Olivia Wisden wants to change the way people explore cities. As a student studying abroad in London and Dublin, she enjoyed veering off the beaten path — away from the tourist-filled sites and Instagram clichés — to discover a city’s hidden gems and to experience life as a local. Now, Wisden’s on a mission to capture that same “magical feeling” for travelers back here in the States.
The UW-Madison grad is the founder of UnderBelly, an early-stage startup based in the home of her alma mater. The company is in the process of developing an app to showcase locally-owned businesses and organizations that don’t always soar to the top of Yelp and Google reviews.
“[UnderBelly] is a way for travelers to get to know the city, and discover the spaces to connect,” explains Wisden. “If you’re in a city for a week, how do we make that happen quicker? You don’t get that ‘magical feeling’ walking down State Street. You get it after you’ve found that hole-in-the-wall bar.”
Those are the kinds of places that make a community feel special, she adds.
Wisden noticed many review apps featured the same popular restaurants and venues for everybody searching within the same vicinity. While some of these apps offered “personal recommendations,” powered by AI, they still featured mainstream establishments at the top of the list. And while inspirational travel listicles appeared to be a promising route to uncovering a city’s lesser-known haunts, they weren’t exactly convenient, Wisden says.
“That’s cool if I’m planning [a trip],” she explains. “But I’m not going to read [an article] when I’m already there.” Wisden saw a window of opportunity.
She began reaching out to mentors and peers to understand the root of the problem, and began conducting market research to steer her selling points. She says UnderBelly’s differentiator lies in its personalization — similar to Netflix.
Wisden says while travelers may enjoy getting out of their comfort zone every now and then, research shows people who favor a small plates lounge, for example, often look for similar establishments when they go out of town.
UnderBelly is currently partnering with Madison-area business owners, and plans to use a mix of GPS, reviews, and content such as business profiles, to provide personalized recommendations. The app will also include an interactive events calendar. But the long-term goal is to “quantify aesthetic,” essentially collecting and leveraging characteristic data to align with a user’s individual preferences. The data might include neighborhood layouts, ambient lighting, overhead music, or crowd size — anything that “transforms a feeling, energy or vibe” of an establishment.
“It’s amazing that all of these taste-oriented companies are still not” utilizing personalization, Wisden says. “UnderBelly is like a more curated Yelp. It’s a way for travelers to get to know the city. We only work with locally-owned businesses, and we give those business owners the opportunity to speak directly to their clients.”
UnderBelly speaks to a growing demand for experiential travel experiences. With all the “connecting” taking place through social media and other communications technologies, people are increasingly swapping out typical tourist expeditions for unique opportunities to “live like a local.” In response, the tourism industry has begun catering to travelers who crave these authentic, more personal and immersive experiences. Wisden hopes to capitalize off of the trend.
She has lived it firsthand, too. UnderBelly isn’t Wisden’s first foray into entrepreneurship. Back in 2016, while still a student and living abroad, she launched Babette Travel, a company that connected students to international internships. When the venture fizzled after two years, she went back to the drawing board. She says she soon realized it wasn’t the internships that drove her passion — it was the cultural exchanges.
“The whole reason for the internships [business] was I loved helping people get immersed in a city,” says Wisden. “It was to help them see the local spots, and to dive into that culture.”
Armed with the lessons learned from her first venture, Wisden set out to build something bigger with UnderBelly. It hasn’t been a walk in the park. Between developing the app, meetings, networking, working a full-time job and completing an internship — not to mention the stresses that come with being self-funded — Wisden says there are days when she questions her stamina.
It’s a giant undertaking to be sure, but Wisden remains determined. She credits her family for her wherewithal. Some years ago, her own father faced uncertainty when he began serving dinners out of his small butcher shop. In spite of lingering doubts, his catering line would go on to be one of his most successful areas of his business.
“He taught me that if you’re confident and you take on the hard work, it’s possible,” Wisden says. “After doing the first startup business, and having those successes and the validation, and knowing that I was helping people, all of that was a nice groundsetting. I have to at least try.”
“If we don’t do it, someone else will,” she adds.
Today, Wisden is hoping to join an accelerator program to receive more guidance, and is looking to work with a wider scope of organizations, such as taxi services, hotels and local municipalities, that rely on successful tourism to fuel their businesses. She hopes to monetize the brand with business and advertising partnerships.
The UnderBelly app will launch in Madison this summer, but Wisden says her ultimate goal is launching in major cities nationwide. A national footprint would make her data collection efforts more valuable, and help increase UnderBelly’s profile in a growing industry.
“People want more personalization and local experiences,” Wisden says. “We want to be the go-to space for spectacular experiences.”
