Who knew that one spontaneous day at the beach could spark a business idea that eventually came to fruition. That’s what happened to PlaneAhead founder Alex Malebranche a little over a year ago.

PlaneAhead is an airline ticket agency for people who enjoy the traveling experience, but want to save in the best way or maybe can’t afford to fit it into their budget. Malebranche normally tracks his airline tickets to see if he can save money. So, while making a change for his flight, he received over $600 back and used it to have a family beach day. He insisted that some of his family members try the same thing and in return, they were able to save $2,500.

“I decided, hey, this is pretty cool. There has to be a service for that. Turns out there isn’t, so that’s when I created it,” said Malebranche.

Malebranche’s inspiration for starting PlaneAhead stemmed from his frugal upbringing and traveling experience. His mom worked for United Airlines, so they were able to travel for free until she was laid off. He thought about everyone who loved traveling just as much as he did but just didn’t have enough to make it stretch for vacation.

Before entrepreneurship, Malebranche worked for tech companies like Amazon, working in operations, Amazon Web Services in cloud sales, and project management. While at Plume, he worked in project management and customer delivery. He even worked as an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army. Those companies allowed him to create things from scratch in a more controlled environment. Using those years of experience, he was able to “fine-tune, ”creating a great foundation for his own company.

“It’s less about the tech those companies had, but more about the mindset,” said Malebranche.

The journey since creating PlaneAhead has been a rollercoaster, but it has been great for Malebranche to work on something he’s passionate about. When asked about always wanting to seek entrepreneurship, he acknowledged that it was always a goal but a thing of uncertainty. But when the opportunity presented itself, he “embodied that entrepreneurial spirit.”

Unlike other plane ticket agencies, PlaneAhead uses real-time. The company considers that COVID-19 is still present and makes decisions based on the present. Other companies use predictive analytics, which is outdated, making predictions based months in advance.

“We’re using real-time data, we’re checking prices today,” said Malebranche.

This year, PlaneAhead is looking to grow its investment funds; the more funds, the more people can be accommodated. They are also now going on a waitlist for new customers for those interested. The waitlist has no capacity and will continue to grow over the next few months.

If you’re looking to hop on that waitlist or learn more about PlaneAhead, you can check them out at https://planeahead.co.