Origin Story
On April 18, 2017 I was adventuring to NYC with my best friend and housemate at the time (more like he was generously letting me crash at his house), Mike Maven.
Mike and I met in 2015 when I launched my first startup, Level Exchange. Level Exchange was a coworking and production space for musicians in and around New England, based in Pawtucket, RI. We produced photo, video and audio content for up and coming musicians, like this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChYxTEJySYUPN17ioby8XuQ/videos
Mike is a killer musician and at the time was head of the band Young Pandas.
On that day, we were heading to NYC to meet with Garth Bardsley,VP of Digital Video at MTV. My goal was to learn more about him,the incredible work he was doing, and how we could apply some of his ideas and strategies to Level Exchange.
Leading up to the meeting, I emailed back and forth with his assistant, Tracey Hobbs. We had hit it off via email because she was super on top of her game, and after meeting her briefly in the office that day, we connected via LinkedIn.
We had a great meeting that day and Mike and I left feeling inspired to continue growing the music scene in Rhode Island. Little did we know, just two years later, Level Exchange would come to an end (but we’ll save that story for another day).
Honestly, I hadn’t thought about Tracey in a while and hadn’t seen her post anything on LinkedIn, ever.
Until this…..
Obviously, Tracey wrote a pretty professional LinkedIn post. But, what I read was, “I’m a bad bitch and I’m here to kick ass in the travel, tech, and startup space.” I was immediately intrigued.
After tLevel Exchange closed, I knew I needed to put all that I had learned to good use. What better way to do so than diving into a startup focused on diversity and my favorite thing, travel?
I reached out, after 3 years of silence, hoping for the best.
After George Floyd’s murder on May 25th and the fast-growing global support of Black Lives Matter, it was obvious we needed to take action.
Tracey laid the foundation in 2018, originally as an Instagram travel page under the name of Feeling Trippy. The idea to turn Feeling Trippy into a mobile application came to fruition one year later after she lost a few great friendships on vacations gone wrong.
When Tracey and I hopped on the phone, we instantly reconnected. We decided to start scheming together and by fall of 2020 Tracey had asked me to come on board as a co-founder. I agreed — if we could change the name. My hippie heart had something else in mind when I heard “Feeling Trippy” and I figured our community may think that way as well.
We spent a lot of time brainstorming what our new name could be. One day, from a kitchen conversation, my partner, Selena, brought up the term ‘gallivant’. I mentioned it to Tracey and, after doing some research on the origins of the term and shortening it to ‘vanter’, we had our name.
We developed a manifesto and got to work. Our mission and Vanter’s responsibility is to make tech and travel available to underrepresented communities that normally would not have opportunities to be involved in tech nor have the ability to experience travel for leisure while advocating for representation and safety in the tech and travel spaces. The overall goal of Vanter is to encourage diversity and inclusion in the travel and tech industries. We are committed to building a better world that serves all people and not just some people. We will continue to advocate for diversity at the top in travel and tech companies while pushing for a seat at the table. Not only that, but we will prepare the next generation of underserved youth to further this mission and double our stake in these industries.
Today, as we kick off Black History Month, I want to highlight one of the most incredible Black women I have in my life, Tracey Hobbs. The course of my entire life has changed after deciding to rally behind her and her original idea of creating a travel app. I’m beyond grateful for our partnership and excited about the possibilities!
