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Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

indiehackers.com

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Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#21

Post by SadWebDeveloper »

gruturo wrote: post #15
SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #10

Just wondering if the guys can automate the scraping part, seems unlikely this is usually information that needs to be handpicked or "moderated" by one or more humans.

Speculation: it's possible that the source sites are actively hostile to scraping and intentionally mess with the layout regularly, or may even have ruled out any kind of automation in their ToS - so if you don't want to get sued or blacklisted, you can do no kind of (detectable) scraping.

That's my main issue with this type of business... can't it be automated? probably a huge NO without legal implications therefore the "human" expenses are high and if we start to think "globally" like the Silicon Valley startups type guys always do, the next logical step is to make a mutual benefit business partnerships with the Airlines. This will end in a war like Airbnb vs Travel Agencies vs Hotel Chains vs Everyone else, were the best price in town will be to go directly to the source rather than to 3rd parties.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#22

Post by csallen »

Scott also came onto the Indie Hackers podcast this week to talk a little more about his business. For example, about why they don't do any paid advertising to acquire customers: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/020-scott-keyes-of-scot...

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#23

Post by teej »

gruturo wrote: post #15
SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #10

Just wondering if the guys can automate the scraping part, seems unlikely this is usually information that needs to be handpicked or "moderated" by one or more humans.

Speculation: it's possible that the source sites are actively hostile to scraping and intentionally mess with the layout regularly, or may even have ruled out any kind of automation in their ToS - so if you don't want to get sued or blacklisted, you can do no kind of (detectable) scraping.

I tried to build a flight search site a few years back and many sites have measures in place to actively mitigate scraping. It quickly became obvious that I was going to spend more effort getting data than working on the product, so I scrapped the idea.

Like you said, scraping is against ToS so as soon as you get caught, you're cut off until you shell out $$$$ to buy a feed. I suspect the reason they've succeeded here is that they've stuck with a human-based approach.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#24

Post by jdpedrie »

napworth wrote: post #20
jpster wrote: post #19

>We actually don't do a ton of A/B testing or worry much about open and click rates, and here's why: Our revenue model is subscription based. We don't take any commissions or have any ads in the premium emails. Our only incentive is to keep premium subscribers happy. I find this a surprising statement -- aren't the emails the primary channel for trying to convince a free user to upgrade to paid? Why not try A/B testi…

In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't test it at all.

[citation needed]

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#25

Post by eddigo »

napworth wrote: post #20
jpster wrote: post #19

>We actually don't do a ton of A/B testing or worry much about open and click rates, and here's why: Our revenue model is subscription based. We don't take any commissions or have any ads in the premium emails. Our only incentive is to keep premium subscribers happy. I find this a surprising statement -- aren't the emails the primary channel for trying to convince a free user to upgrade to paid? Why not try A/B testi…

In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't test it at all.

And I would bet in a large subset of those cases it's because the person implementing those tests and the person interpreting the results aren't the same. And that neither understands basic statistical hypothesis testing.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#26

Post by jpster »

napworth wrote: post #20
jpster wrote: post #19

>We actually don't do a ton of A/B testing or worry much about open and click rates, and here's why: Our revenue model is subscription based. We don't take any commissions or have any ads in the premium emails. Our only incentive is to keep premium subscribers happy. I find this a surprising statement -- aren't the emails the primary channel for trying to convince a free user to upgrade to paid? Why not try A/B testi…

In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't test it at all.

Depends on if the tester actually knows what they're doing. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/your-ab-tests-are-illusory/

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#28

Post by ssharp »

napworth wrote: post #20
jpster wrote: post #19

>We actually don't do a ton of A/B testing or worry much about open and click rates, and here's why: Our revenue model is subscription based. We don't take any commissions or have any ads in the premium emails. Our only incentive is to keep premium subscribers happy. I find this a surprising statement -- aren't the emails the primary channel for trying to convince a free user to upgrade to paid? Why not try A/B testi…

In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't test it at all.

Interested in further thought here.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#29

Post by ssharp »

jpster wrote: post #26
napworth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases, A/B testing will actually do negative damage than if you didn't test it at all.

Depends on if the tester actually knows what they're doing. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/your-ab-tests-are-illusory/

In most cases, flying a plane yourself will result in more negative damage than having a trained pilot fly you.
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