When Jacinta Lim talks about her startup, Seek Sophie, you can feel both the grit and the idealism running through her words.
Speaking at Travel Tech Thursdays in Kuala Lumpur late last month, the co-founder admits that creating the company has been the hardest thing she’s ever done, harder than gruelling days as an M&A lawyer in London, harder than dodging armed gunmen while tackling financial fraud in developing markets.
And yet, she says with a smile, “You should do it. It’s amazing.”
From law and microfinance to travel with purpose
Jacinta’s path to travel tech wasn’t obvious. She started out as a corporate lawyer, handling billion-dollar transactions. But nagging questions haunted her: When will I do something that makes a positive impact? That search led her to micro-insurance for the working poor, and eventually, to travel.
“What I saw in my own journeys is that tourism is one of the few industries where anyone, no matter how poor, can start from nothing and build a livelihood,” she says. A porter becomes a guide, then a guesthouse owner, then a mentor to others.
Travel, she realised, could be a true force for good. Seek Sophie, launched in 2018, was built on that belief – a curated marketplace of “hidden gem” experiences that support local communities, conservation, and sustainability.
Scrappy beginnings
The early days were as lean as they come. Jacinta taught herself to code and built the platform from scratch, while co-founder Lina Gedvilaite knocked on doors across South-east Asia to recruit partners.
They worked out of Jacinta’s living room, sneaked nine interns into WeWork under the radar, and pinched pennies so tightly that even a $5 Gmail account was debated. “We wanted to see if the idea had legs, so we bootstrapped everything,” she recalls.
A Covid baby
Ironically, it was the pandemic – a near-death moment for many – that gave Seek Sophie its breakout. “Every time a country shut down, we had to rebuild a business model from scratch,” says Jacinta. When the dominoes fell – Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia – Singapore was the last market standing, and Seek Sophie doubled down.
The team unearthed 300 experiences in Singapore, adjusted constantly to shifting rules, and, in the process, built a loyal following. Consumers began to see Seek Sophie not just as another booking site but as the scrappy platform that never gave up.
“It built muscle for us,” she reflects, though she admits to lingering PTSD from those rollercoaster years.
Flipping the Story
For years, Jacinta downplayed Seek Sophie’s mission, fearing travellers didn’t care about sustainability. COVID gave her the courage to flip the script: to lead with the why.
“We realised people who care about our mission will find us, and maybe we’ll even make others more conscious of a different way of travelling.”
The pivot resonated, forming a tribe around values as much as experiences.
Competing in a giant market
With tours and activities projected at US$260 billion by 2030 and still 80% offline, Jacinta sees plenty of space for indie players. “Think Arabica versus Starbucks, or Patagonia versus Shein. For some reason travel has always skewed mass, but there’s room for many kinds of players.”
She isn’t chasing growth at all costs. Bootstrapped and profitable, Seek Sophie is open to strategic partners but not desperate for cash. “It’s never about the money; it’s about values,” she says.
Looking ahead: Scaling the small
What excites Jacinta now is scaling what she calls “soulful travel.” She envisions Seek Sophie not just as an online platform but as a community that spills offline. Think curated group trips, co-branded experiences with creators, even Seek Sophie “chapters” in cities worldwide.
AI, too, is on her radar, not for flashy chatbots but for translation tools that could unlock authentic encounters. “Some of our best guides only speak Thai or Vietnamese. If AI can bridge that language barrier, it can open up their encyclopedic knowledge to the world,” she says.
For Jacinta, the climb continues. And though she jokes about her Kinabalu trek hashtag “f** this s***”* She knows the struggle is the point. “It’s about the climb,” she says.
And what keeps her and her team climbing are stories such as Balinese conservationist Wayan Wardika who’s behind a firefly breeding programme called the Bring Back The Light initiative, an experience that’s featured on Seek Sophie.
