{"id":43832,"date":"2023-10-20T15:31:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/former-fisher-paykel-coo-andrew-paykel-leaves-family-business-to-launch-new-startup-layaway-with-1-million-in-funding-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:31:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:29","slug":"former-fisher-paykel-coo-andrew-paykel-leaves-family-business-to-launch-new-startup-layaway-with-1-million-in-funding-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/former-fisher-paykel-coo-andrew-paykel-leaves-family-business-to-launch-new-startup-layaway-with-1-million-in-funding-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Fisher & Paykel COO Andrew Paykel leaves family business to launch new startup LayAway with $1 million in funding – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Fisher and Paykel COO Andrew Paykel has launched a new layby travel startup with nearly $1 million in funding after leaving the family business to go it alone.<\/p>\n

LayAway offers travel packages on layby for up to 24 months, with customers able to pay for the trips in weekly, fortnightly or monthly payments with no deposit or interest.<\/p>\n

Paykel left the appliance manufacturing giant 18 months ago to begin building the startup, which officially launched this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had 20 wonderful years of corporate life with Fisher & Paykel and I got a huge amount of experience through that,\u201d Paykel tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to a stage in my life where I felt that I wanted to go out and take another path. I was ready for a new challenge and wanted to build my own little business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw an opening in the travel space for this layby approach \u2013 it\u2019s a huge market and it\u2019s very emotive. Everyone wants to travel but sometimes they don\u2019t have that money upfront to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Layby travel<\/h3>\n

He says LayAway is targeted at families with young children, retirees and school and sporting groups, with pre-packaged and design-your-own trips on offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike a conventional travel agency where you need to part with a significant amount of money upfront, customers and families have the ability, with a little forward planning, to book and pay for it up to 24 months in advance,\u201d Paykel says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat enables people to manage their finances and household budget. It\u2019s a huge asset to people when cash flow is king.”<\/p>\n

A basic package from LayAway includes airfares, accommodation and transfers, and users are able to add auxiliaries including theme parks and extra spending money to be put aside.<\/p>\n

Paykel says that a trip to the US could cost as little as $2.95 per day per person across a 24-month period, and the startup has launched with 250 locations on offer.<\/p>\n

He says feedback from customers so far has been overwhelmingly positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited to be getting that feedback from the market, that\u2019s what\u2019s charging us,\u201d Paykel says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of families out there want to travel but haven\u2019t had a way in the past. Now we\u2019re offering that a solution to work within a household\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says LayAway has developed specialised IP and is the only company in Australia offering this specific layby model to the travel market.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo-one is doing what we\u2019re doing at the moment as far as having a very automated site,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of nice features and functions on the site that we don\u2019t see anyone offering at the moment. We\u2019re removing the barriers that were up there in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

A funding runway<\/h3>\n

To facilitate the growth of the company and provide runway post-launch, Paykel raised nearly $1 million in funding for the startup.<\/p>\n

The funding comes from LayAway director Peter Russell, a strategic group of investors and Paykel himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting model and that attracted some strategic investors to the business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come from the financial, advertising and travel sectors, and that funding ensures the viability of the business, allows to build the brand and helps us expand in a much quicker way than we could have otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis helps us with having a steeper growth curve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funding will help the startup get through the initial two year delay in revenue that is inherent in its business model, with LayAway not taking any funds until the end of a payment plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we have budgeted for and is part of our model,\u201d Paykel says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may have prohibited others from entering the space but we have investors to help with those first couple of years. Once you get through the first two years there are significant upsides as you grow the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

After two decades of corporate life, Paykel says having responsibility across an entire business\u2019s operations and its six-person team is refreshing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have your own business you certainly know you\u2019re alive,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re very much accountable and responsible for every ticking moment in the business.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re in a large corporate there are a lot of people around you but when you\u2019re in a smaller environment you\u2019re very much intermittently involved in every aspect of the business, every minute of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, <\/em>LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fisher and Paykel COO Andrew Paykel has launched a new layby travel startup with nearly $1 million in funding after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,25,8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}