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When a private jet takes to the air, there is an almost 33% chance that it has no passengers. These 'empty legs' didn't make any sense to Fresh Jets founder Timmy Wozniak, who comes from a travel business family.
“As soon as I started working in the industry, I began asking a lot of questions,” Wozniak said. “If you were a pilot, maintenance tech, line guy, sales, or anyone else, I was starting a conversation with you. And a lot of what I heard from these folks contributed to knowing that there was a need for Fresh Jets.”
Fresh Jets allows those of us who are not billionaires or rap stars to board private planes at prices that are not much higher than we would pay for business class on JetBlue. This can cut as much as 75% of the wasted time from a convention trip or weekend jaunt. The company has existed since November 2012, but didn't launch its minimum viable product until this year. Tweaks, improvements, and relationship-building are ongoing, Wozniak said.
[ibimage==30420==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]Fresh Jets's most significant challenges so far have been technical, said Wozniak, but he has gained more control by finding the right geeks. “Neither myself or my co-founder, Johnny Sengelmann, have technical backgrounds,” he said. “We outsourced in the beginning, which was a huge mistake and brought a bunch of issues, but we quickly realized this and even scrapped some of the work altogether. We've created relationships with technical guys that we trust and have taken our time throughout this process to make sure we make a solid decision this time around.”
Wozniak hopes to raise Series A funding in the next year and is aiming for 5,000 affiliated aircraft and 25,000 active members. He said that working in Colorado has helped him set bold expectations. “Denver and Boulder have been extremely good to us. I think it affects our work positively because I feel most people in Denver work really hard and push each other; they're not afraid to dive in and help out even if they aren't directly involved. You don't get that many places.”
