Today we’re talking to Joe Lima, the co-founder of ShareTrips.com; a social booking travel site. Being a co-founder of a tech company in the travel industry, one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies. Joe is one of the founders in this massive travel vertical.

Without further adieu, here is a bit more about him…

1) What do you do?

Along with Lee Heyne, I am the co-founder of ShareTrips. ShareTrips.com is a social travel booking site that allows people who are traveling together to share in the experience of booking a hotel stay. Through our patent-pending collaboration technology, people in different locations can simultaneously view and interact with a shared webpage of hotel search results. Through our website, travel companions can research, select and book a hotel collaboratively. Travel companions can now collaborate online in real time as well as book online.

2) Why do you do what you do?

I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve experienced in my life. Having emigrated from Cuba at an early age and from a family of limited means, I never dreamed I would have the life I have today. I don’t take my opportunities for granted! I’ve been lucky enough to spend over 10 years in the very dynamic travel industry and I wanted to use my experience to solve some of the many problems I encountered in the industry. And problems are just opportunities in disguise. As the “travel guy” amongst my friends, I was always the one booking the travel. This meant coordinating with my travel companions via emails, phone calls and texts. A very tedious and time consuming process. Once I left Hotwire, I had the opportunity to tackle this problem and ShareTrips.com was born. Online collaboration, meet travel booking.

3) What are you most excited about right now?

We just recently launched ShareTrips so I am really excited that we reached that milestone. The current version of the site is our Minimum Viable Product or MVP so we have a lot of features and products waiting in the wings. I’m really excited about the functionality we currently have on our test server. Unfortunately, I can’t divulge what it is, but that functionality will take our site to the next level. To be one of the first to know, connect with ShareTrips on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn as we announce new features on social media.

4) What’s next for you?

Professionally, we have an extensive product road map as well as a marketing plan that we’ll be executing in the next few months. In addition, we’ll be announcing the names of our Advisors, a set of industry veterans with extensive experience in travel and technology. Personally, I like to travel so I will be using ShareTrips to book a trip to Buenos Aires and another trip to Fiji next year. It’s been a while since I’ve been to both places and a return trip to visit friends is in order.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I am passionate about education and I am the kind of guy that puts his money where his mouth is. I am the benefactor of the Joseph Lima Scholarship at UC, San Diego, a scholarship for students who come from families of limited means and are the first in their families to attend college. I believe that an education is the path to prosperity for both the individual and our society. The cost of an education is increasingly becoming out of reach for even the middle class and our politicians can’t seem to find the will to alleviate the problem so private citizens such as myself need to take action. By sponsoring a college scholarship, I am doing my small part to ensure that our citizens and our country continue to benefit from a well educated society. My hope is that others as fortunate will follow suit.

If you’re keen to connect with Joe further, you can find his current location on his OHW profile. A big thanks to Joe for sharing his motivations and current projects. If you’d like to connect on social media with Joe:

ShareTrips on Twitter and Facebook

Joe on Twitter / LinkedIn

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks. If you are an entrepreneur in the travel vertical, and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld).