When Narratrip received a “proof-of-concept” award Mississippi Seed Fund award in 2022, CTO Derek Norsworthy said they immediately hired someone to work on customer surveys so the company could dig deeper into their potential customers’ wants for the product.
“We think we know who our customers are, but we wanted to be as educated about that as possible,” he said. “We were able to learn from that and began work on our prototype so we can have a nice, high-fidelity (minimum viable product) to use in sales presentations.”
CEO Lamar Gordon came up with the idea for Narratrip while spending a lot of time driving Mississippi for business. “I get tired of listening to the radio, and you don’t have time to look at your phone and Google things,” he said. “I’m interested in what’s up the road ahead, and I’d love somebody to be telling me about it as I’m driving and listening.”
Narratrip’s goal is to be the “WAZE of cultural travel,” said Stan Flint, the company’s chief communications officer. The company plans to design the app to alert users to cultural attractions while driving in states or municipalities that support the app; the Narratrip team hopes to partner with the state of Mississippi to make their home state the first to participate. Flint has a government and public affairs background, so the team envisions him using that experience to help garner support from tourism departments.
“The state of Mississippi Department of Tourism—they bring 2,500 locations with data. It’s the ideal partner,” Flint said, mentioning that the app will offer family-friendly activities, information or tourism trails, events such as festivals, natural amenities and information about security and safety.
George Cumbest, who the team calls Chief Knowledge Officer, says they’re also in touch with other states in case they need to start elsewhere first. The idea would be to continue adding content to the Narratrip app—similar to WAZE or Yelp—instead of creating individual apps for different states or tourism departments. Cumbest says the technology can support 140 or more languages, so they envision it as valuable for global travelers.
Norsworthy said their technology is promising partly because of help and mentorship from Dr. Nashlie Sephus, an Innovate Mississippi board member and founder of The Bean Path in Jackson, who has been instrumental in helping them shape the technology and introduce them to developers. They aim to build an advanced app with artificial intelligence and text-to-voice technology (a “narrated trip, hence the name”) that makes for a very high-end user experience and encourages safe driving.
Gordon said that Innovate Mississippi has been part of the company’s path to success since the “first week of our existence,” when they reached out for help. “Innovate Mississippi isn’t a cheerleader; they’ll coach and mentor you to make you a better company. I’m very impressed with what Mississippi has with Innovate Mississippi.”
With their Mississippi Seed Fund award in the bank and their customer discovery behind them, the next steps are to finish the prototype, prove the market is viable and sign up a tourism partner to get Narratrip into the real world.
“We’ve gotten feedback that we’re on the right track,” Flint said. “It’s reinforcement that we’re going the right way.”
