and support.

From finding employees to accessing state-wide resources and partnership opportunities.

Michigan, Pure Opportunity.

CONNIE: I truly thought "I'm gonna be alone for the rest of my life."

I realized I can try so many different things.

I can make anything happen.

More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Connie at Seattle Gummy Company.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: As a business owner, your time is valuable.

Bluehost's AI website builder allows you to type a description for a fully generated website, with managed WordPress hosting and built-in security.

Learn more at Bluehost.com Bluehost is a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Running a business isn't easy.

BambooHR supports your HR strategies by automating operational tasks leaving you with more time to concentrate on what's most important to you and your business.

Learn more at BambooHR.com BambooHR, a proud supporter of Start Up.

♪ GARY: My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country faces significant challenges, small business owners are navigating their way through a changing global marketplace with strength and perseverance while continuing to push the economy forward.

We've set out for our 13th consecutive season talking to a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they learned to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves.

This is Start Up.

♪ In an age where technology simplifies so much of our daily lives, it's surprising to see how some traditional processes have lagged behind, one being the dreaded school permission slip.

Notorious for being time-consuming and prone to miscommunication.

Today, I'm heading to the Motor City, Detroit, Michigan, to meet up with Achsha Jones, the founder of TripSlip, a digital platform that's transforming the way schools and parents handle field trips, turning a cumbersome task into a hassle-free digital experience.

I'm excited to meet up with Achsha and learn how TripSlip is making a difference in the lives of families and educators alike.

♪ GARY: What is TripSlip?

ACHSHA: TripSlip is short for field trip permission slip.

So when you think about what a field trip entails, it's a lot of paper.

It's a teacher creating a piece of paper that they'll then give to a kid.

The kid takes it home to mom and dad to fill out.

And a lot of times they need more paper.

What?

Money or a check to pay for the field trip.

And then that has to come back to the teacher.

Once the teacher gets it, they turn it into the school.

So the school turns the money and the checks into the bank, and then something has to happen so that venues and vendors get paid.

All paper-centered.

What TripSlip is, is a digital platform that brings all of the people who are involved in the logistics of a field trip together on one seamless digital platform, paperless permission slips.

GARY: What culminated all of this together to come up with such a brilliant idea?

ACHSHA: It started with a big problem.

I'm a mom, which makes me a professional chaperone.

I've done dozens and dozens of trips, but I'm also a school bus driver.

I've been driving school busses since 2014.

And TripSlip, the idea of it came to me while I was working for the Detroit Historical Society.

They own and operate the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dawson Great Lakes Museum.

And what I found is that many students were missing out on opportunities for free field trips because they didn't have enough signed permission slips.

GARY: Why are field trips important for kids?

Why does it matter?

ACHSHA: The first thing we have to think about is why is it called a field trip?

We're not going outside into a field to run through daisies.

It's a field trip because we're looking at the things that a child can do within the career field.

So it's experiential learning.

So the average child takes three field trips per year.

And in Michigan, we can guess what they are.

In the fall, you've got the apple orchard.

GARY: Of course.

ACHSHA: In the spring, you have a museum.

And probably the zoo before the school year ends.

And those are great field trips.

But what does it look like to take kids to places like StockX or LinkedIn, or to New Lab at Michigan Central, to take them to Michigan Central.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: To let them explore actual fields?

What about going to the airport?

What about going to a police station?

So these children can actually see and experience the things that they might be able to do and explore the career fields that they would want to see?

GARY: That's valuable experiences, and it sounds like you're just finding a way to make it easier and give these kids more opportunities to experience something that could potentially be their future.

ACHSHA: 100%.

When you think about what it looks like for a student to leave the classroom, that's a good time.

Field trip day is always really exciting.

GARY: Always.

Yeah.

ACHSHA: What does it look like on the venue side?

Most schools are taking their students to the same places over and over.

It doesn't make for a good experience for the students.

You go to the zoo and there's 10,000 other kids there.

You're waiting in long lines to even see the exhibits.

It's the same at the museum.

What does it look like to give frequent, easy, affordable, safe field trips over and over again?

That starts with technology, being able to make sure that people know what's available to them and then shortening that process and that distance to make it happen.

GARY: Explain all the ways that a physical crumpled up piece of paper permission slip at the bottom of a backpack, explain all the ways that that can go wrong.

PETE: Sure.

Yeah.

It has to make it home for one.

Right?

GARY: That's step one.

PETE: Yeah.

It has to make it home.

We have to find out about it.

We have to find out about it on time.

We have to have cash on us, which is rare, and then give it to our kid so that she can take it to school and then hand it in on time and make sure.

There's like, I don't know, nine different steps that this thing can fail.

GARY: What did you think when you first heard about the idea for TripSlip?

PETE: It was one of those things that was immediately obvious.

It should've- in fact, it surprised me that it didn't exist already.

It must have.

The experience that you get by being able to go on these different trips, like when we were in high school, we took a trip out to Washington, DC, you don't do that otherwise.

You might never, ever get a chance to do that.

You can get open to ideas and career pathways and all of these things that can be so much better for you.

Yeah, field trips are amazing.

GARY: So simplify the process and let these kids go on a field trip, right?

PETE: Make it easier.

Two minutes or less with TripSlip, man.

That's it.

GARY: Walk us through the steps, how this went from an incredible idea to a living, breathing, real thing and a business.

ACHSHA: When I came up with this idea of TripSlip, it happened to be just before the pandemic happened.

So it was hard to figure out if this was a real solution for field trips when school was out of session and there were no field trips happening.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: So what we did was we pivoted to this idea of contact tracing.

So during the pandemic, you'll remember that if you went somewhere that was open, you typically had to sign in and say that you were there... GARY: I remember.

ACHSHA: So that if an outbreak happened, people could reach out to you and let you know that this happened, that someone who had the virus was there and that you should go get yourself checked.

But the thing is, it was much like permission slips.

It was a notebook.

It was a dirty pen that you probably didn't want to pick up.

We approached different organizations, restaurants, coffee shops that were still open, and we said, "Hey, "if we were to give you a digital solution for this contact tracing, would you try it?"

Thirty bucks a month.

We set up a QR code and a Google form.

That's called an MVP, a minimum viable product.

When you're trying to see if this is something that people will do.

And it worked.

And so we figured out a digital solution really is better than a paper-centered one.

And that allowed us to move forward.

I entered a program at Eastern Michigan University, and it was a venture pitch competition.

Spoiler alert, I won.

Won the pitch competition, and that opened up the door to investors.

We ended up working with an organization called TechTown Detroit.

We conducted over 100 customer discovery interviews asking teachers, bus drivers, transportation company owners, people who worked at venues and for vendors that had field trip-centered things, and were able to talk to them and say, "Hey, what are the things that you're seeing that we should try to incorporate into our company?"

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: That customer feedback really allowed us to be able to understand what the customers wanted and needed, but more importantly, what people would be willing to pay for.

GARY: What is TechTown?

And what was your experience like at TechTown?

ACHSHA: What TechTown does is they take people who have business ideas, whether they're tech-centered and even retail businesses, and they help them to incubate those things.

In the MVP program, I met my first co-founder, who was our CTO, and that wouldn't have happened without that connection from TechTown.

She was able to build our web app, and from there, things really started to take off.

We ended up getting into Techstars, that accelerator, and many, many things were building up and culminating.

After we completed Techstars, we had a really great run.

We were on the way up.

We were about to announce a raise, but then I had a personal tragedy.

And at that stage of the company, it really hurt us.

I fell off my electric bicycle and ended up separating my foot from my body.

It was only held on by my skin.

GARY: Oh wow.

ACHSHA: I ended up having to have my foot reattached.

I have five screws and a plate.

I had to learn to walk again.

I couldn't drive.

And all of this was happening while my oldest daughter was graduating from high school.

So where we were at that time, we had a team, but I was the person that was working full-time for the business and that was responsible for bringing all of these things forward.

The month that my accident happened, we had our very best month of revenue we had ever had.

We did almost $16,000.

GARY: Wow.

ACHSHA: And it was exciting.

But then the next month, we did $7,000.

The month after that, we did $2,000 because I, as the person who was at the time the only full-time employee, I wasn't able to dive in in the way I had been because I was busy recovering.

So we've rebounded in a great way.

With the help of the people who have invested in us, they're doubling down because they truly do believe in what we're building at TripSlip, and we're finding our way in a good way.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: You actually worked here when you thought of the idea, right?

ACHSHA: Yes.

GARY: So how long after thinking of the idea did you end up leaving to do this instead?

ACHSHA: It was about two years, the better part of two years.

So the museum was extremely, extremely helpful.

And we've worked with the museum in so many different ways with the retail department, bringing in tours.

And as we're building out the platform, they've been a huge advocate and supporter of everything that we've been doing.

♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: It's incredibly relevant for parents, but also for a place like this, the destination of a field trip, right?

DAVID: Yeah, it makes the collecting the payments easier for us because that's one thing, as a business, you want to get your payments in a timely fashion.

GARY: Of course.

DAVID: So if it's there, the teachers know that everything's been collected.

They can just hit a button, pass it on to the organization.

GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: It makes it easier for budgeting, planning, scheduling.

It's a win all the way around.

GARY: For other facilities, museums, destinations, we'll say, what would you say if they'd never heard of TripSlip before?

DAVID: I would say they should definitely check it out.

It'll make their job easier and save a lot of time for them and their constituents and visitors.

♪ GARY: How does TripSlip make money?

ACHSHA: Mm-hmm.

So TripSlip is an arbitrage model.

GARY: I have no clue what an arbitrage model is.

I'm learning something every day.

It's going to be a good day.

ACHSHA: No.

So arbitrage is you buy something at one price, you sell it for a little bit more.

They'll say, "Hey, "we're going to the museum.

We need admission.

We need food."

And I amalgamate all of those things and then put a little sauce on top for us to be able to make money.

GARY: Okay.

ACHSHA: And they pay me, and that's it.

I make sure all the other vendors and venues get paid, but we negotiate.

So we have relationships with these different organizations that say, "You're bringing us a group of people that would have never otherwise come here," which gives us an advantage to be able to add a little bit to our portion.

GARY: Is there any thoughts of any subscription?

Are you doing anything subscription-based for any schools or anything like that?

ACHSHA: Yeah.

So there's levels to TripSlip.

TripSlips will forever be free to create and free to fill out.

GARY: Wow.

ACHSHA: If you go on tripslip.app, you as an organizer, whether you're a teacher, a coach, you have an after-school program or a school, you can create a paperless permission slip in less than two minutes.

You send it out to a parent, the organizer sees it in real-time, and that's free.

So we call that the Simple Level.

Then we have School Level.

So the School Level would be for your charter schools and your public school academies because each school operates as its own district.

So, they would say, "Hey," the school leader would be like, "I want to see what is happening "at the simple level.

What are the teachers doing?"

Now you have a little bit of oversight over the Simple Level.

GARY: Got it.

ACHSHA: Then they're Super, superintendent.

So superintendents will be able to see what all the schools are doing, and the schools could see what all of the teachers are doing at the Simple Level.

Those are the levels.

♪ GARY: Where are we standing right now?

What is this place?

GERRARD: This is DBG.

So we're an after-school literacy program.

GARY: What application would TripSlip have in an environment like this?

GERRARD: Well, so our programming not only exists during the regular school year, but also during the summertime.

Every Friday, we're on a different field trip for six weeks.

GARY: Wow.

GERRARD: Right?

Who wants to keep up with those papers of all those kids to the different locations that we're going to?

At that time, we're servicing about 100 kids.

So 100 kids, six weeks, that's 600 papers.

Right?

GARY: Yeah.

There couldn't possibly be a stronger need than right now, right here.

GERRARD: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And who's going to walk around with it?

I was like, "Yes, you are solving a problem."

Everybody knows that successful business solves a problem, and she was in the moment solving a problem I was having.

♪ GARY: Let's talk about your team.

ACHSHA: When you think about how do you build anything, you build it with your friends.

So a lot of times we say, How do I do this?

And as entrepreneurs, the temptation is to do it yourself.

No, who can I get to do it for me?

So our core nuclear team, myself, my co-founder, Charles, my best friend, Kelly, she is in our marketing department.

These are all my friends.

It's important to have people that are not only capable, but that you trust, because I can't pay these people just yet.

GARY: Okay.

We're not getting paid for doing this thing because we're still bootstrapping and bringing it along.

So bringing in people that you trust, that are capable, that are willing to put in that sweat equity, sometimes in exchange for equity, is how we've been able to grow to the point that we are now.

♪ GARY: Tell me about your individual lanes.

What is your specific role with TripSlip versus Achsha's role?

CHARLES: Basically, Achsha is the structure.

Achsha is the brains and the heart behind TripSlip.

And I like to consider myself the feet of TripSlip.

My job is sales, anything, growth, and strategy.

GARY: Where we sit right now, where exactly is the company?

Have you guys been able to reach out to administration?

CHARLES: So right now, we are in talks with a couple of different school districts.

We have a few different school districts that are looking to pilot TripSlip.

Right now, we've been talking to some of the administration in different school districts and just letting them know that we're out here and letting them know some of the things that we can do.

We look to probably next fall be in at least 2-3 school districts around the Metro Detroit area.

TripSlip is not just digital permission slips.

We are also trying to be advocates for student safety.

A lot of times, there's unfortunate incidents that happens with children on buses that sometimes people aren't aware of.

We're trying to shed light on some of those incidents, and we're trying to put policies and procedures in place so that those things don't happen.

♪ ACHSHA: As a school bus driver, I see a lot of things that aren't necessarily safe.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: So to combat that, TripSlip has created something called the Yellow Light Project.

Right now, it's something that works using a number of different tech tools, but will eventually be interoperable with our app and our web app for all things related to safety.

So that you know the bus that's coming to you, if you're renting it through TripSlip, the bus has been inspected.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: It's been insured.

That the driver has the proper credentials to drive the bus, the right size bus, and all of those things are actually... That you know this.

Because school busses are so important, people think, "Oh, "they're taking care of it on that side.

The state police are doing what they're supposed to."

Oh, the... who else?

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: "The Michigan Department of Education, they're doing their thing."

So it's the old adage of, "Somebody could do something, so nobody did anything," yada, yada, yada.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: Everybody thought somebody, that part.

So as a parent, you have to ask those questions of your child's school district, because there's a national school bus driver shortage.

It's hitting Michigan especially hard.

But post-pandemic, it's been awful.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: What a lot of people don't realize is school bus drivers typically are part-time employees.

And what are they not entitled to?

All the benefits that a full-time employee has.

GARY: Right.

ACHSHA: So that has led to this bus driver shortage as well.

GARY: Being a bus driver, can that be a viable career for somebody?

ACHSHA: So even as an entrepreneur, I love being a bus driver.

I still drive a school bus every day because what that does, it keeps me ensconced completely within the problem.

GARY: Yup.

ACHSHA: But it's very, very flexible.

You work a couple hours in the morning, a couple hours in the evening.

And if you want, you can pick up field trips for extra money.

So for me, it's keeping me in the field, quite literally.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: But it's also something that allows me to be able to run my business without putting the strain on the business as we're continuing to grow so that we continue to reinvest that money that we do make into the business, but it pays me a living wage.

♪ GARY: Tell me about NewLab and where we are right now.

CHARLES: NewLab has allowed us to come in and use this space and be a part of the work environment here.

They love TripSlip.

They actually are going to be one of our partners where we can start to do tours of NewLab for the kids, maybe around the Detroit area, so they can see some of the new tech going on in the Detroit area.

GARY: What differentiates NewLab from a traditional incubator or co-working space?

RILEY: Yeah, it's the three-legged stool of the model and the idea that we have not only membership, not only co-working, not only private offices, but NewLab also has a venture investment arm, and we also have a third leg of our business that does corporate and industry partnerships.

We work directly with large enterprises and government customers to really uncover needs and then pair them with startup technologies and really help them gain their first customers.

GARY: How far can you see TripSlip going?

What's the path and trajectory that you have her in this business on out of NewLab?

RILEY: Yeah.

I mean the sky is the limit.

I think what she is excellent at is creating connections.

She's really done an excellent job forming her own relationships.

GARY: Okay.

RILEY: I think seeing her succeed is just a testament to what Detroit can be.

♪ GARY: What scares you most right now?

What keeps you up at night?

ACHSHA: What keeps me up at night is the thought that we won't be able to make this thing what we want it to be.

A lot of times people don't share what they're working on because they're afraid someone else will steal it or they'll beat you to the punch.

The truth of the matter is there are other people who are doing similar things to what TripSlip is doing.

What I have to be confident in is the knowledge that I've been able to accumulate, the reason why I ever created this business to begin with.

But also our team.

We're all committed to making TripSlip happen.

GARY: Yep.

ACHSHA: Is there going to be some big company that's going to come in with AI and steal the market and share our lunch?

Maybe.

But the truth is, there's- and I think about this all the time, you go into a grocery store and there's 70 different kinds of water that you can buy.

Water.

GARY: Right.

ACHSHA: That falls free from the sky, that comes out of any tap for free, and they put it in a bottle.

And there's always new water.

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: So if something like water can have a market share, something like TripSlip can, too.

So for me, I don't want to have a scarcity mindset, but that's the thing that scares me the most is that somebody's going to come and steal what we're doing and blow it up.

And that's a possibility, but it's not going to stop us from talking about it and from spreading the word.

GARY: What would you say to somebody else that has an idea that may seem too big for them?

ACHSHA: Do it anyway.

GARY: Do it anyway.

ACHSHA: Do it anyway.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

GARY: Yup.

ACHSHA: "What's the best way to eat an elephant?

One bite at a time."

It's not easy.

"No" isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes it's not a "no," it's a "not yet" or "not now."

Or maybe, "No, I'm not the right person."

GARY: Yeah.

ACHSHA: So I think that that's the perseverance part, and being patient, and waiting, and just trusting that it'll work out has been the thing that I've had to do.

GARY: Achsha is one of those people that you meet, and it feels like you've already been friends for years.

She's kind, welcoming, patient, and carries herself with confidence and positivity, which is probably one of the secrets behind her success.

Everything in Achsha's life seems to have led up to this very moment.

Being a frustrated parent who learned about a field trip the morning of, to being a bus driver transporting students for their field trip, to working at the incredible Detroit Historical Museum, a venue that hosts countless field trips each year.

She's experienced the permission slip inconvenience from literally all angles.

But she didn't just identify a problem, she's created a solution.

And TripSlip is about so much more than just convenience.

It's about transportation safety, empowering families, and enhancing educational experiences.

And by simplifying the process, she's making it easier for more students to participate in school activities, allowing them to learn more about art and culture and history, creating bonds with other students outside of the classroom, and ultimately, broadening their worldview.

And to me, that's the very definition of success.

For more information, visit our website and search episodes for TripSlip.

♪ Next time on Start Up, we head to Bellevue, Washington to meet up with Amin, Marwan, and Danny, the founders of Kadama, an app that connects students with tutors.

Be sure to join us next time on Start Up.

Do you want to learn more about the show?

Or maybe nominate a business?

Visit us at StartUp-usa.com and connect with us on social media.

♪ ♪ We've got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ Before we pay our dues ♪ We've got a long GARY: You're not my father.

CAMERAMAN: He's not your father.

♪ (Gary screams) ♪ (clapping) ANNOUNCER: Running a business isn't easy.

BambooHR supports your HR strategies by automating operational tasks leaving you with more time to concentrate on what's most important to you and your business.

Learn more at BambooHR.com BambooHR, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: As a business owner, your time is valuable.

Bluehost's AI website builder allows you to type a description for a fully generated website, with managed WordPress hosting and built-in security.

Learn more at Bluehost.com Bluehost is a proud supporter of Start Up.

COLIN: When you get obssessed with an idea, and you can't stop thinking about it, and you dream about it and you wake up thinking about it.

That's when you know you have to start something.

More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Colin at Sheets and Giggles.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Whether your business is starting up or scaling up, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation can connect you with services and support.

From finding employees to accessing state-wide resources and partnership opportunities.

Michigan, Pure Opportunity.

ANNOUNCER: If your career is on pause, you can earn a business or tech degree from Walsh College, with a flexible schedule for working professionals who want to expand their skills for a changing marketplace.

Learn more at WalshCollege.edu Walsh College is a proud supporter of Start Up.