Building a Smarter and More Sustainable Future of Travel with Gowme Travel
From Ukraine to Norway: A New Chapter for a Founder
Yevhen Bezghachev moved from Ukraine to Norway two years ago, bringing with him a master's degree with honors and over 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur and marketing specialist. After relocating, he faced the challenges of adapting to a new country while adjusting to life with a newborn and pursuing his entrepreneurial ambitions. Through overcoming diverse hurdles, he achieved his goal and founded Gowme.travel, an innovative platform that streamlines travel to reduce costs and carbon emissions for road-trippers.
From Freedom to Foundation: The Inspiration Behind Gowme Travel
For Yevhen, the entrepreneurial mindset is rooted in a desire for freedom and flexibility, a lifestyle that has taken him to over 40 countries. That same mindset became the key inspiration behind Gowme Travel and the journey of building something of his own.
The idea itself was born on the roads of Java, Indonesia. Traveling as a couple, Yevhen experienced firsthand how costly and complex self-planned travel can be. The turning point came when he discovered the power of shared travel, connecting with fellow travelers heading to the same destination to split rides and expenses. The impact was immediate: lower costs, a lighter carbon footprint, and a richer travel experience.
That insight became the foundation of Gowme Travel, driven by a vision to make personalized travel planning in Norway simpler, smarter, more affordable, and more sustainable. Its mission is to help travelers plan personalized trips with verified places, smart routing, and real-time cost estimates while connecting them with others to share rides, stays, and activities.
Building Gowme Travel: Technology With Purpose
The platform features over 250 locations based in Norway, with detailed information, including entry prices, parking details, and activity styles, personalized according to user preferences.
To build a sustainable and scalable business, Yevhen made strategic decisions:
Smart Travel Plans: The platform builds travel itineraries day by day using an anti-backtracking algorithm, minimizing driving distances, saving travelers time, and reducing carbon emissions with every trip.
Cost Efficiency: To ensure the business can scale without prohibitive costs, the team moved away from using the Google Maps API, opting instead for a proprietary map system. This allows them to handle larger traffic volumes without paying for individual user requests.
Trip Sharing: The service allows users to share full trips, share only transport, or join others for specific local activities. This effectively splits travel costs, addressing a gap in existing solutions in the region.
Navigating Challenges and the Power of Mentorship
Building a startup in a new country is never straightforward. For Yevhen, one of the earliest hurdles was pitching complex ideas while navigating a language barrier, a challenge that required both resilience and adaptability. On top of that, product development rarely followed a straight line; plans shifted, priorities changed, and the ability to pivot quickly became just as important as the original vision.
Operating in Norway's well-regulated business environment also requires careful attention to compliance and innovation frameworks, something Yevhen sees as an opportunity to build the platform on a solid, trustworthy foundation, supported by expert guidance and grant programs designed for early-stage ventures.
Being based in Halden, away from the capital, has made community and connection even more important to Yevhen. He credits the Changemaker Program as instrumental in turning his idea into reality and the mentorship of Erik Olsen as the most valuable resource of all. Having a trusted advisor helped him sharpen his thinking, refine his idea, and gain the critical lessons needed to move forward with confidence.
Advice for early-stage founders
Reflecting on his journey, Yevhen offers actionable advice for other startup founders:
Leverage AI for Research and Building: He advises founders to use AI tools to conduct deep competitive research, validate ideas, and accelerate product development by reducing the need for external developers in the early stages. Looking back, he regrets not using AI more actively from the beginning of his own entrepreneurial journey.
Start Immediately: He encourages early-stage founders to act quickly; while 100 people might have the same idea, success ultimately depends on who actually starts.
Building with a Long-Term Vision of Success
For Yevhen, success is not defined by immediate financial milestones, but by long-term growth and customer value. He sees it as a step-by-step journey marked by meaningful achievements, such as gaining the first paid customers and successfully implementing solutions that help users reduce their travel costs and improve their experiences in Norway. As he explains, “Success for us is when travelers return from Norway satisfied with their trip and recommend us to others.”
At the heart of Gowme Travel is a simple but powerful belief: customer satisfaction is the truest measure of progress. Beyond smarter trip planning and cost-sharing, Yevhen sees the platform's trip-sharing features as a bridge between people, fostering real connections between travelers from all walks of life and all corners of the world.
With a current focus on the Norwegian market and a “quality over quantity” approach, the goal is to build a strong, trusted foundation before taking Gowme Travel global, with the long-term ambition of becoming an internationally recognized travel platform within the next decade.
To bring that vision to life, Gowme Travel is now opening conversations with early-stage investors and strategic partners who share the belief that travel can be smarter, more connected, and more sustainable. Whether through investment, mentorship, or partnership within Norway's tourism ecosystem, Yevhen welcomes anyone who wants to be part of building this next chapter.
