Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Coane.
Jessica, PEX+ founder, quickly discovered the value of loyalty programs growing up in a single-parent household. They weren’t merely a gateway to occasional vacations, but helped enhance reality as well. Loyalty programs helped provide gas for the car, extra food for the fridge, and well-needed buying power. Jessica always desired to bring this knowledge back to the community to help others benefit from the value of loyalty programs, but wouldn’t figure out the best course of action until later in life.
Fast-forward to 2010 – Jessica was seeking to find the best ticket option from Philadelphia to Los Angeles during her final year of university studies. She had airline miles scattered in a few different frequent flyer programs, but not enough in the program from which she wanted to purchase the ticket: AirTran. After having a discussion with AirTran representatives over a call, Jessica failed to be able to transfer points from one of her other frequent flyer programs to her AirTran program account. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Jessica used her technical know-how and set out on a long journey to develop what was the original PEX+: a free market exchange platform for miles and points.
After numerous long days and nights working on the research and development alone, Jessica met her PEX+ technical co-founder, Paul Mekler. She focused on the business development and sales while Paul continued with building the trading platform. Progress was made; PEX+ had 4 contracts signed to bring on board and received PR with the Houston Business Journal. However, Paul resigned in early 2014 and despite wanting to continue with the business alone, there was too much to handle between continued development, sales, and customer service.
While working for an oil and gas company in March 2015, Jessica received an email from a prominent accelerator representative requesting PEX+ apply for their accelerator. The email led to a long phone conversation explaining the history and current state of PEX+. The representative was always fascinated with the travel space and wanted to see PEX+ succeed. He reignited the spark that got things going again.
After bouncing some ideas with her then boss over lunch, Jessica pivoted the business concept into something smaller and more manageable for a single founder that can be built upon: an award search engine technology. PEX+ development restarted from scratch on August 22, 2015. Jessica privately showcased the initial product stages during an airline loyalty conference in San Diego in November, suggested by a former Priceline Co- Founder and friendly acquaintance. The private beta launched in January 2016 with the public beta going live in February 2016. From this point forward, PEX+ flourished into the amazing startup technology currently seen today with more great things to come.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road in entrepreneurship is always full of twists and turns. As previously mentioned, we’ve pivoted and lost a co-founder, among micro-pivots and many other things. The key is to stay focused, stay passionate and determined, and keep thinking outside the box. You’re always either seeking a problem or a solution, not a dead end.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
PEX+ is a travel search and booking technology that helps you find flights and hotels using your miles and points. Travelers know us best as the search engine, pexportal.com, the free source for prices in miles and points from multiple airlines, hotels, etc. in one place. Industry knows us best by our search tech capabilities, API, and as the only source for certain key industry-related business intelligence via the PEX+ Loyalty Member Intelligence Platform.
Our main differentiator is that we focus on prices in points and award inventory availability.
The positive feedback we’ve received about our search engine and technology is what makes us proud; we’ve built a platform that solves a huge pain point for consumers and corporate, and helps the industry, such as airlines, tap into a market worth, in terms of annual revenue, literally ten times more than their existing market.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Houston has its pluses and minuses, one of the pluses being that it’s within Texas, known to be a great state to incorporate in – similar to Delaware. The entrepreneurial community is thriving, the cost of living is low, and Rice University, and their talented resources, are here. Additionally, Houston itself is an amazing locale in general – even as a born-and-raised New Yorker at heart, I too miss Houston every time I leave.
The continuing issue with Houston remains however: Outside of the health and energy (particularly oil & gas) industries, the local support, sponsorship, and expertise is limited. There are also some quirks in the ecosystem that are unique – some people like them and others don’t jive with them.
Long story short, it depends. We did, but first, we’re web-based and digital; second, we have another office in a different entrepreneurial community that has a very diverse entrepreneurial ecosystem with diverse support; lastly, I’m a firm believer that it shouldn’t matter where you are as long as you have a game plan.
Contact Info:
- Website: pexportal.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pexplus/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PEXPlus/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pexplus?lang=en
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pex-/
Image Credit:
PEX+, Jessica Coane, Yuriy Litvinov
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