“Welcome to Snowbird sir,” you’re greeted as you and your family leave your condo in Snowbird, Utah to hit the slopes. You look to your right and see a huge line out the door of the local Ski Guide office as you chuckle to yourself, pull out your phone and open the Xalted app. Selecting Snowbird, you tap “Intermediate” and within 5 minutes you hear someone call your name. A woman with sunglasses and a huge smile on her face greets you and your family, shows you a shortcut for the lift line, and you’re off.
That’s the ski resort experience that Finn Wolff envisioned when he co-founded the app Xalted, an app that connects local tour guides with ski and snowboard enthusiasts that are in town looking to get a lesson or a tour around an unfamiliar mountain. With a few clicks on the Xalted app, you’re paired with a vetted, local guide that knows the mountain as well as the guides offered by the resorts at a fraction of the cost, saving you both valuable time and money.
For Finn Wolff, skiing has always been second nature. His parents bought him his first pair of skis and put him on the “bunny hill” at Alta Ski Resort when he had just turned three years old. Over the years, he’s conquered everything the mountains have to offer at Alta and Snowbird, and eventually transitioned to skiing the terrain park with friends at Brighton to offer himself a new challenge.
The idea for Xalted came to Finn after working at Snowbird Ski Resort as a ski instructor when he was in high school. Snowbird is a phenomenal, world class resort, however the prices and lines people wait in to get lessons and tour guides reflect the esteemed resorts’ reputation. With a background studying computer science at UC Berkeley, Finn realized that he could not only solve this issue with technology, but also provide an employment opportunity to skilled, local guides looking to get paid to do what they love.
With a vision in mind, Finn set out to build the first mobile app for Xalted with a close friend. The application is currently in Beta and is being tested among guides and locals currently in Utah and California. If successful in their ability to vet guides and connect them with traveling tourists to create a phenomenal experience, Finn and his team plan to continue expanding the app to more resorts across the nation.